Category: Practicalities

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Announcements Practicalities Venue

The joys of Islington

So I am happy to announce that we have decided to try to do as much as possible for our wedding in the borough of Islington, where we live. You already saw in a previous post how enthralled Chris and I both were with the main council chamber at Islington Town Hall. And I was personally taken by how friendly and welcoming the staff at the reception at Town Hall were when we told them we were interesting in having our civil partnership ceremony there. (Islington has a strong history of supporting GLBT rights, including sacking a registrar who refused to perform civil unions after those rights were granted by British law in 2005).

My personal history with Islington goes way back, to the days before I moved to London, when it was still an idea rather than a reality. I still remember sitting down with my company’s CEO with a map of London. He had lived in London for 12 years and still had many connections to the city. So he marked a few places on the map that he thought I should check out as nice places to live. He remarked that Knightsbridge and Belgravia would be far out of my price range, but suggested that I check out Chelsea and South Kensington, Putney and Fulham, Notting Hill and Holland Park. I didn’t realize at the time that these were all prime places to live around central London, and that the salary he was sending me to London on would barely afford me a studio in these areas!! (I should have taken the opportunity to ask for a raise). But ranked #4 on his list was Islington in North London, which I checked out while on a pre-move visit.

 

I still remember walking over to the Angel along Pentonville Road. I had set off after work one day from the office at Russell Square, passing by Euston Station and Kings Cross-St Pancras Station. And I found myself feeling strangely at home.

Now fast forward a few months: I was in my temporary flat in Bloomsbury after having made the move, and I had been scanning online adverts for affordable one-bedroom flats for hours. I had previously had a bad experience with a housemate in the months before I left Boston, so I was adamant that I would live alone no matter the cost.  I started my search rather pragmatically by drawing a 30 minute walking radius around the office and seeing what I could afford. Naturally most of the area around the office (Covent Garden, Soho, Mayfair) were far out of reach on my salary without doing a house share. But there on my computer screen, I was looking at the perfect flat off Kings Square, on the southern tip of Islington, in an EC1 postcode, just a few minutes walk from the Angel, and within a 25 minute walk from the office. It was the first flat that I saw, and I knew that this was going to be home–and it was where I stayed there for over two years.

So naturally when I realized I was going to stay in London for a while, and it came time to hunt for someplace to buy, I looked primarily in Islington. This time I ended up in the north-east side of the borough, near the Hackney and Haringey border. And this is where Chris and I now call home.

What do I like about Islington? Our area of Islington, called Highbury, is relatively quiet, yet with good transport links by both tube and bus to central London. One side borders on being lily white with tons of hair salons, and even a fromagerie, yet on the other side we have a wealth of ethnic markets and a multicultural blur of activity, a little bit of craziness, and some edginess, and we are a stone’s throw from Emirates Stadium, home of Arsenal Football Club. We’re also surrounded by three parks within short walking distance (perfect if we ever decide to get a dog), the lovely village atmosphere of Stoke Newington Church street (where Daniel Defoe used to live) is just a stone’s throw away, and the bars, restaurants, and hustle and bustle of Upper Street are just a short bus ride away.

And best of all, two of these “top 10 British pubs” are within stumbling distance! So Islington is where Chris and I have set up shop, and Islington is where we will be inviting everyone to our nuptials (once we have decided on a date and venue–but that’s another story).

 

Categories
Cake Practicalities Venue

Say “cheese”!

Say "cheese"!
Say "cheese"!

So just for the record, Chris doesn’t want confetti, and I don’t want a “cheese”-cake (unless it can be made en croute and doesn’t look crappy like this one that we found on a wedding photographer’s blog. Honestly, who wants something mouldy on display for everyone to see? Or a mound of stinky cheese in the corner of the room, with aromas emanating for all the guests to enjoy along with their meal?

In my opinion, a real cheesecake would be far tastier than the traditional English wedding cake (which is essentially a fruitcake encrusted in some frosting sugar). My American friends would find the idea of a fruitcake as a wedding cake rather odd, since you typically see them only at Christmastime, and because no one really likes eating them, they tend to be regifted. Frequently. And since part of my work is to research the drug markets for obesity and diabetes, I feel that we should be presenting healthier options if we are allowed to make any choices. Fruit cake anyone? Fruit Cake

But I digress. We digress. In fact, we have been musing about what we would like or not like for our big day most of our waking hours when we have been together lately.  But we are definitely putting the cart before the horse, since the most important aspects of the big day–date and venue–have yet to be decided. I have to say though, that Islington Town Hall does tick a LOT of our boxes.

 

Categories
Legalities Practicalities

Immigration status–for better or for worse?

Forbes map, as of August 2011
Forbes map, as of August 2011

Many of you know that after 5 years in the U.K., I am in the midst of applying for my permanent residency (aka Indefinite Leave to Remain). This is the equivalent of a U.S. green card, which will allow me to enter the U.K. at will, and to live and work here as well. As of right now, I’m still without my passport, which was delivered to the solicitors’ office last week but I hope everything will get settled sometime next week.

It turns out that it is a good thing that I am getting permanent residency, as the UK does require proof that I am able to stay in the U.K. as a condition of granting a civil partnership license. I would have otherwise have had to file special paperwork that would, after the civil union was completed, allow me to apply for a spousal visa to stay in the U.K. Anyways, either way, I am sorted, here in the U.K. at least, since civil partnerships carry all the weight, rights, and privileges as marriage in this country (in all but name, but that’s a story for another day).

However, things are quite different with the U.S. government and I did some investigating recently to see how Chris’s status may change once we get civilly partnered. Interestingly, if I was not a U.S. national, the U.S. federal government does have a pathway that allows the live-in partner of a temporary foreign worker who is seconded to the U.S. to live and work in the U.S. as well. Obviously, for political reasons, this is not publicized. But it does allow for a non-U.S. couple married or civilly partnered (or just co-habitating, even) to be together in the U.S., as long as both partners are not U.S. nationals.

Things get complicated when one of us is American, as will be the case with Chris and me. Immigration Equality (http://www.immigrationequality.org/), a U.S. legal organization that works to support immigration equality for LGBT and HIV-positive people, suggests that there are some detriments to reporting for Chris to declare his status as “married” or civilly partnered to a U.S. national when visiting the U.S. A tourist visa is just a tourist visa, but if the immigration authorities catch wind that a foreigner is coming to the U.S. to visit a spouse, the visitor can be tagged as having “immigration intent”, which means that the visitor can be denied entry while travelling under a tourist visa, because the assumption is that Chris would be trying to get into the U.S. to become an illegal immigrant. So the current recommendation is to be vague if interrogated about the reason for a visit, but to not lie if asked a direct question. Sounds to me like the U.S. government wants gay couples to “play nice” by staying closeted about their relationship status. Married heterosexual couples, however, face no such restrictions or extra levels of scrutiny when entering the U.S., and there is a pathway that exists for the U.S. half of the couple to sponsor a green card for his or her foreign half, which will allow for permanent residency (and eventually a path to citizenship).

So what about getting married in a state that allows gay marriage, such as New York or Massachusetts? Still no dice. While the individual state governments do not report to the Federal authorities about same-sex marriages (i.e., they won’t snitch on you), the borders of the United States are controlled by the federal government; the individual states have no jurisdiction over the immigration and border control queues at the airport. And so, while getting married in Massachusetts would allow you to file a joint tax return and give a few benefits (such as for inheritance and hospital visitation), it doesn’t allow a bi-national same-sex couple the rights to live together in the U.S. In the eyes of the federal government, Chris and I would be no more than strangers to one another.

And it is for this reason that everyone should be against the odious Defense of Marriage Act (a legacy of the Clinton administration) and Proposition 8–the only purpose of these measures was to prevent same-sex couples from sharing the same basic rights that married heterosexual couples take for granted.

So for the time being, I am glad to be living in the much more sensible environment of the U.K. (and Europe in general, where most countries have same-sex marriages or civil partnerships) and I will happy accept my permanent residency once the solicitors and the Home Office are done with their paperwork. And here’s to hoping for a brighter future for the U.S., where sad scenes like this one will be a thing of the past: Woman in same-sex couple faces deportation despite being married in Vermont. Otherwise, if I take everything at face value, it almost sounds like Chris and I would be better off if I didn’t have any ties to the U.S…

Categories
Practicalities

An Inspirational Walk Around Islington

Islington Central Library
London Weddings
Please consult your mortgage adviser before considering the above

London is awesome – I am a massive fan. However, there are certain disadvantages of living here: one of which is that it has an unusually high concentration of very rich people. This becomes a problem when it comes to looking for nice places to have a wedding.

You see, any particularly lovely venues in London where it’s possible to hold a wedding reception know that they can get away with charging an arm and a leg as there are plenty of people in London who would be willing to pay it.

So if we were planning a small wedding of, say, 30 people we might look at a cost of £80-£90 a guest and think we can maybe make that work. It would end up being around £2,500. That’s OK. But when you’re initial idea of guest numbers is around 4 times that, the costs start getting pretty eye-watering!

What are the options then? Well, Plan A was to find a cool and interesting venue that doesn’t cost a fortune and dress it up for wedding fabulousness. We thought we had maybe struck gold with Islington Central Library which has a lovely hall we could have gotten for about a grand:

Islington Central Library

Nice right?

Yesterday morning we set off in high spirits to check out the hall and see if we could make it work. However, as soon as we set foot in it, we got rather deflated. It’s actually a bit tatty around the edges, plus our guests would have to enter through a nasty 70s library entrance in order to get to the hall. I’m all for saving money, but this is supposed to be a wedding and not an after-school club.

So Plan A was out the window.

Undaunted we decided to go for a wander into Angel and see if we could find any inspiration. First stop was the Town Hall. We knew there was a strong likelihood we’d end up probably doing the actual Civil Partnership here, so we thought we’d see if there was a chance to look round their uninspiring range of small and functional rooms. What we weren’t prepared for was this:

Council Chamber

Wow!

It’s an incredible room that can accommodate all our guests and even has a balcony in case…. well….

Fanfare

(Just a thought!)

What it also means is that we could do a really nice service there and get all those sort of ceremony bits done before getting as quickly as possible to the part where everyone eats (the best part of any wedding). Rather than needing a wedding venue that could accommodate a ceremony as well as food – we could actually just take over a restaurant or pub for the day and use that as our reception space. And there are loads more options for that than there are for larger hall-type venues.

So now the search is on for an interesting pub or restaurant that can seat about 120 comfortably and not cost all the money in the world.

Being forced to try out pubs and restaurants around London?

Now THAT’s my kind of wedding planning!

Categories
Practicalities

Everyone loves a bargain

Everyone loves a bargain. I certainly do. I’ve lost count of the number of things I have purchased off of Groupon and other related sites. And whenever I am in a shop, I always head straight for the clearance section first. So it’s no surprise to anyone who knows me that one of my mottos is to “never pay full price for anything”. However, now I am left scratching my head as I try to figure out if this axiom can also be applied to weddings.

Weddings are expensive. A friend told me that his ceremony and reception in Canada cost nearly $25K. And an article I read recently said that the average UK wedding costs in the neighborhood of £20K. That’s a lot of money. It’s the price of a nice car, or a good chunk of a downpayment for a house. Kim Kardashian’s short-lived wedding cost a reported $10 million, but supposedly they got a lot of things “donated” to them in return for the publicity and they may have even ended up net positive after selling exclusive photography rights to the media. But not being Kardashians, Chris and I aren’t going to be that lucky.

So this opens up yet another part of the planning that is unpleasant, but which needs to be done: the budget. The budget is of course tied directly to the other practicalities: size, location, time of year of the ceremony, etc. And neither Chris nor I are prepared to go into debt for what, at the end of the day, amounts to being just a big party.

However, weddings are big money-making opportunities and this fact is not lost on anyone who works directly or indirectly with the industry. Even the local council has a large menu of fees and charges in addition to the fee for the marriage license. If you want to walk down the aisle at the local registry office, Islington will charge you an extra £50. If you want the registrars to come to your venue of choice, that’ll be another £500 please. Sigh.

So I was excited to come across this web page that detailed some cost-saving tips for weddings and civil partnerships: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/cheaper-weddings Quite a few of the suggestions were spot on, and affirmed our mutual value systems (and echoed the few cautionary tales from the parents that didn’t fall on deaf ears). If you have to go into debt, it’s probably not worth it. To avoid a trebling of costs, try not to mention the “W” word until after you have received a price from the vendor. See if you have friends who are keen photographers or flower arrangers.

However, a few of the suggestions were really quite ghetto, and offended even my bargain-hunting sensibilities: Book a free makeup session at Boots for the morning of your ceremony. Buy a spongecake from the supermarket and decorate it yourself. Buy fake flowers to use as boutonnieres. I think we can do better than to resort to these options.

So the challenge that we are facing is to do something classy and nice that suits our individual style, but which doesn’t break the bank. We are open to any and all suggestions (and help from any friends who are photographers, bakers, musicians, florists, registrars, stationers, venue landlords, vintners).  🙂

 

 

Categories
Names Practicalities

To hyphenate or not to hyphenate? That is the question.

 

I’ll post my thoughts about family issues as they happen, but I don’t want to make this into a blog of woe. I’ve already done that in the past when I documented the end stages of my 14-year relationship with my ex (with whom I am still friends, in case you were wondering). But in this blog I want to be able to share all the interesting things that happen and fun thoughts that go through my head as Chris and I embark on this journey.

So one thought that I had recently, is whether or not we should hyphenate our surnames.

It has become a running joke with some of our friends regarding how awful some double-barrelled names can sound. It’s quite a common thing for posh people in the UK to hyphenate their surnames and the practice came about as a means to preserve the family name when their daughters were married off. But because it is something posh people do, it ends up looking and sounding like people are trying too hard to sound posh when they hyphenate their names, which in turn makes it into something slightly cheap and tawdry, or as they would say out here, “naff”.

That’s not to say that all double-barrelled last names are bad. I personally think they only sound good when you have some level of alliteration. In fact, we are are friends with such notable couples as the Hagger-Holts and Plummer-Powells. But you see, their names work because of the alliteration.

So I was greatly amused when our friends Alex and Dave gave us a card addressed to the “Wong-Dickens”. I tried that name out in my mind, like you would try out a wedding dress or a ring the first time you get it home from a shop. It didn’t exactly roll off the tip of my tongue.

wong-dickens

To be fair, it wasn’t bad, despite the lack of alliteration. And it was certainly more genteel than the reverse configuration (“Dicken-Wong”), which just sounds like a punchline to a rude joke. However, it also wasn’t quite “me”, if that makes any sense.

Although I am fully aware that a marriage is like a corporate merger of sorts, I am leery of losing my individual identity. Whereas I am fullly committed to becoming one half of a new unit, I think it is equally important to maintain my own identity as an individual, in part to make sure that I do not forget my past or my roots.

However, the jury is still out; I am leaning one way but can possibly be swayed in another. Maybe some of you can share your thoughts on the pros and cons of double-barrelling?

Categories
Practicalities

Initial Plan of Attack

The plan of attack at the moment is:

  1. Figure out how many people we want to invite
  2. Find a venue (or venues) we like that will work for that number
  3. Find a date when the venue is available
  4. Plan some sort of wedding, I guess

We are lucky in that we have no time pressures so we can wait for all the Olympics hoopla to be out of the way before we can do the deed. Currently, the vague idea is autumn 2012 at the earliest.