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On the road

The first half of “A Wedding in Haiti” relates the sometimes comical, often moving adventures of a ragtag group of Dominicans and Haitians navigating checkpoints and potholes in Bill’s Ford pickup. It’s 2009; Haitians are treated like aliens by ruling Dominicans.

As the section closes, Alvarez says, “When we have seen a thing, we have to tell the story.” Her new familiarity with Haitian life has been a soaking.

Coming home, she finds it is a different place, not because it has changed, but because she sees it differently. Her deferential watchman, Don Ramón — he’s a former soldier. Her guide on her Haiti trip, Homero — he’ll go home and tell a private version of their story.

“One thing is certain,” she wraps up. “Like the Ancient Mariner, we will feel compelled to tell the story, over and over. As a way to understand what happened to us.”

Two-part mirror

“A Wedding in Haiti” is a memoir with the structure and impact of a novel.

The story that Alvarez tells in Part Two picks up a year later, after the earthquake of 2010 has devastated Haiti. A trip back to Piti’s region is necessary, and Bill wants to stop in Port-au-Prince to help.

Alvarez puts reflection aside, except for a brief account of Haiti’s riches-to-rags history, and kicks into another adventure trip — the facing side of her mirror into Haitian society.

Interactions with a convenience store proprietress; Esseline’s godmother; an impromptu tour guide through a flash flood; cool Charlie who has come a-courting; Piti’s mother; and Esseline’s younger sisters follow.

One sister produces a school notebook that her elder sister, Lanessa, has filled with exercises — “a catechism,” Alvarez writes “of what a young person should know.”

It comes in the form of lists: “symptoms of AIDS” and “three ways to prevent getting AIDS”; “the great countries of the world,” including West Germany, “which hasn’t existed since 1991”; the great problems of the world,” and a prompt to name solutions for each one.

“Not surprisingly, the pages after this last question are blank,” Alvarez notes.

She applies the lesson to her own late-life education. After a frightening encounter with a violent gang at a flooded part of the road, she thinks about “the great problems of the world,” including and especially, “the inequitable distribution of goods.”

Heart of generousness

Alvarez’s theme — how following the heart leads one across boundaries and plunges one in politics, personal and national — has infused many great books: Nadine Gordimer’s “My Son’s Story” (South Africa); Olive Tilford Dargan’s “Call Home the Heart” (Southern Appalachia); Graham Greene’s “The Power and the Glory” (Mexico); and others.

“A Wedding in Haiti” joins that list. It is hopeful, folksy, sobering and graceful with good story-telling.

Like everything else these days, more and more people are turning to the internet to plan their weddings. Honestly, who has time and money to buy wedding magazines and tab or cut out inspiration? After all, the content is mostly free, endless, and easy to access. Two websites in particular have revolutionized wedding planning – and neither are specifically wedding-oriented.

When my partner and I first got engaged, I’d talk about Pinterest and Etsy incessantly. For a while he thought I was talking nonsense, until we finally sat down and went through the sites together. Pinterest (www.pinterest.com), a virtual corkboard, and Etsy (www.etsy.com), an e-commerce site, have made planning and paying for your wedding much easier. Now he’s just as hooked as I am. Let’s take a look at the sites and the most efficient way to use them.

Most engaged couples create a wedding binder. The binder is often divided into two parts: wedspiration (wedding inspiration) and logistics (contracts and schedules). I recommend using Pinterest to essentially eliminate the need for a wedspiration section of your wedding binder. Your arms will be grateful for less weight, trees will be grateful for less paper, and your brain will be grateful for better organization.

With Pinterest, you create your own personal virtual corkboards of images and ideas. You can create unlimited boards, and even re-pin an item someone else put on their own board. This website is perfect for gathering all of those pictures from Google that inspired you. (You aren’t alone. We all use Google Image Search. It’s easy and convenient.) The best part of Pinterest is the ability to organize all of your wedspiration. Instead of investing in dividers, paper, and tabs, you can simply create separate boards for your different ideas. For example, when my partner and I started our account, we had a separate board for each segment of our wedding. We had a board for color inspiration, one for cake ideas, one for bridesmaid dresses, and yet another for decoration/theme ideas. When we started to make decisions, we combined the different pieces from each board into one concept board and deleted the clutter of what we didn’t need. And don’t forget, Pinterest isn’t just for your wedding. You can collect recipes, home décor inspiration, and even ideas for your registry.

Most new users are a little confused on how to get started, so let me break it down. First, sign up for Pinterest. You do this by requesting an invitation or having another user invite you. Once your account is created, you have the option of adding a Pin It button to your web browser. You’ll want to do this. Whenever you see an image you want to add, you click on the Pin It button and choose the board you want it assigned to. You also have the option of uploading pictures from your computer directly to your board. Similar to Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, you can follow other members, “Like” their pins, or “re-pin” an item. You can even follow specific boards from other members.

While Pinterest is revolutionizing how couples plan for and design their weddings, Etsy is creating a whole new realm for not only wedspiration, but actual acquisition of items many couples couldn’t access before.

Etsy is an e-commerce website that allows its users to post homemade and/or vintage items for sale. I’ve found that Etsy has three great purposes. First, it allows you to browse for ideas that will fit the theme of your wedding. In conjunction with Pinterest, this is an amazing tool. There are millions of ideas and images right at your fingertips. But logistically, Etsy provides two other functions.

Second, it allows you to purchase goods and services that you would have a hard time accessing in the past. Everything from jewelry, dresses, invitations, and calligraphy are available on Etsy. Trending items include personalized memorial candles and dress hangers. Often these items are at a lower price than if you were to commission them from a local artist. (And come on, who doesn’t like a good deal?) For example, it’s easy to find a handmade one-of-a-kind veil and fascinator on Etsy for as little as $75, when in a store you could pay up to $300 for a similar piece.

The third value of Etsy is for those of us who have a creative itch and love DIY projects. Etsy has an array of wholesale suppliers that have hard-to-get supplies (such as brooches for the newly popular brooch bouquet) for an extremely low cost. My partner and I chose to purchase handmade origami roses off Etsy wholesale to make our bouquets, boutonnieres, and corsages ourselves. The entire wedding party and family included, we were able to accommodate 28 people’s flower arrangements for under $300 and a little over three hours worth of work. To order these bouquets already made would have cost us a minimum of $900. As an added bonus, for the craftiest of couples, Etsy is a great way to get ideas on how to recreate your favorite items yourself. While it’s tempting to purchase the personalized dress hangars for $15 a piece, with a little time and patience you’ll find that most people can make the same design themselves for $5. A word of caution, as I’ve mentioned before, you have to weigh the financial cost of buying the item against the time and energy cost of making it. Again, only you and your partner know what you can handle.

In Williamsburg, this year’s Historic Garden Week in Virginia tour on April 24 commemorates the 150th anniversary of America’s Civil War.

You can tour the Palmer House, temporary headquarters of Union Gen. George McClellan who wrote to his wife of its “lovely gardens and conservatory,” as well as Bassett Hall, where a young Union Lt. George Armstrong Custer served as best man at the wedding of his West Point classmate and wounded Confederate officer. You can also see the President’s House at the College of William and Mary, a home with its own Civil War connections.

“All the properties in the colonial historic area and on the campus played significant roles before and after the May 5, 1862, Battle of Williamsburg,” says Terry Buntrock, tour chairman and a member of the Williamsburg Garden Club, which sponsors the event.

“In addition to the Civil War properties, the tour features contemporary homes in the neighborhood that borders Williamsburg’s new Arts District.”

Three properties you don’t want to miss, says Buntrock, include:

1) Bassett Hall, the former home of the John D. Rockefeller family, which has not been open for Garden Week since 1961. The Colonial Revival gardens were designed by Arthur Shurcliff as a place where the Rockefellers could actually do some gardening work themselves. The home and many outbuildings will be open.

2) Another “must see” would be the escorted or self-guided walking tour of important trees and gardens on the College of William and Mary campus. This is the first time in 79 years that the campus tour has been offered, and it will include The President’s Home and The Wren Building and Chapel. Important Civil War history will be discussed. Nancy Hugo, author of “Remarkable Trees of Virginia,” will be on hand to sign her book and answer questions about Williamsburg’s Heritage Trees, including the dawn redwoods on the campus.

3) The Hertzler Garden on College Terrace was in Better Homes and Gardens magazine in 2010 – read the 2010-published Daily Press story about the garden at http://www.roomandyard.com/diggin. The Hertzlers were inspired by the gardens at Colonial Williamsburg, and vegetables and flowers co-exist in the planting beds.

In addition, you can see the Steele home and garden, a chalet-style cottage built in 1920; it was one of the first homes constructed west of the William and Mary campus. Purchased in 2006 by its present owner, the house has been renovated and preserved. The original owner was a Colonial Williamsburg groundskeeper who planted boxwood, camellias, azaleas and crape myrtles that are still there.

Mattey’s Garden, a school garden dedicated in 1999 at Matthew Whale Elementary School on Scotland Street, will also be open. – Kathy Van Mullekom