What is a Wedding?

Well, this is my first post here. There are about a million things that I could post about, ranging from the positive, "How wonderful my fiancée is," to the negative, "What I hate about planning a wedding," and on through the completely absurd, "Why did aliens abduct my dog?" But what do I actually want to write about? Only one of those sound appealing to me—and despite what you think, it is not the "aliens abducting my dog" post. The problem is that I could include that in a post, but a post dedicated to "how wonderful my fiancée is," would just come out mushy and somewhat annoying for those not involved. Finally though, I reached a decision on what to write about. I want to talk about "Weddings." I'm sure some of you may be tired of this topic, but please just stick around a little while, and I hope that I can make it worth your while.

So, what is a wedding? Well it's an occasion where two people get married, merge, join, "tie the knot," or "get hitched." The "all-knowing" Wikipedia says, "A wedding is the ceremony in which two people are united in marriage[ . . . ]." As one famous movie says, "Mawage is wot bwings us togeder [that day]."

So a wedding=marriage? Wait a second. I have been planning a wedding for the last five months. I have had little chance to talk about the marriage that begins on that day. Sure my fiancée and I have talked about it. But it is rarely connected with the wedding. Here's what I have connected with the wedding: hard work; vendors cancelling on you; you cancelling on vendors; questions like "Where'd the money go?" and several other unpleasant experiences. Why is that? I know nearly every girl grows up dreaming of how wonderful her wedding will be. How everything will work out just right, and the day will be absolutely beautiful. And then they grow up, and many of them find weddings to be "stressful." They become the infamous "bridezilla," a bride or groom gets cold feet, the wrong color flowers gets delivered, the wrong type of flowers get delivered, a nephew puts chocolate all over your brand new $100 to $2,000 dress or any number of other problems. I look at these two views and think, "Where did this huge contrast come from?!?"

Now we come to the reason that I posted about this today. I think that the wedding can, should and—at least ours—will be that wonderful day that little girls grow up dreaming about. It's much like any other portion of life. Sometimes there's hard work involved, and sometimes it's not perfect. But if we can remember what we're really there for, it becomes something meaningful, wonderful and—I dare say—perfect, even with all of the mishaps, foibles and troubles that are thrown our way.

So that's it. That's why I believe there is such a huge contrast in the way weddings are seen. I myself am excited to get married, merge, join, "tie the knot," and "get hitched" to my best friend Melissa. She is so wonderful, and I love her so much. I love that she can stay positive and keep going in planning this wedding even when so many things go wrong. And soon I will get to marry her, and celebrate that day with our friends and family. And however it turns out, it will be perfect.

Wedding Plans...

So, I think every engaged person planning a wedding, at some point says, "Do I really have to do all of this?" Social norms dictates yes. So ahead we plunge, knowing it will all be worth it, and sometime in the near future it will be all over, and life with that special someone can begin. This is about where I am now, but, LUCKILY, most of the wedding things are done! Just some loose ends to tie up and all will be well!

The best thing for me, though, is the AMAZING man I am about to marry. He is constantly asking what he can do to help, and doing all sorts of things for me. I am the luckiest girl in the world! The other night, we had just booked a caterer, and decided on a location for the reception. Then all of the other things I had to do came to mind. The cake, the dresses, the favors... the list went on and on. But, being the WONDERFUL man he is, Ben spent the night calming me down, and reassuring me that everything was going to be alright. No matter what happened, our wedding was going to be the best, and it would be a perfect way to kick off our new life together.