It's my wedding day and, I've done EVERYTHING (I think,) except write my vows... So why not BLOG them says I... How about something like this:
Cari: OK, Haddon repeat after me.
Haddon: Yo, what up?
Cari: I Haddon, vow to you Katie, to love you, and to always be a student of God's Love as we grow together. I vow my faith and support in your ministry, and eagerly anticipate getting to know the woman you will become, falling in love a little more every day. I promise to cherish you, respect you, to care for and protect you, to encourage you, to stand by and for you, and write many more songs inspired by you, as long as we both shall live.
This will probably be my last blog before I'm married.
We've had an amazing couple of nights so far. My bro came into town the night before last and we've been living it up ever since.
The weather here today is PERFECT, let's just hope it stays that way for another couple of days.
The batchelor/ette parties are tonight. I have NO IDEA what they've been planning. Should be fun whatever it is.
Just about every major principal involved in the wedding who isn't here already will be arriving today.
I'm writing as I'm thinking. In short, sporadic bursts. Katie and I are so incredibly excited, and happy and anxious and all at once. We know that something somewhere will go wrong, or will deviate from the plans we have mapped out, but we aim to remember what's most important, and why we're doing this in the first place.
I composed the hymn for our wedding today. I'm also working really hard on arranging this gospel piece. It's all I've done today. I have to put some time into the church service tomorrow at Marble.
This is a crappy blog entry. On the plus side though, right now the weather is supposed to be beautiful all weekend!
Well, I have to admit that I enjoyed myself at Return of the Sith. I HATED the last two, they really disappointed me. This one still sucked in some parts, but on the whole, I really enjoyed it.
In other news, the wedding is coming together well, and we now have a new Maid of Honor and a new groomsman. Amy Gopp and Alain Silverio!
I saw this on 56th and 5th a few weeks ago. Anything for a buck!
Katie has an amazing graduation day yesterday! We partied into the night. My future in-laws are here for the week and I think today we're going to work hard at relaxing for a day.
I'm planning on making a small video of the graduation festivities sometime soon. Stay tuned for more.
Katie's parents come to town today. Katie graduates tomorrow. We're all so anxious it's crazy.
There was an article I read on FARK last night about wedding costs spiraling so out of control these days that now couples are asking their guests to help pay for it. I laughed at first, but then realized that the idea has some merit to it... if you're a cheap bastard...which I have been known to be.
NYC, among many other things, is the city of BIG weddings. Having an affordable, and meaningful ceremony in Manhattan is a real challenge.
Ultimately, I'm hoping that just the fact that all the people we love are coming to town will make any party the best it can be.
I need some exercise, but I'm also coming down with a little something. Those two don't go together all that well.
I'm working on the wedding stuff. All the wedding stuff. I also edited a little video for my friends David and Beth who just got married this past weekend.
Getting married is HARD WORK. Scratch that, having a wedding is HARD WORK! Perhaps, these are the checks and balances put in place to make sure that you really want to go through with it or something.
I usually try to blog-ity-blog in the morning. This morning, though, started at 3:30am.
Katie and I had a fantastic time at our friends wedding, and I captured all of it, but we ducked out around 11:30pm, and were dead to the world a half hour later.
Then at 3:30am, I woke up and it was like I had slept 8 hours. Very strange. I came out and did some website work I've been meaning to do, and stayed up until 8am.
Now that the whole world knows my sleep patterns, I can sleep better. :)
Today, I'm off to 5th Ave Presbyterian Church to see and hear Katie do what she does best, then I have more wedding stuff to do. Some arranging of the song we wrote. Some webstie design. The usual.
One thing I am having a hard time with at the moment is coming to terms with the need to hire a piano player other than myself to play the Gospel song at the ceremony. It's hard for me to do, but I think it's necessary. Someone needs to play as people are coming in and sitting down. Someone needs to play Katie and I out the door. I can do a lot of things, but I don't think I'm physically able to do that.
So we're looking for a pianist. Starting with the ones I trust the most. We'll see if we get lucky!
Katie and I were up late last night helping some good friends with their wedding. Katie decorated the chapel space while I set up sound and video recording equipment. We had fun doing it, and were given a chance to think about the space for our big day as well.
Today our friends get married so we'll learn more about what to do and what NOT to do. Should be fun.
Not much else, except that Katie and I finished out gospel song. Here are the lyrics that we wrote.
We may preach the perfect words We may sing the perfect song We may harbor highest hope But God we don't have very long
Teach us how to Love Teach us how to Love Teach us how to Love
We can walk the world's great wonders And it it's rich cuisine But we won't find the rainbows end We'll just be blind before we've seen
Teach us how to Love Teach us how to Love Teach us how to Love
We may speak a thousand tongues And know just when the rain will fall But if you don't teach us how to love Then God we don't know you at all
Teach us how to Love Teach us how to Love Teach us how to Love
Now, that I look at it. I might tweak a little bit more, but something close to this will hopefully be sung at the wedding. OUR WEDDING!
Every Wed night I work at Marble Church in Manhattan as the "multimedia director." While the service is going on, I'm in charge of the visual content projected on a HUGE screen at foot of the alter. Mostly this means lyrics and images. A bible passage or two. Things like that. Usually it takes me the whole day before the service to put the images together. A lot of creative work, which means, you don't know where you're going to end up, when you start out...
Anyhow, it's usually fun to do this service, and other creative projects, but lately, because of the wedding, I'm having a hard time concentrating on anything. Katie's even worse. She has more on her shoulders because she's graduating as well. Then we're moving, and solving the uncertainties as they come and it's all happening at once.
At least it feels that way.
I'm in the place right now where every little thing, can lead me to a diatribe about massive global change. It's crazy. I'm crazy.
At least it feels that way.
Katie and I are both first borns, and would rather express ourselves than hold anything in. Throw in Mr. Fix it, and sometimes I really need a drink. The thing is, that we're so damn excited and nervous at the same time that we just can't think straight. This is why there are wedding planners!
Of course, the last few days I've been getting up a bit earlier and taking a walk in Riverside Park. It's beautiful this time of year. It's not too hot yet. The sunlight struggles through the leaves and the sirens stay distant. When I'm there, something makes me realize that it's going to be great, and fun and that I should just take a deep breath and enjoy it.
Had a very full day yesterday. Decided to get up early and get down to the SoHo Apple store early so they could fix my iPod. Last week I was told that they open at 10am, so be there by 9:30 to get a spot at the Genius Bar. It seems I'm not alone in needing help, because as of Monday the Genius Bar is now open from 6AM!
I got down there and got my iPod REPLACED and yada yada yada, everything went well, the big thing was, last night the Coen Brothers hosted a lecture on Digital Filmmaking at the Apple Store. This I couldn't miss.
I went back in the evening for the lecture and even bootlegged it. I was surrounded by amatuer filmakers with award winning egos. It struck me how much people need to be told their doing well in order to believe it. I'm a victim of this as well. It's far too seductive at times. I'd like to blog about this more later.
Anyhow, the Coen Bros talked a lot about editing their last two films with Final Cut Pro, and the transition from actually cutting film to doing it digitally. The only thing Joel wished for is that digital filmmaking used feet and frames as it's benchmark, and not seconds and frames. They seemed very organized and the antithesis to big and flashy. Perhaps I'm wrong about that.
I'm still wondering if there's going to be more Lebowski.
I often wonder if there's any truth to a stereotype. After all, a stereotype is born of repetition, just as invention is born of necessity. The problem is that you can stereotype an individual just as easily as you can stereotype the whole lot of em.' There are some people with kind, and frustrated hearts that preach the demise of the stereotype, but those are mostly liberal fanatics. ;)
Anyhow, it's funny that I find myself, from time to time, a pretty good example of a stereotype. For example, when Katie has the blues, I want to fix it. When Katie wants empathy, my aim is most often to figure out a way to heal her wounds and move on. I'm not the only man that does this. Evidently there are whole books written on the subject of men not listening, and women demanding a change.
It's going against my fundamental, stereotypical, man-ness to force Mr. Fix It back through the door he barges into when Katie is feeling overwhelmed, but I'm trying. There are other times when Mr. Fix It is more than welcome in the room, and he's too busy building something outside to notice.
I'd like to take Mr. Fix It to finishing school. Teach him some manners. It's a hard thing to work against your own stereotype, but it can be done.
I just posted the picture below on the web from my cell phone. Wow. This is fun! This picture, which I took yesterday is of our caterer in his resturant TINO'S in Little Italy in the Bronx. This place is amazing, the best meatballs ever! Anyhow, now that I know I can post on my website from my cell phone, expect many more pictures, probably more than you'd ever want to see!
The wedding march is in full step. Katie and I are both going through major changes and the weight of uncertainties at the same time. We just returned from a Sunday service at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church were my favorite preacher, Dr. Tom Tewell, talked about the Copernican Revolution of the Soul.
That is, changing your viewpoint from seeing everything as revolving around you, to one of focus on you revolving around Love, and God, and relationships in your life. This can lead to a valuable and challenging reassessment of goals.
It's something I'm challenged by, and I hope to hold on to. Especially through the next few weeks, with the wedding festivities, and a bride that is going through even more than I am as far as uncertainty is concerned.
Hey, at least we went and bought 80 Magnums of wine and champagne yesterday! If nothing else, the folks at the party can get good and toasty!
Last night, Katie and I went to this amazing Gospel concert here at the Seminary, directed by M. Roger Holland III. We had a ton of fun. Gospel music has always opened up a lot of doors in my heart. I have always felt thankful and grateful to the palpable force and energy I exprience when I play music of any kind. Gospel music, I feel, is the closest I can come to expressing that thanks.
Anyhow, the plan is to have a gospel choir at the wedding. So far we have about 12 people, but the numbers will grow. Katie has written a few lyrics, and I'm hoping I get a chance, sometime today to sit down and start writing.
I've never written a piece in this style before, but after that concert last night, I'm oh so inspired. Hey, evidently, in the Gospel Music scene, there's a young compser named Detrick Haddon that everyone says is really talented.
I woke up today to an email from New Repertory Theater that their production of "Into the Woods" is a smashing success.
This is, of course, no surprise. I just wish I had the time to get back up to Boston to catch it.
Lately, I've been feeling a bit of gnawing by the theater bug. I haven't been a part of a show in a few months. That is if you don't count the revial of Jasper Lake, at the Kennedy Center, and the live accompaniment to W.H. Auden's "For the Time Being" that we produced up here at Union Seminary last month.
Ahh, the hours of collaboration, and tempers, and the quest to make a scene the best it can be is alluring. Someday, I'll have to do it again.
Okay, I'm starting something new. It's about time I updated my site with more regularity than it has been. It used to be that whenever I wanted to post some little bit of news, or piece of mind, that I would have to update my news section manually. Now, thanks to this Blogger software (available for free at www.blogger.com) I can do it from anywhere in the world. At any time. At least that's the plan.
Let's see... I'm getting married in a few weeks. Katie and I are beyond excited even though everybody keeps telling us that we aren't going to have that much time to spend with all our loved ones who are coming out to see us.
I'm writing music for the ceremony itself. Of course. Evidently, I might even have a gospel choir at my disposal. That would be fun, methinks.
