Despite my long obsession with weddings, I've never had a clear picture of what I wanted my own wedding to be like. All I knew was that if I ever did get married - and I didn't entirely believe I would - it would have to be to a funny, strange man who would make me feel like I belonged in my own shoes. So far, so good. Beyond that, though, I hadn't a clue.
I've amassed plenty of ideas from wedding blogs and Pinterest. I could plan 18 different types of weddings if I needed to for some reason,* but I can't seem to settle on any one idea for myself, and the time is a-tickin' away.
It's stressing me out in weird ways. My appetite's changed. Not lessened, just . . . I don't like some foods as much anymore, like whole grains. And soup.
I have a tried-and-true approach to big projects like this: I procrastinate until the 11th hour, grasp at whatever idea seems halfway plausible, and, after several frantic hours and at least one crying jag, end up with a result that's somewhere between "not that shoddy" and "almost decent." But with this wedding, so many other people are involved in the planning and invested in the outcome. They want to know the details as we go; they check in on my progress. (This is exactly why I quit work. Now I'm my own boss, and free to submit sub-par work just as I've always done.) Everyone's so supportive and excited for us that I don't want to let them down. They all want me to have the wedding of my dreams, but I don't think my dream wedding is turning out to be all that impressive. When I talk about what I want, people say things like, "Are you sure? You can do anything you want. Anything in the whole world. You're sure? Well, okay."
Your funeral, they probably add silently. But it's not my funeral. It's my wedding. And if anyone thinks I wouldn't have a funeral-themed wedding, they are sorely mistaken.
It's taking me a while to understand and accept this about myself. After spending so many years reading wedding magazines and blogs, I would expect myself to have bigger aspirations for a wedding. But really, it's just the couples I like to see, the maniacal glee splashed across their faces as they celebrate being married to each other. I thought I was obsessed with wedding details, but really I'm obsessed with love. I try to understand the importance and transformation of a wedding through the pictures, but I guess it's not something I'll get until I go through it. That's my way.
'Cause I'm a big old sap.
Still, a wedding does need some Things, and so I've been tearing apart the Internet trying to find the perfect dress. The honest truth is, though, that I don't care about the perfect dress.
That's not true. I just can't find a dress I like, and it's making me into a crazy person. I want to be all post-modernist zen bride and pull off an effortlessly cool, chic wedding while waving a dismissive hand at such petty things as table settings and shoes and . . . hair brushes, or whatever, but I'm not quite there yet. I'm a perfectionist, but the part of me that really doesn't care what dress I wear, the messy, easygoing part that just wants to get married and hang out with my family and friends, is starting to fight back against the perfectionist part. I would narrate the fight like a wrestling match, but I really never watched that much wrestling, except for part of a weigh-in that was on TV a couple weeks ago at a Tex-Mex restaurant in Austin. I thought it was pretty intense. So here's a picture of a wrestler, and you can fill in the commentary yourself:
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| Intrigue! |
If it were somebody else's wedding, it would be easier to plan it.** Maybe we should start a wedding planning exchange: I'll plan yours, you plan mine. All of you. Every citizen of the Internet. Tell me all your best and weirdest ideas and we'll mix them up in a great melting pot - just like America! - and come up with the wedding equivalent of a first grader's diorama.
Those were always the worst. Nobody can make a good diorama.
Except for Brooke.
. . .
Whatever.
I don't even care.
*Like if there's a wedding planning competition but the mean contestant drops out at the last minute and I'm the only one who can step in, even though I retired years ago and claim to be content in my new life of knitting life-size llamas out of alpaca fur and miniature alpacas out of goat beards, but it's obvious that I miss the competitive wedding planning game, so my quirky wedding planning staff has to re-train me in a montage set to some Cyndi Lauper song, and even though it's only five hours before the big competition we manage to pull off a last-minute coup with a surprise entry, the bold yet folksy Oregon Trail-themed wedding that leads us to victory!
**Like if there were a second wedding planning competition, where the ragtag bunch of misfits in the wedding planning staff has to band together one last time to defend our title against the uppity youths who think they're so much better than us, probably with an idea so crazy it just might work - like a wedding-themed wedding where the DJ only plays Cyndi Lauper songs - that will once again lead us to victory!
Image via Arsenalia.
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