Hi. We're Karen and Dana. Karen is the tall one who teaches fourth grade; Dana is the one with the tools who does set construction for a living and could build you a bookshelf out of this table before you finished reading the page. We met on the Fourth of July, 1993, at a friend's barbecue, over an argument about whether the potato salad needed more mustard. (It did. Karen was right. Dana has never conceded this and we've been together six years.)

We've lived together for five of them, in a little duplex with a lemon tree, a cat named Pancake, and a very old washing machine. We've done Thanksgivings and hospital waiting rooms and one truly terrible road trip to Tucson. We've been, in every way that matters to us, married for a while now. What we hadn't done was stand up in front of everybody we love and say so.

So on June 10, 2000, we're going to. It isn't legal, and we know that, and we're doing it anyway, because the part we care about isn't the piece of paper. It's the people, and the promise, and the cake. This page is where we're keeping track of the planning, mostly so our mothers stop calling to ask "what's happening with the ceremony," and partly because it's fun to write down.

The place. Our friend Ruthie has a backyard garden that she has spent twenty years turning into something out of a magazine: roses, a fig tree, a brick patio, a little fountain that Dana fixed last spring (which is how the whole conversation started, honestly; Dana was under the fountain and Ruthie said "you two should just get married in my yard" and Karen said "okay"). It holds about 80 people if the weather is good and about 40 if it isn't, so we've been watching June weather for a year and it's usually good. Rain plan: Ruthie's living room, garage, and a lot of umbrellas.

The date. Saturday, June 10, 2000, at four in the afternoon, so the ceremony is in the light and the party is in the dusk with the little white lights on. Karen's school year ends the Friday before, which is not a coincidence.

The guest list. Eighty. We started with 140 and it hurt. The rule we landed on: people who have been in our house. That cut it to 90. Then the two of us each gave up five people the other one couldn't stand, and there was some crying, and now it's 80, and it's the right 80. Invitations go out in March; Karen's making them on the computer and Dana's cousin who works at a print shop is going to run them.

The officiant. Our friend Paul. He's done this for two other couples we know and he's warm and funny and won't go on too long, which is our only real requirement. He's a hospice chaplain, so he also knows when to stop talking, which is a gift. He asked us both, separately, to write down what we love about the other one and mail it to him, and he's going to use it, and we are both a little nervous about what the other one wrote.

The food: potluck. This was Dana's idea and it's the best idea in the whole plan. We're providing the main thing (Dana's family is doing carnitas and Karen's mom is doing her baked ziti, and yes, together, on the same table, and nobody will complain) and the cake and the drinks. Everybody else brings a dish that means something to them. There's a sign-up sheet on our refrigerator and a copy at Ruthie's so we don't end up with eleven potato salads. (There will be one potato salad. Karen is making it. With mustard.)

The cake. Lemon, from the lemon tree, made by Ruthie's sister, who does this. Two tiers. No tiny plastic people on top. We're still arguing about what goes on top instead. Current leading candidate: two lemons.

Music. Our friend Teresa's trio for the ceremony; a boom box and a big stack of CDs for the party. Everyone's been told to bring one CD. We're afraid of what Dana's brother will bring.

Clothes. Karen: a cream-colored dress she found in July and hid in the closet. Dana: a linen suit, being made by Dana's aunt Connie (see The Families, because aunt Connie is a whole story). No tuxes, no veils, no rules. Guests: "garden party, and comfortable shoes, there's grass."

Cost, since people ask. With the garden free, the officiant a friend, the food a potluck and the music a favor, we think we'll come in under $1,500, most of it the cake, the drinks, the chairs (rented) and the invitations. We are aware this is a miracle and we're grateful for every bit of it.

We're writing our own. We've decided on three rules: under a minute each, no inside jokes nobody else will get, and we don't read each other's until the day. So what follows is only the part we've agreed to say together, out loud, after Paul asks the question. Everybody keeps asking, so here it is, in its current draft (we've rewritten it four times; this is the one that made Ruthie cry, so it's probably close):

The individual parts are being written in secret, in two different notebooks, in two different rooms, and we've each caught the other one crying over hers at least once. This is apparently normal. Ruthie says it's normal.

People want to know about this part, so we asked everyone if we could write it, and everyone said yes, including the aunt.

Karen's parents live in Sacramento and have known about Dana since 1994, when Karen brought her home for Christmas and introduced her as "my friend Dana" and Karen's mother said, in the kitchen, "Honey, I'm not blind." Her mother is doing the ziti and has already bought a hat. Her father, who does not talk about feelings, asked Dana in July if she'd like him to walk Karen "down the aisle, or whatever it is," and Dana said she thought Karen would love that, and he said "well, all right then," and went to check the oil in the car. That's as close as he gets. It's plenty.

Dana's family is big and Catholic and from East L.A., and it took longer, and it was harder, and we're not going to pretend it wasn't. Her mother didn't speak to her for most of 1995. What changed it was time, and Dana's brother Marco, who just kept bringing it up at Sunday dinner until it was normal, and Pancake the cat, who Dana's mother fell for completely and who therefore required visits. Her mother is now doing the carnitas for 80 people and has opinions about the tablecloths. Her father, who is quiet, told Dana last month that he'd like to say a few words at the party, and Dana went out to the truck and sat there for a while.

Aunt Connie. Dana's aunt Connie is 71 and a seamstress and did not, at first, take it well. She said some things in 1996 that we're not going to write down. She didn't come to Thanksgiving for two years. And then last spring she called Dana, out of nowhere, and said she'd heard about "the ceremony" and that if Dana was going to stand up in front of people she was not going to do it in something off the rack, and when could she come by for measurements. She has been by four times. She has not said the word "wedding" and she has not said the word "sorry" and she doesn't have to, because she's sewing every stitch of that suit by hand and that's how she says it. She's coming. She said she'd sit "wherever." We're putting her in the front row.

Our brothers, sisters, cousins and the kids: wonderful, all of them, and they're the reason the guest list couldn't get below 80. Karen's nieces (9 and 6) are the flower girls and have been practicing walking slowly, which is hard when you're 6. Marco is Dana's best man; Karen's sister Beth is her maid of honor, and they have already, without asking us, planned a joint toast, which we've been told to "just be ready for."

We have lived together for five years. We have two of everything. We have two colanders. We have, somehow, three ironing boards. What we do not have is a toaster, because ours died in August and we've been making toast under the broiler like animals.

So the registry is this: a toaster. One. Somebody claim it. (Dana's mother has already claimed it. Fine. Then the registry is nothing.)

Really, though: bring a dish, bring a CD, bring yourself. If you absolutely have to bring something in a box, we're collecting children's books for Karen's classroom library, and we'll have a basket by the door. Fourth-graders go through books like Pancake goes through tuna.

We'll update this as things get done. Most recent at the top.

Still to do: invitations (March), rent the chairs (April), figure out what goes on top of the cake (ongoing), write the secret vows (ongoing, in two rooms), find a photographer who's a friend of a friend and works for potluck (we've been told this person exists), and remind Dana's brother about the CD.

After June 10 we'll put up how it went. If the pictures come out, and if we can find somebody with a scanner, we'll put up some of those too. Ruthie has already asked for the fountain to be in at least one.