For the first month or so after we got married, Brian and I had a habit of elbowing each other and saying, “Hey, you know what?… We’re married.” The novelty of that hasn’t quite worn off, but now we’ve moved on to a new catchphrase: “Hey, you know what? We live here.”

We are officially residents of Kailua, Hawaii. We signed the lease on our place last week and have been just tickled pink with it (one of us is pinker than the other).

Sometimes we just need to lie on the living room floor and love our new apartment

After more than a year of separations, cross-country/cross-continent moves and stints of living out of a suitcase, we are finally going to have a real home. Together. I won’t even know what to do with all that time I used to spend pining. Some ideas:

1. Painting our awesome apartment
2. Refurbishing furniture and being generally crafty with decorating
3. Using every single kitchen gadget, utensil and dish we got for our wedding
4. Planting vegetables and herbs in boxes on the lanai and trying not to kill them (this is where Brian comes in)
5. Grilling every kind of fish and crustacean we can get our hands on (our first culinary experiment with shark went swimmingly… tee hee)
6. Becoming masters of urban composting
7. Finally printing, framing and hanging photos of our friends and family from the last five years
8. Turning our second bedroom into a sweet-tastic office, silkscreening studio and guest room

Oh, you want to see photos of where you’ll be staying when you come visit? If you insist.

Front door: Soon our New Orleans flag will be proudly waving there 

Kitchen: Flat-top range and a dishwasher? Could life get any better?

Living room/dining room: Where our dining table, sectional sofa and future flat-screen TV (the first TV I will have ever bought myself after years of using hand-me-downs) will reside

Living room looking out onto the lanai: We’ll be leaving that door open a lot to let in the ocean breeze

Lanai: Brian contemplates where the grill and the hammock will go

Master bedroom: Large closet and a door out onto the lanai

Master bathroom: It’s not huge, but it has two sinks, so I am stoked

Since we found the place so early in our week-long stay, we decided to get a jump-start on painting before our furniture arrives. We discovered there is a Hardware Hawaii just down the street from us (a fact that made Brian downright giddy), so we picked out some colors, bought supplies and got to work. Gray-blue for the master bedroom, warm cream for most of the living room and kitchen and dark red for two small accent walls in the living room. We’re still accepting suggestions for the bathrooms, the hallway and the office.

I am an artiste 

I graciously allow Brian to do the meticulous ceiling work

It looks as though a terrible crime were committed in our living room

Awesome! Our landlady was a little skeptical of the red, but she relented, saying red is a “good Chinese color”… and then later asking us if we will paint over it before we move

The finished product in the living room (and our new sofa in boxes)

This is what the sofa will look like when it’s put together…oooh (minus the pillows)

Look at that beautiful masking…

Victory! Our first meal in our new place, courtesy of Chef Papa John

“So how’s married life?”

This is a question Brian and I seem to be getting a lot, and I’m not sure how to answer it yet. I’m pretty sure, “Oh, you know, we lived with a college buddy of ours in New Orleans for the first month of being married and then drove our stuff 2,000 miles to spend a month in San Diego before going to Virginia for two months and then moving to Hawaii. Just your standard newlywed couple stuff… I won’t bore you with the details,” is not exactly what normal people say. But then, when have we ever been normal?

It was Mardi Gras. Mustaches and silly hats are almost required. 

We’re going through some pretty major life changes right now, so I guess it’s fitting that No Dowry is going to evolve right along with us. I’ve given it a lot of thought, and although I started this blog to record the journey of planning a wedding without selling my soul or my firstborn, I’d like to think our wedding day won’t be the happiest day of our lives and that this is just the beginning of the journey.

I have loved keeping this blog over the course of the last year. It’s an amazing way for me to process what’s going on in my life and keep in touch with everyone from Lil Laverne (hi, Mom) to friends scattered across the country. I hope y’all have enjoyed reading and will continue to follow my shenanigans as a, ahem, Navy wife (yeah, yeah, laugh it up).

The Short Version of What’s Going On

1. Gypsy Travels: Leaving the South

If I haven’t told you my new mailing address, it’s because I don’t have one yet. We left New Orleans on Friday, February 27 and drove like crazy to make it to San Diego late on Sunday, March 1. It wasn’t the most relaxing road trip we’ve ever taken, but it also didn’t result in a flipped car and a trip to the ER, so I count it as a victory (read more about the trip in Brian’s blog).

It was unbelievably hard to leave our friends and New Orleans again. We keep leaving (this is the third time I’ve moved away) and we keep coming back, and dammit, the next time we move back, it’s for good. There are a lot of amazing places to live, and we’ve been fortunate enough to have tried out a good number of them, but everywhere we go, we compare it to New Orleans. No place has the food, the drinks, the people or the culture quite right in comparison, and we can’t think of anywhere else we want to settle down. You’d better believe we’ll be invading the Dirty South again in a few years, buying a kickass house with a big porch and a roomy yard for crawfish boils and eventually raising a couple of loud, crafty, costume-party-loving hapa kids.

Breakin’ it down in the S. Liberty house for our going-away/Rubik’s cube party

2. Gypsy Travels: Moving to Hawaii

Until we move back to NOLA, I am stoked to live in Hawaii. Brian transfers to a new ship based in Pearl Harbor in May, and we are on Oahu right now house hunting. My mom was born here, her parents and their parents grew up here, and we have tons of aunties and uncles and cousins scattered throughout the islands. I have wanted to live here since I was a little girl, and the Navy, in a strange, out-of-character move, has granted my wish. I will spend the next year and a half picking up hula again and spending as much time as I can swimming in the Pacific.

Where we’re staying at the moment (Bellows Air Force Base): the view out the back window…

…and the front

We arrived on Friday, looked at a bunch of apartments right away and found the perfect one on our second day. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a big lanai (which we’ve learned is a back porch/balcony area) where we can grill and grow vegetables, tons of storage space and our trifecta of perfection: dishwasher, washer and dryer. It’s also in the center of Kailua, within walking distance of coffee shops, restaurants, bars, grocery stores and the beach. Oh, and a karaoke bar. We already checked it out, and though it did not have “The Humpty Dance,” it did provide “Shoop,” “Baby Got Back” and “Bust a Move.” Sold.

Our friend Heather and I made Salt ‘n’ Pepa proud

We got the apartment almost solely because I am hapa and remind our landlady of her daughter (this is the second time my hapaness has gotten me an apartment– Melia and I shamelessly milked it in San Francisco when we discovered our property manager had a half-Japanese son) and because Brian is an adorable Navy boy who can charm any Chinese auntie.

The complex where we will be living has a KOI POND… for serious

This is going to be sweet.

3. Being a Navy Housewife

OK, not a housewife. I’m taking my sweet Interweb-based job with me so I can continue to work from home, God willing, but we are getting pretty darn domestic. I am positively giddy at the thought of using all of the awesome kitchen toys we got as wedding presents (Salad spinner? Pastry blender? KitchenAid mixer?!), and we’re already planning on going all ReadyMade on our new place. The words “aluminum-lined planter boxes” may or may not have come up in conversation. We might have to give in and buy a Wii, if only to remind ourselves that we are not too old to trash-talk while duking it out on Mario Cart.

Brian hearts mattress shopping

This is all new territory, and it’s a little scary, but mostly just exciting. We’re almost real grown ups! (Bob keeps telling me that if I use the term “grown up,” I am not one yet. Whatever.) I’ll post pictures of our new place later this week, which I hope will inspire you to come visit as soon as possible. Those mai tais aren’t going to drink themselves, people.

Whenever I get together with my girlfriends, a few things tend to happen. 1) We have a couple of drinks, 2) We wear silly costumes, 3) We dance wildly in public places not necessarily meant for dancing and 4) We take hundreds of pictures of us loving on each other.

All four of these things happened in excess the night of my bachelorette party, and I am still coming down from that high. New Orleans didn’t know what it was getting into when it let 20 of us run wild and unchaperoned through the streets.

Smooth, Nicole.

Lovely Loyola ladies.

California girls… so classy.

We took over the top floor of Mimi’s in the Marigny, toasting with champagne, feasting on tapas and shimmying to a washboard band.

I always wanted to be serenaded by a man with a washboard. 

“Ain’t no thang!”

Then we went to our old stomping ground, One Eyed Jacks (formerly the Shim Sham) where Kaila, Parisa and I have spent many a Thursday night tearing up the dance floor to ’80s new wave music and drinking $1 High Lifes.

Oh, my favorite Asian sassypants pixies. 

Arrggghh!

Those long flowing locks…

Scratch that. Those long flowing locks.

It was an amazing night. I love, love, love my girls, and I never thought I would have the chance to see so many of them in the same place at the same time.

Katie Ide and I often say, half-jokingly (but not really), “Why are we so awesome?! I feel sad for people who aren’t us.” I think this perfectly describes all of my girlfriends, a group of women who are as intelligent as they are sassy, as strong as they are generous and as creative as they are hilarious. I looked around that night and saw the women who have seen me at my best and my worst– who comforted me through incoherent sobbing fits, traveled with me halfway across the world, primped with me before big events and slapped some sense into me when I started to talk crazy.

Sista, sista!

To Melia, thank you for being my best friend, mentor and confidante for the past 25 years. You are amazing for planning such a perfect celebration. I adore you.

To my girls who were there and to those who couldn’t make it, I love you all and can’t wait until we can get together again. Vegas next year?

I used to tease Brian by asking obnoxious questions like, “What would you do if I wrote you love letters printed in Papyrus?” or “What if my favorite font were Comic Sans?” Brian was not amused. His answer to the former question was, “If you did that, you’d either not know me at all or you’d know me very well and would be actively trying to hurt me. I don’t know what’s worse.” He wouldn’t even answer the other question.

This may sound silly, but design is very, very important to Bri. He values aesthetics, which I guess I should take as a compliment. He designed all of the printed materials for our wedding, centering them around the quote we used for our save-the-dates: “Love doesn’t make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile” (Franklin P. Jones). Well played, Brian. Well played. Though I think Curlz really would have added a certain something…

Invitation

Map

RSVP postcard

Wedding favor CD label

Wedding CD cover

Wedding CD song list

I told you this would be all out of order. I tried for about five minutes to write about the wedding in sequence, but I’ve already given up the idea that I can think or write in a linear fashion. I’m embracing my moderate-to-severe adult ADD and will write about things as I think about them. It is my blog, after all, so no judgment.

I’d like to take a moment to pay homage to a special man… someone who brings out the best in me and who tries to overlook my flaws and shortcomings. That man, of course, is our wedding photographer, Marc Pagani.

All photos by Marc Pagani 

I don’t think I can overstate my adoration for Marc (I swear not in a creepy, I’m-watching-you-right-now kind of way). As a former phot-ho myself, it was really essential for me to find a photographer who would take beautiful, creative and, most importantly, non-vomit-inducing pictures. I feel a little ill every time I see a soft-focus image of a newlywed couple’s left hands intertwined.

I came across the Wedding Photojournalist Association way back in January and thought I had died and gone to heaven. Finally, photographers who take original, interesting photos that really capture the excitement and emotion of weddings.

I looked at all the WPA photographers in New Orleans, and Marc was head and shoulders above the rest. His portfolio was incredible, and I immediately emailed him to see if he was available for our wedding day. At one point, a few other couples were inquiring about January 17 before we had signed a contract and put down a deposit. I told Marc we were prepared to duke it out with these other people and would like to nail down the date before things got ugly. He responded, “I think you could take these other couples if it came to blows.” That’s when I knew we’d get along just fine.

He showed up the morning of the wedding to take getting ready pictures of the girls. I hadn’t slept at all the night before, was wearing no makeup and looked a little like Charlize Theron in that movie where she played a serial killer. HOTT. God bless him, he didn’t take many close-ups until I had finished my coffee and was looking more like a real human female, thanks to the magic of make-up.

For the rest of the day, Marc was amazing. He was a good taskmaster during the group portraits (wrangling 40 people takes a certain kind of patience I don’t possess) and then completely unobtrusive the rest of the day. Whenever the thought, “Oh, that’ll be a nice shot; I hope Marc gets it,” crossed my mind, I’d look around and he’d already be there, shooting away. He may have been a spy before he became a photographer… cat-like reflexes.

We were only supposed to have him shoot until 8 p.m., but the party was just getting into full swing then, so he generously rearranged his schedule so he could stay until 10. If any of y’all are getting married in NOLA soon, I can’t recommend Marc highly enough.

And, as if he needed any more brownie points, he wrote this about us in his wedding photography blog: “Gillian and Brian are one of THOSE couples…you know the type…happy….in love…they make each other laugh…they throw fun parties.  I love shooting THOSE kind of couples!” Awesome. We do throw fun parties. 

Check out the rest of Marc’s portfolio and the rest of his photos from our wedding.

At our wedding and rehearsal dinner, we received some beautiful toasts from our friends and family. I pretty much cried and laughed like a crazy person throughout every speech at our wedding, and I’m hoping to post some videos if I can track any down (all you Flip Cam videographers, give me a holla).

Just when I thought I was done getting teary, Lil Lisa sucker punched me with this written tribute. Lisa, we love you, and this is perhaps the nicest thing anyone has ever written about me.

I returned to DC on Sunday from the the best wedding I’ve ever attended. What made it the best was not that it was giant or showy or expensive (none of the above); rather, it was the overwhelming feeling of love and positivity and happiness that surrounds this couple. They are people who open others’ eyes, who make everyone around them better and happier. Bri and Gill are excellent apart, but together they form a beautiful team, a rarity among couples, and a ridiculously good-looking pair. They give me hope for my future, because I want for myself a version of what they already have. They are an inspiration; I am honored and blessed to be part of their lives.

I know I’m not the only person who feels this way. It was fairly evident in the 10 or so toasts that were made at the wedding that everyone they know has a story to share or feelings to express about them (on that note, let’s congratulate Ma and Pa Burgess for not aborting Brian … OK, I’ll leave that speech alone).

And as if they weren’t great enough, they know how to pick some cool, talented friggin’ friends. I haven’t met anyone through them that I DON’T like. Brian’s friends that I hadn’t met before were fun, exciting and hilarious. Gill’s friends were, of course, the same.

To my friends, to all of our mutual college friends, you are the most welcoming, honest, down-to-earth people I know. It’s only among true friends that I am comfortable, willing to be myself without fear of being laughed at or judged. We accept each others’ faults and embrace each others’ strengths, and that isn’t easy to find. We can go months or years without talking and still slip easily into conversation, back into the old groove again. We encourage each other to reach for our dreams and never, ever settle. When someone is down, we do not dwell on the negative, but offer kindness and support until that person is up again. I can’t count the times throughout the past few years where one of you has lent a shoulder or an ear; Gill and Brian supporting me through my West Coast man troubles; Chuck letting me cry on him when I finally realized that my anxiety was too much to handle by myself; Kaila reassuring me and letting me know that I’m not alone; sharing copy desk shenanigans with Katie Ide; and so much more. You have all made me a better person.

If any one of you is ever hurt, I will be there to stand by your side or to elbow the fuck out of the person who caused the pain.

It is my hope that we stay lifelong friends, perhaps because I really want to see some hot biracial babies! Awww yeah. My adopted Chinese daughter is totally gonna marry one of the Burgess-Dicker kids one day.

This is my toast to Brian and Gill – keep doing what you’re doing, don’t stop believin’, et cetera. Get ready for everyone to visit you in Hawaii. Oh, and nothing’s official until it’s on facebook, so you’re not really married yet.

Why, hello, friends. It has been far too long. It seems I went and got married since I last updated No Dowry.

Beautiful photo montage by my cousin, Jeremy Mau

The last time I posted, on January 12, I had these lofty goals for the week of the wedding. I was going to blog daily about the last-minute madness before the wedding– the mini sweatshop of friends putting together wedding favors and centerpieces in our living room, the headache of wrangling florists and babysitters and chauffeurs, the wave of friends and family flying in town before the bachelor/bachelorette parties and rehearsal– and hilarity would ensue.

Yeah… the funny thing about all that madness is that it leaves very little time for witty commentary. I was pretty much a crazy hermit lady with 100 to-do lists instead of 100 cats.

Now that Brian and I are all married and back from our honeymoon, I want to go back and reflect on our wedding weekend in a series of posts (accompanied by lots and lots of photos). I’ve been so wrapped up in planning everything that I didn’t fully grasp how incredible and emotional it would be to celebrate our marriage surrounded by the people who are most important to us.

All weekend, from the bachelorette party to the morning-after recovery party at Molly’s, I kept looking around in amazement at our high school friends, our college friends, our families, our work friends, everyone in one place and getting along famously. I got verklempt more times than I can count. I love you guys, and you made our wedding the best damn party I could have hoped for.

Photo courtesy of Miss Lisa Campo

So, over the next few weeks, you can expect to read more than you ever wanted to know about the following topics (probably not in order and woven in with what’s going on at the moment):

• Last-minute preparations and the final designs from my talented husband (I’ve been practicing using that word, but it still does not come naturally. For the record, I will never use the word “hubby.”)
•  The bachelorette party, organized by my amazing sister and maid of honor, Melia
• The day before the wedding– martinis for lunch and insomnia for dinner
• The wedding day, night and after-party into the wee hours
• The honeymoon– two glorious weeks in Panama and the Caribbean

In the meantime, some of our friends have already written beautiful posts about the wedding. Read and enjoy:

Ide:

• This time, I mean it.
• Blam!

Gener:

• Best Wedding Ever. No. Seriously. Part I.
  
• Part II.
• Part III.
• Part IV.

Lisa:

• where has the time gone? 
• With her permission, I may later post the incredible post-wedding toast she wrote.

Kathleen:

• La Mia Famiglia

Thank the Lord, the day has finally come. We finished our laughably bad pre-cana class tonight. I can’t put the joy and relief we feel into words. This calls for a celebration. Champagne for everyone!

In all fairness, there were a few useful parts of the last two lessons (two out of seven ain’t… well, no, that’s pretty bad). One was about forgiveness in relationships and how important it is in marriage, and there were a couple of good questions that actually encouraged us to talk to each other and not just regurgitate doctrine. OK, a promising start…

And then they threw these questions in: “Do you think watching pornography can hurt your relationship? Why? How can you avoid pornography becoming a problem in your life?”

Wait, what? I thought we were talking about forgiveness! Somehow our conversation about communication and compassion turned into a lecture on the evils of porn. Way to be a buzzkill, people.

Anyway, no use dwelling anymore. The bottom line is we are DONE. And they have to let us pass go and receive our certificate of participation… even after they read the very long feedback questionnaire we filled out after our last lesson. We win!

Because of that title, Brian is probably going to read this post right away (if so, “Hi, honey”). I would. Curiosity always gets the best of me. And luckily, I’m not one of those people who thinks the groom should have absolutely no idea what the bride’s wedding dress looks like. Having some mystery and excitement around the dress if fun, but seeing a piece of fabric on a mannequin and seeing it on me on the wedding day are two very different things. At least I hope so because otherwise, I would be missing some critical body parts that would make walking down the aisle very tricky.

Anyway, here are recent pictures of Kaila’s masterpiece (thanks for taking them, Kathleen!):

Action shot. Doesn’t it look like Kai is practicing how she’s going to booty dance with me at the reception? I am a LADY, Kaila!

Hey, eyes up here, everyone. Jeez. 

It’s getting pretty real. T- 11 days…

I have been Catholic long enough to realize there are just some things the Church and I will never see eye to eye on. Women’s role in the Church/the family/pretty much anything, homosexuality and contraception are at the top of the list. I sometimes like to visualize the Catholic Church as a very old, slightly senile distant relative who goes on and on about how things were back in his day and who sometimes makes inappropriate comments about “broads” and “Orientals” getting too uppity. He means well, but we can agree to disagree, and I try to let some things slide because of his age.

Apparently, this method does not fly with our pre-cana instructors. The last three lessons have strongly focused on why using contraception is a sin against God and why we must not follow our own consciences on the matter because they are only properly informed when dictated by the teachings of the Church.

You can follow along with two of the articles we had to read: “Humanae Vitae and Conscience” and “Contraception: Why Not” (not “Contraception: Why Not?” as Jules thought it was), both written by Professor Janet Smith, whose condescending writing style and lack of factual evidence make me want to go against my “WWJD” policy.

The article cover page (I can’t make this up) is the only thing that got me through these lessons. 

The gist of the first article is how ridiculous it is that Catholics think they are smarter than the Church and how no one can opt out of the Church’s teachings on contraception. The second is a rambling account of how the Pill destroys morality, increases unwanted pregnancies, abortions and divorces and is generally responsible for all evil in the world.

Sorry, guys. I’m not gonna play. I do not accept that it is wrong to plan when you are ready and willing to have children. If you choose to do that with Natural Family Planning (NFP), more power to you. If you choose to use some form of contraception, great. Having kids is a major life change, not to mention a pretty significant financial commitment, so I am all for people being responsible and not procreating until they’re good and ready.

What makes me most angry about these “lessons” on contraception is that they aren’t intended to spark debate or discussion. They are simply a lecture on why Church doctrine will always outweigh our personal beliefs. Case closed. There were very few essay questions or opportunities to ask questions or express an opinion, just a series of leading multiple choice questions. I started answering them the way I wanted to, then deleting some of my responses and writing slightly more diplomatic answers.

Then there were the questions I had to give answers I knew were “wrong.”

Yes, the Pill is the reason more couples divorce. If a couple is struggling with a difficult marriage, you know what would be a good fix? More kids.

It’s just insane to blame more unwanted pregnancies on one sole factor in the last 40 years. Plus, if the unwanted pregnancy rate has gone up since the 1960s when women started using birth control, can you imagine what it would be without the Pill?

I’m sorry, but that’s just not accurate. As one friend who used to work for an OB/GYN said, “We used to have a nickname for women who used Natural Family Planning. We called them ‘Mommy.’” NFP has a few different methods, but it involves recording different bodily factors (such as basal body temperature and cervical mucus changes) to determine when a woman is ovulating.

Most sources I found (like the one sponsored by the National Institute of Health) cite the statistic that 15 to 20 women out of 100 get pregnant each year using NFP. The Pill results in 2 to 3 pregnancies out of 100 when no pills are missed. The “withdrawl” method, by contrast, gets about 7 to 22 women out of 100 pregnant every year. I can’t get excited about a 15 to 20 percent failure rate, though measuring my cervical mucus does sound fun.

And then there’s that. I might have laughed at the Hall and Oates reference if it weren’t misspelled and if I weren’t too busy throwing up in my mouth.

So, what do y’all think, particularly those of you who are Catholic? Do you agree with the Church or do you think we should be able to follow our consciences?