How am I ever going to pull off looking svelte in a wedding dress when I'm working 15 hours a day on a grant proposal, and we have had a giant chocolate sheet cake sitting in the kitchen outside of my office since Monday?

ADDENDUM: Solution?

Playing For Change | Song Around The World "Stand By Me" from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

Ok, so once again I'm posting a not-technically-wedding-related video, but I just had to share it because it is pretty heartwarming. It was a good day for music for me: on the drive to work I teared up at the strains of Beethoven's 7th, 2nd movement; then I was introduced to the terrific Susan Boyle for the first time (and openly wept); and then finally I saw this video of musicians around the world making music together (and grinned like a fool). I find the mission of the Playing for Change movement to be just really wonderful and even romantic, and so I'm glad to draw attention to projects such as this.

Thanks to Parker (via Alistair) for passing this on.

A few people have asked me about the illustrations that I've used on our wedding website, so I thought I would write a little about where I found them and why I've used them. The short answer is that I really love advertising art; when I was a kid I used to scour magazines for the pop art Absolut vodka ads and the vintage photograph-style Virginia Slims cigarette ad series (booze and cigarettes -- my parents must have been so proud). Later I collected vintage advertising postcards, and decorated my apartment with Spanish tourism posters from the thirties and forties.

When it came to building our wedding website, I wanted to avoid having pictures of me and Adam on every page, and so I began playing with inserting different pieces of art we enjoy. I put in some Rothko for Adam and some Chagall for me but, in the end, it all felt a little disjointed. Not visually harmonious at all.

I came across this image by Haddon Sundblom one day and fell in love; it perfectly captured the mood and ambience that I hoped to find in our wedding weekend celebration. I began searching for more and similar works by Sundblom (most famous for the Coca Cola Santas), John Gannam, and any other illustrator from the forties or fifties that I could find. Google Image Search helped me identify other artists and images that were suitable for the website. One great site with an enormous collection of vintage ads is Plan 59, and print reproductions of these images are available for purchase. I have plans to hang some of these on the walls of our first home...

If you are interested in this type of art, I’m a big fan of the illustration blog Today's Inspiration, and I peruse its pages every now and then for a bit of aesthetic education. I highly recommend reading this site -- the images are gorgeous, and the author provides really terrific analysis and description of the artists' work, education, and influence on the field. No doubt, it is Inspiration-al (ba-dum-bum).