Mixed Bag Of Rant

From June 30, 2004 to October 15, 2005, I learned many things about myself, others, but most importantly about marriage. What do the dates represent? The date D and I got engaged to the day we got married. What I learned after, what I like to call, the ordeal of planning a wedding, is that in the end very little of it actually matters. What really matters is everything that happens after. Life. Love. Ups. Downs. In the beginning, I was frustrated by the small budget I had to work with, that I wouldn’t have a huge lavish party with my friends from kindergarten… Many tears were spilled. To our luck, we came into some extra money and ended up with a little more to work with. By this time however, I had a change of heart. An epiphany of sorts. I wanted to make this special… personal. I put up the picture of us lighting the unity candle because that is the message I want to convey. A wedding is more than an expensive dress, a fancy dinner with all the trimmings. It is the symbolic joining of two people into one. Every piece of music, to the wedding party gifts all conveyed that thanks and love that we share for each other, our family, and our friends. I knew that if I threw all my energy into this one “day”, that our marriage would never last. We’d never have anything else to look forward to.

I guess I was just thinking about all those girls out there who obsess about their wedding day and haven’t thought about all the other stuff and all of the other years of importance to follow after that. During my engagement I hung out on a slew of bride “message boards”. By the time my wedding was looming, I realized how very little I cared about the little things. I couldn’t wait to marry him and spend my life with this amazing person- that was all that mattered.

So for those out there who are obsessed with having a wedding, my advice to you, get passionate about the person you are going to marry. Your wedding is one day- a marriage is a lifetime.