but for the REST OF YOU…

welcome! wow. what a treat to have our wedding day featured on one of our favorite creative communities over at etsy! my google analytics account didn’t really know how to break the news to me that you’ve all come and visited my humble blog. so instead, it made me a pretty graph that screams something along the lines of:

3 years of minimal, albeit steady, readership and then BAM! today, golriz lucina gundry, you hit the jackpot.

dev and i are so thrilled to share our day with the world at large, and we’ve been overwhelmed with the sweet comments and responses. let’s just say i’ve never had so many emails in my inbox with the subject: SHOES. some people even threw in a few EXCLAMATION POINTS for added effect.

[pausing for a moment to consider whether i'm using the word 'effect' correctly. is it affect? instead, let's give three cheers for my masters degree in editing and publishing.]

i also received some emails from a few of the (over 3000!) people who watched our video today, telling me they’ve fallen in love with my husband. it’s not your fault, he’s pretty adorable.

i wish i had something really exciting to say for our first introduction. i mean, the least i could have done was posted some fantastically creative DIY project for you to all enjoy. but alas, i can’t conjure up any of that kind of magic on demand. so instead, i’m going to answer several of the questions i received today:

where are you from?

i am half-iranian (dad), and half-armenian (mum). i have lived most years of my life in new zealand, but the last decade i’ve mostly been in the states, except for a 2 year sojourn in israel, and 2 years in australia. so my accent, as you can imagine, is a bit confused. we now live in los angeles, much to my own surprise.

what music features in your wedding film?

our talented videographers (fullframecine) featured these songs:

‘Sanganichi’ by Shugo Tokumaru
‘To Build A Home’ by The Cinematic Orchestra**
‘Hey Ya’ by OutKast
‘You and I’ by Ingrid Michaelson

**we actually played ‘to build a home’ as we walked down the aisle. the first time i heard this song i hadn’t even met devon. i was walking along the streets of new york city on a work trip and feeling helplessly romantic and a bit folorn. nyc does that to a girl. my friend quddus had sent me this song and when it came onto my iPod, i stood still and listened to the entire track. i knew i wanted this song to be played at my wedding. luckily devon fell in love with it too.

are you a photographer?

um. this depends on what you mean by the term ‘photographer’. do i take photos and make a living out of it? no. do i own 14 cameras and have one at arm’s reach at all times? yes.

lately i’ve been taking photos with my vivtar panoramic film camera. i found this gem in a nashville thriftstore for $2.99. i wish i’d left the bright orange sticker on the camera body just to give it street cred. here are a few recent faves:

where were the readings in your ceremony from?

i’m a baha’i. if you’ve never heard about the baha’i faith, i encourage you to check it out. baha’i wedding ceremonies are simple – in the presence of two witnesses the couple recites the following: “We will all, verily, abide by the will of God.” the vow makes the marriage a commitment between three parties – the husband, the wife and God. Baha’i’s are free to design their own wedding and so we had fun pouring ourselves into all the details and adding creative touches so the celebration would feel very much like ‘us’.

one of the writings in the baha’i faith about marriage is this: married couples should strive to become “loving companions and comrades and at one with each other for time and eternity.”

isn’t that beautiful? i love the idea of being both companions and comrades…especially because i sometimes feel we’re interacting with a world that doesn’t always promote unity or champion commitments.

here is one of the writings we incorporated in our ceremony that speaks about love.

what do you do for work?

devon and i work on a fantastic project called SoulPancake. the mission of SP is to create a space where people can ask questions, create dialogue and delve into what it means to be human. we have a delicious SoulPancake book that we co-authored coming out in the fall, and it features several fantastic etsy artists! we’d love for you to check it out and please join the fantastic, creative, curious community at SoulPancake! You can also follow SP on twitter.

where did you get your blue shoes?

office shoes in the UK. i’ve heard they no longer sell my blue shoes, but i’m sure you’ll have fun looking at the rest of their options. this store has some lovely shoes.

where did you get your dress?

my dress is part BCBG, part my vision, and then a huge part, my incredible, talented mum! i knew that i wanted lots of layers, and lace, but i also wanted my dress to be super streamlined and delicate. i am only 5′2, so i needed something that wouldn’t overpower me.

i found a white dress i loved at BCBG, but it had a halter neck. so i decided this wasn’t a big deal because my mum is a superstar. i designed a completely different neckline and back and days before my wedding my dress was STILL in 3 separate pieces on the dining room table. was i nervous? yes. did i weep the night before my wedding because my mum (who flew in from melbourne, australia and made baklava for 200 people, sewed 14 tablecloths, hand-stitched 200 programs, and made 200 cd cases) still hadn’t finished my dress? yes.

(proof is in the photo below. please note my unfinished dress hanging on a chair while mum and dad worked on the tablecloths).

however, did i wake up on my wedding day to my perfect dream dress? YES I DID.

what elements were do-it-yourself:

bouquet & boutonnieres
photobooth
twinkly light and paper chandelier
tablecloths
cds & cd cases for wedding favors
top half of my dress ;)
heart canvas in lieu of guest book
cupcake stand
centerpieces
tv/lightbulb/umbrella installation
invitations
programs
fabric flower garlands
tissue paper flowers
devon’s wedding ring – we bought the titanium ring and then he took to it with a dremel to give it a matte finish.
my first engagement ring (the button ring)

how did you create your cupcake stand?

lots of empty cetaphil containers, cake boards of various sizes, ribbon and devon’s engineering skills. here’s a photo of my mother-in-law and i assembling :)

how did you do it all without the help of a wedding planner?

simply put: our friends and family are the definition of awesome. oh and our mother’s are both superheroes. some of our friends arrived a few days before the wedding, and were put straight to work. no job was too big, or too small – whether it was creating and untangling flower strands, arranging our centerpieces, hanging 20 light bulbs according to devon’s very precise algorithm, or creating a playlist for our dj. one friend was even tasked with finding a pig for the following day’s ‘cowboy, damsel, bear BBQ’, and so he set forth on his mission.

so i guess that wraps it up. thanks for visiting my little corner of the webosphere. i’m happy to answer any more questions – the easiest way to reach me is through my twitter or clicking INTO a post and leaving a comment. :)

these beauties are the work of the talented matt schwartz.

GET A ROOM OH WAIT YOU HAVE ONE

I hate it when married people talk to each other on Facebook. I don’t mind too much if they are just joking around or breaking each other’s balls, but the “happy anniversary to my special sweetie” followed by back-and-forth loving affirmations is gross. Don’t you two live in the same damn house? Is this the grown-up equivalent of making out in front of your locker, so everyone can see that you have a boyfriend?

LT and I are not Facebook friends. It started out for philosophical reasons like the above, and now we stick to it because it’s funny to watch Facebook continually suggest us to each other. Our lack of Facebook friendship is straining Facebook’s little algorithmic mind to the breaking point. Facebook cries, “But you must know each other! You have SEVENTY friends in common!” Sorry Facebook, never heard of the man.

marabeth is one of the most loving, patient, resilient, caring, optimistic, joyful, supportive and honest people in my world. we met almost exactly a decade ago in haifa, israel. we became roommates and the connection was solidified over countless evenings eating cheese & crackers for dinner accompanied with huge glasses filled to the brim with diet coke, ice and lime, and laughter. non-stop laughter.

along with jen, we’d dismantle the nuances of our days and squeeze every ounce of hilarity out of the situations we’d encountered. these two blonde, blue eyed american girls, one from st. louis, the other from tennessee, became my sisters. eventually we all left the place that had brought us together, but as the years passed we stayed in contact, visited when we could, and picked up wherever we had left off.

in 2007 i moved to nashville. a place i’d once dismissed as an option. i believe my exact words were “i will never ever live in the south.” and yet, there i was. for a few months i operated in autopilot – found a job, made friends, realized that if i kept busy enough i wouldn’t have to spend any miserable time alone, chopped off all my hair in an act of defiance, went out late and showed up at work with unapologetic bed-hair the next day, etc. you know, classic train-wreck behavior :)

but life has a beautiful way of coming full circle and after a few months, marabeth moved in with me and we were roommates again. she was on the delicate journey back to health, and i was just barely figuring why it was worth it to get out of bed in the mornings. and yet, somehow we managed and we repaired. i truly believe we gave each other the gift of seeing in the other, what we needed to see for ourselves. marabeth has always been my biggest champion, and i hers. and when you have someone in your corner, cheering you on, and truly believing in your nobility and higher nature, you rise to the occasion. and so we did.

in 2008 we moved into a cheerful home in east nashville. we proclaimed it the year of love, and so naturally this was deemed the house of love.

it was here we figured out how to hot wire a dryer and acquired our gangster street cred.

the house came complete with a chalkboard wall in the kitchen area which we made ample use of.

marabeth also was hired at the tennessee performing arts center, and as we walked over the bridge to work in the mornings she would tell me that we were like the real live laverne & shirley (don’t worry, i had no idea what this reference meant either). with desks within ear shot of each other, divided by a file cabinet, i think it would be an understatement to say that we had fun working together.

i found one of our conversations the other day on my old blog:

M: “He is a little odd looking”
G: “Yeah…he has that ‘I’m going to kidnap you, take you home and chop you up and put you in my freezer’ look about him doesn’t he?”
M: “No…I meant something else”
G: “Really? Like what?”
M: “Um, he looks like he has no equilibrium”
G: “Equilibrium?!”
M: “Yeah. like he might have an inner ear problem or something”
Pause.
G: “Did you really just describe someone has having no equilibrium?”
M: “Yep”
G: “Why can’t you just say ‘balance’?”
M: “If you hang out with me you have to be down with five syllable words”

anyway, we knew we’d made it really big in the entertainment world when we were featured on the back of the TPAC car!

this same year, the year of love, in the house of love, marabeth found love, as did I (don’t dismiss the power of INTENTION people).  i was the first to see her face all flushed after her marathon 3 hour phone calls with ken. and then he came to visit and i got to watch my friend (who has been praying for her husband since was 16) as she fell head over heels.

i love you maz, and i’m so excited to share in your joy on your wedding day. i promise not to say anything incriminating, like about that one time when you were watching the chinese olympic male swimmers with great interest. ;)

love,
gazza.

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

–Oriah Mountain Dreamer

move over balloons, photoshoots with BUBBLES are blowing my mind.

i want to high five the creator of these camera straps.

upcoming art project for the gundry and the golriz.

hooray for adorable rompers from the ’70s.

when my ovaries scream I WANT BABIES!, i go here.

i’m probably guilty of this: stereotyping people by the websites they frequent.

i applaud pretty, but functional, web design. this archive of posts from fastcodesign beats any calendar or prev / next buttons.