More on our wedding registry...

I'm afraid that the story about our fairly unremarkable wedding registry (in our eyes) just won't die. The latest article is Charity Begins At the Altar in the Chicago Tribune who even sent a photographer around to snap us in London last week. "It might seem that Alexander and Elliott, who fell in love while doing volunteer work in the West Bank, have a one-of-a-kind wedding registry, an altruistic gift list that does not include a single request for place settings or Tupperware. But statistics show they are just one couple among thousands leading a burgeoning, multimillion-dollar trend: using a ceremony that celebrates love as a way to help people caught in the grip of poverty."

UPDATE: Yet more coverage... the Chicago Tribune article has been syndicated around US local papers, usually on 21 July under the title "Giving Cupid a shot at Charity" in Belleville News-Democrat, IL, San Luis Obispo Tribune, CA, Monterey County Herald, CA, Myrtle Beach Sun News, SC, Duluth News Tribune, MN, Macon Telegraph, GA, Biloxi Sun Herald, The State, SC, Bradenton Herald, Kentucky.com, Contra Costa Times, CA, Centre Daily Times, PA, Grand Forks Herald, ND, Charlotte Observer, NC, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, GA, Kansas City Star, MO, Wichita Eagle, KS... and probably elsewhere (as I didn't run this search until late August by which time Googlenews wasn't picking up articles before 21st July. It was also mentioned in the Christian Century on 8 August, and in the Victoria Advoacate, TX on 13 August.

Our UK wedding

Not content with just one wedding, we had a second ceromony in London last Saturday (8th July) to involve our friends here. It was a really fun day and it was wonderful seeing everyone and watching new friendships (and possibly new romances...) forming amongst our guests. Some photos have been posted online by Tim, which at the moment are the only ones we have - if you took any please could you email them to me in as high a resolution as you can. Here is a copy of the service sheet.

Seasoned Justin & Jenny groupie Milan Rai, among a handful to attend both US & UK halves of the wedding (ust our parents, best man Tim and groomsmen George and Adi), writes more of his always interesting reflections. If anyone else has blogged about the wedding let me know so I can link to it.

More articles about our registry and wedding

I just did a Google and found some more articles about our Wedding registry that I wasn't aware of. We continue to find the interest amusing as we didn't think that asking for charitable donations as wedding presents was particularly unusual and really is one of the least strange things about our lives! Here a good piece in the Rocky Mountain News (Colarado paper) "Some save a piece of the wedding cake for the needy". Here's the press release that The Big Day (who managed our registry) sent out about us, I should note that the figures given in it for the number of beneficiaries are incorrect.

After all the embarrasing praise we've had for the rather unremarkable act of including some opinions for donations in our wedding registry, its rather refreshing to see this critical article by Lindor Reynolds in the Winnipeg Free Press "Save the world, fund a honeymoon" (here is the Google cache of it to avoid registering). "I've found the registry for do-gooders Jenny and Justin... [thence follows a list of both the charitable items on our registry and items related to our honeymoon]... Maybe it's me, but didn't it used to be traditional to have the honeymoon you could actually afford? And not to call it charity if it's just wrapped around a list of extravagant desires?" Ouch. In response to Linor, let me explain the thinking behind our registry. As people whose lives are split between many countries lot and who anyway don't like being cluttered with lots of possessions we asked most of our guests not to buy the standard wedding gifts. We would have been quite happy with peoples presence and/or prayers, but people naturally like to buy gifts at weddings, and so when we came across a website which enabled people to give cash instead of objects, but to do in a more personal way of contributing towards our honeymoon, this made sense. And as a time when a lot of money is being spent on our wedding and honeymoon, we didn't want to forget others, hence the inclusion of donations for medical aid for Iraqi children, funds to support a Palestinian friend's wedding and provision of livestock for subsistance farmers through Heifer International. So far we've had a total of 63 gifts to these three causes, totalling over $1200 and representing more than a quarter of the gifts we've recieved. We're grateful to everyone who's given. Interestingly the most (outrageously) generous gift we received came from an Iraqi.

I've just seen that Mil Rai has blogged about the wedding. He's an amazing Nepalese-English activist/writer who took a day out of his US speaking tour to attend the wedding. I didn't get more than 2 minutes to talk to him (this is the way with weddings) but I was so delighted he came and his reflections are interesting reading as always: The Resistance Wedding, Christian Song, Resistance Wedding Litany, The Other Cheek (his final post raises some important questions which I'll blog a response to in the future).

Back from Honeymoon!

We had a wonderful honeymoon in St.Lucia, in spite of Jenny getting stung about 200 times by tiny jelly fish while diving. We're now in Missouri where she is packing up her life in preperation to move to London on Sunday (her UK settlement visa came through in double quick time, el-hamdullilah). Next week will be busy planning the UK-half of the wedding festivities (i hope to see lots of you there!) and also we're trying to find interesting jobs related to the Middle East / conflict resolution / development etc. (any ideas welcome!). Our official wedding photos are online here (I gave the wrong link before) and there are also some on Raed's and David's and Tim's websites.

Married!

Can you believe it? I'm struggling to! Some pre-wedding photos should be posted here and I'll put up a link to the Wedding day photos as soon as they're online (any guest reading this please email us any snaps you took). We're off on honeymoon in an hour so bye for now! - A very happy Justin.

Our wedding registry story on St.Louis TV

Jenny and I thought that probably the most normal thing about our relationship was our wedding registry, but somehow the media have got interested in it. KMOV, the local TV station in St.Louis came and interviewed us about it today and it aired on the 5pm news and is the most viewed news item on their website here. Its kinda embarrassing. Watch out for the bit in the video where they zoom in on me picking a piece of lint out of Jenny's hair - apparently the camera was running when they were sorting out the sound levels and they chose to play this - it's a bit like the intro to Farenheit 911 which catches Wolfowitz, Bush and others making faces and doing their hair prior to interviews when they don't realise the camera is running! The reporter apparently thinks everything in life comes in 20s, i'm not sure where she got that from, also her description of Tuwani "a village in West Bank where almost everyone lives in caves with their sheep" sounds a bit funny but actually isn't too far from the truth.

They edited out all the politics in our interview of course. For the record there's a reason why Palestinians need sheep donated - because the settlers kill their folks and because of the economic blockade by Israel and the West. Also, Iraqi children wouldn't be needing medical aid - in a country which used to have good universal free health care - unless we'd seriously messed the place up through our wars, sanctions and occupation... Anyhow I can't blog any more as we're deep into wedding planning and Jenny is pulling me away from the computer...

Pre-wedding photos

Jenny and I wandered out in St. Louis' Forest Park (the largest municipal park in the US, twice the size of Central Park) with a photographer friend of the family to get some pre-wedding photos as we have very few decent ones of us together. The full set is here

Our wedding in the Globe and Mail...

This is hilarious article about"ALT WEDDING REGISTRIES" by Karen Von Hann in Canadian Globe & Mail (3 June 2006) mentioning our wedding registry, which the journalist stumbled acro

"What to get the couple who have everything? How about livestock? When Jenny, 24, and Justin, 27, tie the knot next week, the two Christian peacemakers, who are based in Amman, have asked their wedding guests to chip in for sheep and goats for needy Arab families. "Justin and I don't feel the need to develop an extensive dining collection," explains Elliott, who believes that "having a lot of things just weighs you down." She adds: "We want our wedding to reflect our values and set the tone for our lives, so this made sense." As it happens, Jenny and Justin may be trendsetters, yet they are also an altruistic exception. Most couples, finding themselves with little need for the traditional essentials of setting up house, are finding novel ways to romance what they see essentially as an opportunity." [continued...]

So I turned 28 this morning - yikes! I'm leaving the Middle East in a few days to head to St.Louis Missouri for the wedding (on 17 June) then honeymooning in the Caribbean then settling in London and franctically searching for jobs for Jenny and myself. It feels strange and in a way disloyal to be moving on with my life when so many friends are trapped in Iraq with little hope. Still my Iraqi friends have given me their blessing, and while I probably won't be in the country for a while I'll try to stay involved. CPT-UK held a retreat this weekend, reported here, sadly as I'm not in country yet I couldn't attend.