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Planning for Events as a Team
Sep. 21st, 2018 06:47 pmHello!
We recently went to a wedding, the last of the season for us. It turned out to be a really fun one. Part of what made it so awesome I think was how we planned for the day.
Before we arrived in Cali for the wedding, we had a team meeting and decided on crews for the different stages of the day.
STAGE 1: Arriving in Cali
This involved seeing the in-laws. Our husband, who we call Fish, just recently told his mother and step-dad that we are plural and his mom in particular kept pushing to know our trauma backstory, which we have no intention of EVER telling her, as it is NONE of her business.
So ... yeah... this was the first time we were seeing them since coming out, and the first time seeing them with our new name (we chose a new gender-neutral name that we all can live with, as no one identified with the birth name anymore, and a good 30% of us despised it for being a gendered name). The stakes felt pretty high
For stage one we decided we needed some heavy hitters, so we sent the men: Jeriah, because he is ice cold; Conrad, because he is jovial, relaxed and good with kids (oh yes we have a baby-in-law... he is 27 years younger than Fish.. weird....); and Miles as back up. This turned out to be an excellent crew for the initial encounter. We went in full boy mode, and they just owned it and didn't care about the awkwardness. They really did amazingly, and shielded everyone else from the hurt and disappointment when mom-in-law kept calling them the dead name.
Also, going in boy mode and having Jeriah's generally stand-off-ish aura might have kept her from prying, which was a relief! We definitely sent the right soldiers for that mission!
STAGE 2: The Wedding
Kai and August were assigned to handling crew change overs between stages. So Kai popped up and did our hair as we drove out to the camp-ground for the camping wedding!!!! August, who is a tiger a lot of the time, mostly just complained about how much he had wanted to bite the tiny human (the baby-in-law) for screaming in the car. It wasn't a huge help with the crew change over, but it was hilarious to listen to!
Anyway, Kai got us switched over to girl mode and then the second crew came out, the women: Jax, because she loves to party; Z because she is chill and gets on with everyone; and Elowen because she is a sweetie and actually knows the people getting married. They helped set up our tent, and then helped set up the wedding arch and took a ton of pictures. Miles also popped up to take pictures, but as a very flamboyant guy, he has no problem wearing a dress and presents very female. Photography is really Miles's thing, so he didn't want to miss out.
The wedding went really well, and the socializing was natural and everyone had fun.
After the wedding came the final stage and again Kai and August popped up to start managing the transition.
STAGE 3: Reception
We figured that by the reception it wouldn't matter how we acted, people would start to be drunk, and if some of the kids wanted to come out and get a little silly, it would be fine. BUUUUT.. there was steak for dinner, so the transition team delayed things to eat steak. August is mad for steak.
The only problem with this one transitional stage is that somehow we got roped in to sitting with Fish's ex from college. Tigers are not that chatty really, and Kai is not really much help either. She is a quiet one... it was a bit of an awkward meal, with Fish's ex trying to make polite conversation and August and Kai feebly holding up their end of the convo. But heck, it could have been written off as being shy and awkward, so we didn't care. I guess she might have read it as cold, distant bitch, but that is on her how she reads it.
After dinner, the kids (well not all of them, but Mak, Weasel and Finn) arrived and instead of using their time to be ridiculous, as we had expected them to, they used their time to try every single dessert and then go back for seconds. There were a TON of desserts. Then they started the bonfire, sat down next to it and nearly fell asleep in their food coma. Fish took them to bed after that and returned to have drinks on his own with the groom.
It was all in all a perfectly coordinated chaos that turned out to be a really great day! Planning ahead doesn't ALWAYS work, but when it does it can be pretty amazing.
10/10 would recommend trying to stage things out with rotating crews for important events and social occasions. It helps cause in the moment you might not be able to think about who would be a good person to switch out to. Like August and Kai how they just froze with the ex.. Except, I also think August was just being stubborn. He wanted steak more than he cared about social awkwardness.
The day after was less high stakes, and so we just sort of let it happen, and that turned out okay too. while Fish helped tear things down and clean up, Mak (an 11 year old system-kid) ended up fixing the brush-brush pass portrait the guests had made the night before at the reception. All she did was add a more accurate version of the groom's dog at the groom's request and fix skin tones, but it made a huge difference, and the bride was super appreciative.
ALSO and this is HUGE. The bride and groom, being Fish's good friends, know we are plural and they were super supportive. They didn't call us the dead name once. That actually made us unbelievably happy.
We are so glad that we went ahead and chose a new name. Having a new name has had this amazing secondary function beyond gender issues. When people use our new name, it is a way of letting us know that they support us. That feels amazing.
The bride and groom are probably going to come out to visit us in a couple months. It should be a blast. We are all really looking forward to it.
When we first realized we were plural, we didn't think anyone would understand. We felt like a freak, like we were unlovable in our strangeness. That hasn't been the case at all. People will surprise you.
:)
Oh and so you can see how Mak did, I will put the final painting below. She said she wanted to honor the original artists' work, so she tried to keep the style of each figure, but the bride was green.. and the groom was orange.. it was.. too much, Mak says!
Cheers!
-Conrad toward the end. I think Odi started this post.
Photos by Miles, except the one of Mak painting. Fish took that one.
\(^ - ^)/
We recently went to a wedding, the last of the season for us. It turned out to be a really fun one. Part of what made it so awesome I think was how we planned for the day.
Before we arrived in Cali for the wedding, we had a team meeting and decided on crews for the different stages of the day.
STAGE 1: Arriving in Cali
This involved seeing the in-laws. Our husband, who we call Fish, just recently told his mother and step-dad that we are plural and his mom in particular kept pushing to know our trauma backstory, which we have no intention of EVER telling her, as it is NONE of her business.
So ... yeah... this was the first time we were seeing them since coming out, and the first time seeing them with our new name (we chose a new gender-neutral name that we all can live with, as no one identified with the birth name anymore, and a good 30% of us despised it for being a gendered name). The stakes felt pretty high
For stage one we decided we needed some heavy hitters, so we sent the men: Jeriah, because he is ice cold; Conrad, because he is jovial, relaxed and good with kids (oh yes we have a baby-in-law... he is 27 years younger than Fish.. weird....); and Miles as back up. This turned out to be an excellent crew for the initial encounter. We went in full boy mode, and they just owned it and didn't care about the awkwardness. They really did amazingly, and shielded everyone else from the hurt and disappointment when mom-in-law kept calling them the dead name.
Also, going in boy mode and having Jeriah's generally stand-off-ish aura might have kept her from prying, which was a relief! We definitely sent the right soldiers for that mission!
STAGE 2: The Wedding
Kai and August were assigned to handling crew change overs between stages. So Kai popped up and did our hair as we drove out to the camp-ground for the camping wedding!!!! August, who is a tiger a lot of the time, mostly just complained about how much he had wanted to bite the tiny human (the baby-in-law) for screaming in the car. It wasn't a huge help with the crew change over, but it was hilarious to listen to!
Anyway, Kai got us switched over to girl mode and then the second crew came out, the women: Jax, because she loves to party; Z because she is chill and gets on with everyone; and Elowen because she is a sweetie and actually knows the people getting married. They helped set up our tent, and then helped set up the wedding arch and took a ton of pictures. Miles also popped up to take pictures, but as a very flamboyant guy, he has no problem wearing a dress and presents very female. Photography is really Miles's thing, so he didn't want to miss out.
The wedding went really well, and the socializing was natural and everyone had fun.
After the wedding came the final stage and again Kai and August popped up to start managing the transition.
STAGE 3: Reception
We figured that by the reception it wouldn't matter how we acted, people would start to be drunk, and if some of the kids wanted to come out and get a little silly, it would be fine. BUUUUT.. there was steak for dinner, so the transition team delayed things to eat steak. August is mad for steak.
The only problem with this one transitional stage is that somehow we got roped in to sitting with Fish's ex from college. Tigers are not that chatty really, and Kai is not really much help either. She is a quiet one... it was a bit of an awkward meal, with Fish's ex trying to make polite conversation and August and Kai feebly holding up their end of the convo. But heck, it could have been written off as being shy and awkward, so we didn't care. I guess she might have read it as cold, distant bitch, but that is on her how she reads it.
After dinner, the kids (well not all of them, but Mak, Weasel and Finn) arrived and instead of using their time to be ridiculous, as we had expected them to, they used their time to try every single dessert and then go back for seconds. There were a TON of desserts. Then they started the bonfire, sat down next to it and nearly fell asleep in their food coma. Fish took them to bed after that and returned to have drinks on his own with the groom.
It was all in all a perfectly coordinated chaos that turned out to be a really great day! Planning ahead doesn't ALWAYS work, but when it does it can be pretty amazing.
10/10 would recommend trying to stage things out with rotating crews for important events and social occasions. It helps cause in the moment you might not be able to think about who would be a good person to switch out to. Like August and Kai how they just froze with the ex.. Except, I also think August was just being stubborn. He wanted steak more than he cared about social awkwardness.
The day after was less high stakes, and so we just sort of let it happen, and that turned out okay too. while Fish helped tear things down and clean up, Mak (an 11 year old system-kid) ended up fixing the brush-brush pass portrait the guests had made the night before at the reception. All she did was add a more accurate version of the groom's dog at the groom's request and fix skin tones, but it made a huge difference, and the bride was super appreciative.
ALSO and this is HUGE. The bride and groom, being Fish's good friends, know we are plural and they were super supportive. They didn't call us the dead name once. That actually made us unbelievably happy.
We are so glad that we went ahead and chose a new name. Having a new name has had this amazing secondary function beyond gender issues. When people use our new name, it is a way of letting us know that they support us. That feels amazing.
The bride and groom are probably going to come out to visit us in a couple months. It should be a blast. We are all really looking forward to it.
When we first realized we were plural, we didn't think anyone would understand. We felt like a freak, like we were unlovable in our strangeness. That hasn't been the case at all. People will surprise you.
:)
Oh and so you can see how Mak did, I will put the final painting below. She said she wanted to honor the original artists' work, so she tried to keep the style of each figure, but the bride was green.. and the groom was orange.. it was.. too much, Mak says!
Cheers!
-Conrad toward the end. I think Odi started this post.
Photos by Miles, except the one of Mak painting. Fish took that one.
\(^ - ^)/
