May 24, 2019
BLT Wedding
I'm a married woman!
Well, technically speaking I've been a married woman for 34 days. I had meant to add an entry immediately following the festivities...but clearly I did not. So here I am adding one now.
Wedding planning is stressful. While I thoroughly enjoyed the wedding and it turned out to be a beautiful day and ceremony, I still question as to whether or not I would have preferred to just do the courthouse thing. Probably not. I don't think I'm a courthouse person as much as I've tried to convince myself. But I hated almost every aspect of wedding planning and never intend to go through that again. One, it's so expensive. Even in taking so many shortcuts and getting married in Brian's parents' backyard, it still cost us a bundle. Second, I'm so indecisive it made things difficult. What color scheme should we go with? What kind of food should we serve? What kind of flowers do we want? How many people should be involved in the ceremony? What kind of ceremony should we have- the list of questions that needed answers really goes on and on. I didn't bother looking into a wedding planner because I figured that was probably out of budget, but I wonder if it would have helped. I don't actually know what all the duties of a wedding planner are, but in my mind I just hand them over my budget, give them access to my Pinterest wedding board, and let them deal with all the decision making.
I feel as though I started this post off to a bad start. I should probably talk about happy things instead of how much I hate wedding planning and having to be decisive.
It was a beautiful day. Which was a relief because the sky had opened up the day before, and we were having a backyard wedding with no Plan B for rain. Risky, I know, but it cost nearly $2,000 to rent a tent and we chose to spend that money elsewhere. So while the wedding rehearsal dinner took place the day before indoors, we were fortunate that the ground wasn't too soggy the next day. It was a bit breezy, but warm and dry which is what I had been praying for for months. Brian's mom catered the rehearsal dinner. She made some sort of lemon pasta, which I'm still dreaming about, and I think tiramisu. But she didn't call it tiramisu so I can't quite remember what it was. That night was a real whirlwind. I'm assuming we mingled with family and friends, but I honestly don't remember. I know we were running late, which had a lot to do with my mom and grandma arriving late to my house. But things ran relatively smoothly, so I guess I'll let it go.
Oh! But let me tell you about my grandma! The bridal party stayed at my house that evening. Since it was a night of celebration, after the rehearsal dinner we headed out to a local bar to wind down and be amongst ourselves and reminisce. It was really a reunion between me, Popeguy, Artist, and Math, plus Cherish and, of course, Brian. Then Meagan and Haley, who I met in my graduate program. It was actually quite a lovely evening with everyone once we got to the bar. While I technically had a bachelorette party, that night was the bachelorette party that I had wanted. Quiet. Intimate. Drinking. Memories. It was just very nice and I should really send some sort of thank you letter out to all of them.
Anyway, I've gotten off topic. So, except for Meagan and Haley, the Bridal party stayed with us in our apartment. Because of the bar and such, we got home relatively late. I don't remember what time, but I know we went to bed really late and had to be back at Brian's parents' house by 9am the next morning. Anyway, around 5am someone starts pounding on the door and ringing the doorbell erratically. Poor Artist was sleeping in the living room and I think this just about gave her a heart attack! So I grab a stick to go investigate who it is...and it's my freaking grandma. Apparently, she left her phone at Brian's parents' house and so couldn't figure out how to navigate home. So her solution was to wake us up at a "reasonable" time so that we could give her directions or some such nonsense. I was livid, or maybe shocked. It sounds weird to say I was livid at my grandma, but it was just the most ridiculous situations. And to make matters worse, we think she was camping out in her car until 5am to wake us. How bizarre is that!? I didn't know what to say about it then, and I don't know what to say about it now. Needless to say, after she left we could not get back to sleep so ended up going on a WaWa, Chick-fil-a, and Burger King run and watched a movie on Netflix until it was time to go.
The day of the wedding was just as much of a blur as the rehearsal dinner. Since most of the stuff was DIY, we spent the morning setting everything up in between getting hair and makeup done. I was last to get mine done, so had up until about 1pm to try to get things right before control was rendered from me. I think we did a pretty good job at making the yard look nice. My only regret is that no one put out the cards for guests to write messages on, but I guess that's okay.
"Concerning Hobbits" was my wedding march. My dad cried as he walked me through the yard down to the lakefront where we had set up an altar. I, on the other hand, was too excited to cry. I always imagined that when I got married I would ball my eyes out, but for me the ceremony was just a culmination of all the good things between Brian and I, of the jokes and the laughter and the new experiences all coming to a point of mutual commitment to continue those things. I even chuckled as I gave my vows. It was just light and playful, yet full of all these promises that we were deciding to make. It was really quite nice. Maybe one day I'll write an entry about it that doesn't feel quite so rushed, but it really was beautiful.
And then we were whisked about this way and that way and I really don't feel like I got to enjoy the reception at ALL. But everyone else assures me they had a good time and I guess that was really the point of throwing a big party.
Sometimes it seems strange to think that we're married. That I'm married. It's nice, but strange. For the most part, nothing has change. We had already checked off most of those boxes. We've been living together for the past three years, so in that sense nothing has changed. And I don't feel as different as I thought I would. But I think the way I think about Brian has changed. I feel as though I've always taken him into consideration when making plans and even just in general, but that consideration seems somehow more deliberate now. And I guess we now have this awareness of this decision and commitment that we've made to one another, which is comforting. So far, I like being married. And perhaps newlyweds always seem so hopeful and optimistic, but I can't imagine ever marrying anyone else. Whatever happens in the future, I will only ever be Brian's wife and no one else's.
As not to leave things off on such a heavy note, we've been talking about buying a house. Now that seems surreal and out of sight to me, but he keeps bringing it up so I guess it's a possibility. And he seems to be leaving the where in my hands. Because I'm in school and think I want to pursue my PhD so I guess that might influence where we buy. I really don't know what to do because I want to stay close to family, which basically means staying in the area. So I guess I better really cross my fingers that I can get into a local program...
scullerymaid at 9:03 p.m.