All your life...

I promised an Across the Universe board, and I keep my promises.

I discovered the Beatles when I moved to California in 6th grade. We drove across the country to our new home, and I played the Beatles in my Walkman because my only older cousin thought they were cool, so that meant that they had to be. So for a long while, the early Beatles music (Hard Day's Night) was associated with that sense of adventure and excitement for me.

I kind of let my Beatles love drop off for a while after that, though I knew of them and their awesomeness, I was not an avid fan. In my freshman year of high school, however, that changed again.

I was a band geek. A true, die hard, complete with strange outfits and non-conformist attitude band geek. Damn proud of it. Our show my freshman year was the 1960s and included music that changed the world during that decade. We played great stuff from Miss Saigon as well as "Adagio for Strings" and another Beatles hit: "With a Little Help from my Friends," but the ballad was my favorite. Leading into "Adagio," we played a slow version of "Imagine" with a truly kick-ass baritone solo. We closed the end of the show by literally breaking open the white picket fences that began it (ie the end of the 1950s and the death of the American Dream) to reveal the last line of "Imagine."

It was brilliant.

One of my colleagues has a hypothesis about the Beatles. He says that you can tell a lot about a person and their current place in life by asking them what their favorite Beatles album is. Through high school and most of college it was all Sgt. Pepper for me. By the end of college, I was ready for Magical Mystery Tour, and now it's The White Album (The Beatles). You'd have to ask him what that says about me.

So, the Beatles. Many of my huge, life changing moments carry their music as a soundtrack. I am still stunned that it took me so long to see Across the Universe, but now I can't watch it enough. I need to get the soundtrack, like now. (God I love amazon.com!)

You've waited long enough.

Beatles and Boy go together. He's not a fan, but a few Christmases ago he did something very sweet. He bought me a Beatles CD. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but to me it was. See, not that many people know about my closet Beatles obsession. I'm not sure why, it's just not one of my outward personality traits and I'm sure that I had never mentioned it to Boy.

The pallet here is simple. Red and black with primary colors as accents. I wanted to recreate the drama and lightness of the time. The fedora returns along with chuck taylors, this time in red. Gerber daises are slightly overdone, but I like them anyway and they seem simple enough to get the job done. I adore the dress. It is simple and pure without being princessy, which is exactly how I would picture a Beatles bride.

Guests could pose for pictures in front of the giant "All you need is love" sign and we could even make other lyric signs with different primary colors posted in a picture taking area. It would make for a colorful and personal guestbook, with each guest (or group of guests) selecting the lyric that fit them and their relationship to the couple.

The lyrics and little touches are "Blackbird," which is my favorite Beatles song. As a teacher, it doesn't get any better than "take these broken wings and learn to fly," but I love the line "All your life, you have only waited for this moment to arrive" as a wedding sentiment. It is very near to what I'd like to do with me and Boy's song someday.

Now where's my iPod? All this Beatles talk has got me jonesin' for some Jude...