Featured on Offbeat Bride

Remember when we were featured on Offbeat Mama for our little Bonnaroo baby Arthur?

Our recommitment ceremony got a mention on Offbeat Bride this week. Hurray!

Our Reaffirmation Ceremony Part 2

This was such a fun and amazing night, and we were so glad to have such lovely people present.

Arthur under the carport wishing to high heaven he could just get some cake already.

Lauren and Isaiah. Lauren is a librarian and a terrific one at that. They are a super cute couple.

 

Lauren, Isaiah and Charley with excellent seats for the ceremony.

Maynard had a pretty good seat.

Lucy with her Papi.

 

The rope is full of knots tied by our guests, each imbued with love, meditation, prayers and happy thoughts of all of our guests.

Justin cakephotobombing my pic with Kisha. I loved that he kept his rope on all night.

 

Alex was awfully sweet snuggling the baby.

White knots for marital equality...we believe that anyone who loves each other should be able to marry, regardless of gender.

Greta rocking her knot.

As night fell, woodland creatures and fairies began to appear.

Arthur's bff Jace

Left to right: me, Tina, Kisha, Greta, Taeh. These are four of the best women anywhere!

I adore this pic of Kisha and J.

I can't believe it's been 14 years.

Thank you for letting us share our special day with you!

Our Reaffirmation Ceremony & 10 Year Wedding Anniversary Party Part 1: Decorations

I am so excited to finally post these pics. We had such an amazing party thanks to all our wonderful family and friends. We want to give our special thanks to those who made it possible: Tina Johnson, Kisha Beckwith-Farrell, Autumn and Hailey Gough, and Taeh Ward, who helped with decorations and planning; Bryan Fix, who provided the cakes; Erick Ballard, Taeh Ward and Lauren Ajamie, who provided photos, and my dad and Taeh for the video of the ceremony; the Diggs family, who helped with the kids while we scrambled to put everything together; Kisha, for her role as our officiant and in planning the ceremony; and Craig Chase and Tina, for participating in the ceremony as our support.

We wanted our party to be bright, whimsical, and cheery, inspired by our favorite band, The Flaming Lips: every Lips show is a glittery journey into happy color, sound and soul-piercing joy. 

Originally, we'd planned the party at a downtown venue. Later, we decided to change our plans and have a three-day bash like the one we had when we were married. But during the last half of my pregnancy, I ended up taking on a double workload when we my lab co-coordinator left the college on extended leave and then later retired, so my planning time was badly crunched. Ultimately, with all the challenges we faced and the unexpected, heartbreaking loss of a family member, we decided to tone it down and at the last minute, moved the party to our backyard. In the 12 years we've owned this house, we've never done anything with our backyard, and we were concerned that we wouldn't be able to pull off a small, sweet ceremony and reception back there with such short notice (and with a one-month-old infant!), but we managed it, and it was perfectly wonderful.

Justin and I created these tissue paper flowers together using a tutorial from Intimate Weddings and all of the bright colored tissue paper from Lucy's rainbow baby shower.

The papel picado is from our annual family vacay to fake Mexico at EPCOT in Walt Disney World, but can be picked up online easily. You can also make it with this tutorial from Journey into Unschooling. We strung it across our clothesline...er...thingys. What do you call those? Anyway, it was pretty.

I tied ribbon on the fence between the paper flowers and we lined up benches and lawn furniture (including little kid chairs). We draped pretty linens (including this Liberty of London print in the foreground) over the benches and placed the chiminea and fire pit in the circle. 

Even before we had kids, we always felt it important that kids have just as good a time as adults as our guests. The horse was a huge hit; other touches included a small art table and a dress-up basket (for kids and adults). The small table in the background includes a basket full of Burt's Bees Herbal Insect Repellent and sunblock to keep our guests safe and comfy.

Around the corner out of sight, providing an outdoor baby changing station, is the awesome bright red Rock Star Baby pack and play given to us by Erick

The beauty of our backyard party is that we had a terrific, breezy shelter from the sun in our carport. Justin was a little skeptical about putting a buffet table under our carport, but it turned out to be the perfect spot. 

We hung brightly colored lanterns from the ceiling with all kinds of ribbon and lace and used vintage linens and lace over pink tablecloths provided by Justin's mom, Betsey. I nailed iridescent lavender and lilac fabric to the open wall and cute floral prints to the side of the house.

I made these pretty hearts using scrap paper with ribbon, rick rack and even bias tape. Some are stamped with "amor" and "love." They got a little tangled in the wind, but thank goodness in Oklahoma for wind in May!

The table was covered with loads of things that make us happy, including photos of me and Justin, pretty vintage candle holders and vases, blue glass stones, lavender hearts, and 1976 quarters Justin has given me as love tokens through the years. That's my garter from the wedding draped across our wedding photo.

We used all kinds of random vintage dishes and baskets for holding food and tableware.

Note the bottle of Franzia chillable red. When we were 21 and the Jamestown Proto-Owens rather than the Yorktown Owens, we drank the heck out of that stuff.

All in all, it was a lovely, whimsical, kitschalicious backyard re-hitching. 

Pics of the ceremony and party coming soon!

Peace.

The Owens

More funky awesome baby shoes avec le bling

These shoes were never going to be white again, so instead of throwing them away, I made them pink and added some sparkle.

The pic doesn't do them justice...they are covered with the cutest iridescent sparkles.

These Hello Kitty crocs were looking pretty rough. Again, the pic doesn't do them justice, but I added a little marbleized paint and glitter, and now they are ready for Lucy's first Flaming Lips show, in the TBD future, Just add some super soft furry bunny ears and she's ready for the ball!

More Glitterfied shoes

I just can't stop myself. 

I love these old flats, but I've had them since I taught kindergarten. Since I've been at TCC for about 6 years, that's while ago. In shoe years, that's like geriatric. I could never bring myself to throw them out because they are awesome. Flats are like the flag corps of shoes, heels being the cheerleaders, stilettos being the slutty hot chicks we are all secretly jealous of and want to be. I love heels, but I am a bare feet kind of girl, and after all, I am a book geek who works in a library. But these shoes had a little something special going on; I can't explain it, but they transcended the typical flatness of flats.

But I couldn't even remember the last time I'd worn them.

Then as I was evening Croc-ing Lucy's holey plastic marvels of modern fashion science, it occurred to me.

Before long, well, bling-a-ding-ding.

Look how pretty! Soon, they will sparkle their way past the reference section and into the hearts of my writing center students. Or not. Anyway, I love them.

Forgive my still-swollen postpartum feet. I gain no weight but my feet carry a Big Gulp of water each after my babies for about two months.

Oh, but hello, pretty red pettiskirt. You make it all better. 

Evening crocs

Crocs are gross. Sorry, crocs fans. They are. They are the plastic birkenstoks of the 2000s.

The birkenstoks of the 2011s are Toms, also gross.

Basically, it's a lazy shoe that people feel okay wearing because everyone else wears them, even though we all know it's just plain wrong, like when a roomful of people sort of gradually fall into an episode of sloppy binge drinking. Everyone knows they shouldn't be doing it, but one or two people said to hell with it, it's the weekend, then the next couple of people said, well, hey, why, not, and so on and so forth.

We'll all regret it when we look back on the photos. It's an excuse to wear slippers outside of the house.

That said, I own a pair of crocs. Gross as they are, they are some of the best possible shoes to have in Bonnaroo mud.

Anyway, Lucy has a pair of navy Crocs by donation. And I thought if anyone can rock the Croc, it's miss Lu.

So, ladies and gentlemen, I give you....

drum roll please...


...evening Crocs! Perfect for that evening on the town that might just end in champagne and gardening!