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I’m getting married in a little under two weeks, and a few nights ago I had my first anxiety dream about my upcoming wedding. It went like this: my wedding and the American Library Association Annual Conference (ALA) had been scheduled for the same time. I was arranging books at our exhibit booth in my wedding dress, and when I tried to leave to head to the altar, an author appeared for her signing. She demanded that I stay and fix the lighting, which she said was not flattering. I woke up in a cold sweat.

It doesn’t take Freud to figure out where this dream came from. As any marketing person can tell you, conferences take an immense amount of work, planning, and mental energy. As it turns out, weddings do too. The good news is that I’ve learned a lot in my eight years of planning and attending conferences that helped me stay sane throughout the wedding planning process—and there’s a lot that wedding planning can teach about conferences, too. Here are a few tips that I’ve found to be true for both events:

Always be prepared. Long-term planning is essential, but I’ve found that in order for events to go off without a hitch, a lot of time needs to be dedicated to thinking through the minute details because seemingly small things can throw a wrench in even the best-laid plans. Are any of your dinner guests gluten-free? Do you need a reminder to change your watch when you get to a new time zone? In which part of the convention center is the exhibit hall located? How many pens have you brought for your signing? What will you do if your powerpoint was not uploaded as promised?

If you are an author attending a conference, think through all the items you will need and make a list, so you remember to bring them all with you or make sure your publisher has them. If you have an itinerary, look over it carefully and get any questions you have answered early, before the conference starts. The more time you set aside ahead of time to think through the details, the less likely you are to be caught by surprise on the day of your event.

You can’t make everyone happy. In wedding-land, it’s notoriously hard to satisfy everyone and make decisions without some feelings getting hurt. You’d think that conferences would be less emotionally wrought, but I am hear to tell you that’s not always the case. Your book is your baby, and it’s natural to feel disappointed when it doesn’t draw the attention or sales that you hoped it would. Not all signings go well, and not all panels pull a standing-room-only crowd. Not every author gets his or her own publisher-sponsored cocktail party. When it comes to conferences, everyone is working with limited time, attention, and resources. Try to go in with managed expectations, and remember that you’ve created a beautiful piece of art. Even if it doesn’t attract all the attention you hoped it would, it is still something to celebrate and be proud of. And if you connect with just a few new readers who are excited, you never know where that might lead.

Use Institutional Knowledge. When I started planning my wedding, nothing helped me more than speaking with friends who had gone through it before. They pointed me in the right direction, kept me sane, and even shared their spreadsheets with me. If you are an author going to a conference for the first time, don’t reinvent the wheel: use your publisher and peers to help you plan. If you have never done a signing on a conference floor before, ask for some recommendations of ways to break the ice with people walking by (we have some great recommendations from authors here, here, and here). If you are going to a dinner or another event for the first time, ask fellow authors or publishing staff what they use to start conversation or keep it going. What kind of materials are helpful to bring along? If you ask questions you’ll find that people are happy to share their knowledge and experience with you, so you don’t have to start from scratch.

Don’t lose sight of the big picture. In conferences and weddings, it’s easy to get bogged down in the small details. But at the end of the day, what’s your goal? If it’s a wedding, your goal is probably (hopefully!) to get married. If it’s a conference, your goal may not be quite as clear, but it’s worth thinking through. Do you want to introduce your book to new people? To connect in person with key contacts? To meet your editor for the first time? To sell copies at your book signing? To drum up new school visits? If you can figure out which goal or goals are most important to you, it’s easier to plan your conference experience around that. Decide where you want to allocate your time, energy, and resources. Let your publisher know what you hope to accomplish, so you’re all on the same page. Your goal can help you navigate the conference craziness and come out sane on the other side.

Whatever you do, don’t let the stress of event planning take away from the joy of the event, whether that means getting married or sharing your book with the world (next time ALA is based in Las Vegas, you could do both at once!). Keep calm, keep your eye on the prize, and you’ll get through just fine.

At SPX, following the Ignatz awards, a very special wedding took place, as cartoonist Simon Hanselmann, author of Megahex, wed comics in a ceremony presided over by SPX Executive Director Michael Thomas. Michel DeForge, currently on tour with Hanselmann, stood in for comics, althuogh several acual comics were present. Hanselmann, who is a cross dresser, appeared in a lovely wedding gown, and a brass band serenaded the wedding party which consisted of Annie Koyama, Annie Mock, Jason Leivian, Sean T. Collins, Julia Gfrörer and Gary Groth.

When I first heard about this, I thought it was going to be funny but cringeworthy, but it turned out to be funny and memorable in a very performance arty way. Hansellman wrote vows that were amusing and accurate at the same time, and since everyone falls in love with comics all over again at SPX, making the union legal seemed a very appropriate thing to do.

As you’ll see, the big moment came when Hanselmann’s publisher Groth jumped up at the end to kiss the bride and kiss the two did. Which again, is usually what happens when you fall passionately in love with someone, or even comics. Brigid Alverson has some still photos and the money shot but you’ll have to go here to see that.

After the ceremony, Hanselmann cut a giant wedding cake, eventually tearing out chunks with his bare hands and giving them out as other attendees cavorted around the chocolate fountain and an equally enthusiastic and fun prom got under way a few meeting rooms down. People will be saying they were there for this for years to come. The social aspect of SPX has always been one of the biggest appeals of the show—I remember back in the day at the picnic people climbed trees and threw water balloons at each other. In a wacky way, this was the perfect update.

This was DEFINITELY an SPX to remember!

Photo by Brigid Alverson

This weekend the Small Press Expo takes place in North Bethesda, MD. The show is known for its collegial, summer camp vibe, but this year, it is going ALL OUT. There will never again be talk about the pig roast or the softball game or the karaoke or anything else, because this year there is going to be a PROM.

Yes following the Ignatzes there will be a danceathon in prom finery as we dance around the chocolate fountain in glee. This kind of display has been bubbling under in private parties for years but this year, it’s real. In case you’re worried about etiquette, the SPX tumblr has the rulez.

There is also going to be a post Ignatz WEDDING, according to Simon Hanselmann:

What is this wedding you’re doing?

I was joking about having a fake wedding, and then Cohen at Fantagraphics got really excited about it and said, “We’ll do it, it’ll be real.” It’s a publicity stunt, basically. I’m going to buy a wedding dress. Grant and I have to get drunk and go to the wedding dress strip and buy a wedding dress. I’m worried about how much it’s going to cost. It’s a fake wedding; DeForge is my best man. It was going to be officiated by Gary Groth, but I think Chris Mautner is doing it now, from Comic Book Resources. There’s going to be cake, balloons, I’m getting married to comics. It’s going to be a beautiful, emotional, symbolic kind of tribute to my love of the craft. I’m kind of nervous about it now, because I kind of have to write it, like it’s a comedy bit in a way. And it’s very heartfelt in a way. I’m kind of a bit crazy. It will have meaning to me, but it’s just kind of a lark as well. I’m going to do a talk at Parsons, I’ve got my list of all the stuff I have to do, I’m going to do Gridlords.

Will this surpass the time Nick Gurewitch talked to a gorilla? Very possibly.

Anyway, it looks like this will be a Saturday night SPX hoedown that people will be talking about for days, even weeks to come. Word on the street is that there will be Tumblr posts about it and possibly even tweets.

My only regret is that due to luggage restraints, I won’t be able to bring a hat. =( Oh well, best to leave that kind of thing to the kids, anyway.

Oh yeah Flashback Friday, here’s Eric Reynolds and Chris Oarr, then SPX director, from 2003 at the OLD hotel. I hear Oarr will be making an appearance for this 20th Anniversary show. Truly this one has it all.

The best way to paint is painting from life, not from computer reference images and not from photos. It is easier (at least for me) to paint or draw something that already 1dimensional because some of the flattening/simplifying of information is already done. So here you can see my magnolia watercolor painting from life in progress.

While each couple believes their wedding to be unique, they are in fact building on centuries of social traditions, often reflecting their region and culture. Throughout England, Scotland, and Wales, these celebrations served not only the families but their communities. We sat down with Rab Houston, author of Bride Ales and Penny Weddings: Recreations, Reciprocity, and Regions in Britain from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries, to discuss the creation of modern marriage ceremonies.

How did you encounter this subject?

When I first started my career as an historian, I came across Scottish penny weddings in my documents. Lively, open events where guests paid for their own entertainment and gave money to the couple, they evoked a strong sense of community. That provoked my curiosity and they have been in the back of my mind ever since. Then, when researching my last book, I found similar sorts of marriage celebration in both Wales and the north of England. That made me even more curious, because the parts of Britain that shared these ‘contributory weddings’ were so very different in other ways. Then it dawned on me that the north and west of Britain had many social and cultural characteristics in common, like a sense of egalitarianism and trust, which went beyond conventional territorial boundaries and which made them very different from the south and east of England. I wanted to understand regional variations in social values.

So you believe that an understanding of our history and culture is crucial to a sense of identity?

It is absolutely vital. To be alive is to be touched by history. However much we think we live in the present and hope for a better future, we are our memories and our history. Knowing where we come from and why we are the way we are gives us identity. But understanding ourselves in both time and space also makes us better at dealing with the profound changes that are affecting Britain now.

What are the implications for the current debate on regional devolution and even Scottish independence?

National frontiers are important in many ways, but they often draw arbitrary lines, which meant little to people in the past and may be exaggerated for us. I think the people of north and west Britain always have had different social priorities from those in the south and east. To me this is the fundamental division within Britain: not any political dividing line between Scotland and England.

Illustrated Penny Tales. From the “Strand” Library. no. 1-10″ Shelfmark: “British Library HMNTS 12623.k.24.” via British Library Flickr

How has the view of marriage and the marriage ceremony changed?

The point about a penny wedding is that the marriage ceremony itself was much less important than the social rituals surrounding it. Bridals celebrated the union and welcomed the couple into their new life. The couple’s relationship with each other and with their family and friends is also what matters most to men and women now.

This is all a bit serious: surely weddings are just about having fun?

Of course! Penny weddings and their English and Welsh equivalents were occasions of hospitality, sociability, and reciprocity. Relatives, friends, and neighbours all attended, showing their approval of the couple and helping to establish them in life. Bride ales and penny weddings were about husband and wife, but they also say something very important about the desire to create a sense and a practice of community. They may have much to tell us about some of the best things that we once enjoyed, in a world we have now largely lost.

Could we recreate that in the modern world?

I don’t see why not. Penny weddings are still held in the west of Scotland and other forms of communal sociability that express civic identity and a desire for self-help remain part of life in Cumbria and Wales. People can recreate this type of celebration for themselves, enriching their own lives and those of the communities in which they live and work.

Robert Allan Houston is the author of Bride Ales and Penny Weddings: Recreations, Reciprocity, and Regions in Britain from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries. He has worked at the University of St Andrews since 1983 and is Professor of Early Modern History, specialising in British social history. He is a fellow of both the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Society of Edinburgh (Scotland’s national academy), and a member of the Academia Europaea. He is also the author of Scotland: A Very Short Introduction.

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By Helen Berry

 
The purpose of British royalty is for people to look at them.  Successful monarchs throughout history have understood this basic necessity and exploited it.  Elizabeth I failed to marry, and thus denied her subjects the greatest of all opportunities for royal spectacle.  However, she made up for it with a queenly progress around England.  As the house guest of the local gentry and nobility, she cleverly deferred upon her hosts the expense of providing bed, breakfast and lavish entertainment for her vast entourage, in return for getting up close and personal with her royal personage.  It was not enough to be queen: she had to be seen to be queen.  Not many monarchs pursued such an energetic itinerary or bothered to visit the farther-flung corners of their realm again (unless they proved fractious and started a rebellion).  But then, most of Elizabeth’s successors over the next two hundred years were men, who could demonstrate their iconic status and personal authority, if need be, upon the battlefield (which was no mere theory: as every schoolboy or girl ought to know, George II was the last monarch to British lead troops in battle). 

Towards the end of the seventeenth century, improvements in print technology and increasing freedom of the press provided a new way for British people to look at their king or queen.  The rise of a mass media in Britain was made possible by the lapse of the Press Act in 1695 (the last concerted attempt by the government to censor newspapers).  The Constitutional Settlement of 1689 had determined that Divine Right was not the source of the king’s authority, rather, the consent of the people through parliament.  So, during the next century, from the very moment that the monarchy had started to become divested of actual power, royal-watching through the press increasingly became a spectator sport.  Essentially harmless, the diverting obsession with celebrity royals proved the proverbial wisdom inherited from ancient Rome that ‘beer and circuses’ were a great way to keep people happy, and thus avoid the need to engage them with the complex and unpleasant realpolitik of the day.

It was during the long reign of George III (1760-1820) that newspapers truly started to become agents of mass propaganda for the monarchy as figureheads of that elusive concept: British national identity.  The reporting of royal births, marriages and deaths became a staple of journalistic interest.  Royal households had always been subject to the gaze of courtiers, politicians and visiting dignitaries, but via the press, this lack of privacy now became magnified, with public curiosity extending to the details of what royal brides wore on their wedding days.  George III made the somewhat unromantic declaration to his Council in July 1761:  ‘I am come to Resolution to demand in Marriage Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg Strelitz’.  She was a woman ‘distinguished by every eminent Virtue and amiable Endowment’, a Protestant princess from an aristocratic German house who spoke no English before her wedding, but no matter: she was of royal blood and from ‘an illustrious Line’. 

The first blow-by-blow media account of the making of a royal bride ensued, starting with the employment of 300 men to fit up the king’s yacht in Deptford to fetch Charlotte from across the Channel.  Over the course of the summer in an atmosphere of anticipation at seeing their future Queen, London printsellers began cashing in, with pin-up portraits of the Princess ‘done from a Miniature’ at two shillings a time.  Negotiations towards the contract of marriage were followed closely by the newsreading public during August and were concluded mid-month to general satisfaction.  Finally, after two weeks of wearisome travel, on September 7^th, the Princess arrived at Harwich.  The St. Jam