vedding

five days ago, luke and i celebrated our nine month anniversary.  and by celebrated, i mean i remembered in class on tuesday night that it was the 8th, and that that meant we'd been married for nine months and then i told luke when i got home and he was unimpressed.  that's all important because i don't want you all to think we're the kind of people who celebrate month-by-month anniversaries.  we aren't.  it's kinda frightening, though, to realize that the wedding was almost a year ago.  that's craziness.  also, i feel very ashamed of myself for never recording the wedding blitz in blog form, and what better time than the present?

here goes:

when most little girls were feeding baby dolls, i was also forcing a bottle into the mouth of my favorite toy ever.  however, mine was a little plush dog that peed in very timely increments after being fed, which i found hilarious.  when most little girls were brushing their hair 100 times each night, i was engaging in world wars with the neighbors' kids, helping my brother hurl lemons over the backyard fence.  and when most little girls were dreaming of their perfect weddings, i was watching horror movies with my brother, trying to decide if we could do the same special events with ketchup and oatmeal.  this is why i was engaged for two years, although this maybe also was due to the fact that i got engaged when i was 21.  i'll rephrase: the long engagement was mostly because the idea of this tomboy crazy person planning a wedding was a) completely foreign and b) totally terrifying. 

i've never understood pomp and circumstance and traditions and social demands.  so the thought of bridal showers, bachelorette parties, dress fittings, cake testings, interviewing vendors, party games, rehearsal dinners and of course the main event itself was overwhelming, to say the least.  my family really rallied, throwing me showers and helping with the vendors and coordinating the dinners, which was fabulous especially near d-day because i was so extremely exhausted and crazed.  as it was, though, even with all the participation of everyone i loved, i couldn't help feeling like a bit of a schmuck, just marching through these bizarre highly pressurized, institutionalized rites of passage.  that's probably because bridal showers and hair and makeup are so obviously not my thing and i was just sure that the woman fitting my dress was going to look up at me with her finger pointed and out me as an impostor in this world of sugar and spice and everything nice.  "you haven't dreamt of this your whole life!  you can barely do your own hair!  you can't be a bride!"  yes.  these were my fears.

terror aside, i think luke and i did a fantastic job making the wedding itself as reflective of us as possible.  i'm really proud of that, especially because the wedding machine (the vendors, the magazines, the advice books, everything) is structured to make you feel like an extra $2000 for embossed invitations is entirely in the realm of normal.  we didn't have a bridesmaids or groomsmen, because the idea of enslaving my friends to plan parties for us and organize shit seemed a little vicious.*  we spent a reasonable amount on each one of the party parts (food, music, site) and really only splurged on this amazing hoopa the florist made, which i was ok with because it featured one of my great-grandma edna's tablecloths and she'd died a few months before, after having been so excited to come.

we also trapped our two friends, cory and joel, who were instrumental to introducing us, into performing the ceremony and marrying us.  they went to an orientation, signed all the proper paperwork and worked for months on the most wonderful ceremony.  they did a magnificent job and i really couldn't think of any other people we would have shared that moment with.

here's the hoopa (and us, i guess), just after the ceremony:

all in all, after all the planning and stress and fights with the site coordinator about bistro lighting and agonizing over being the center of attention in such a huge way for an entire night and nights wondering, "why in the hell am i doing all this?" (most especially after we got our marriage license for $75 and realized we could then get married for practically nothing), the wedding was perfect.  i know, i know.  "the perfect day" is a horrible way to look at your wedding, because inevitably it won't be.  ours wasn't either, at least not by the standard definition.  initially, as i languished in hair and makeup, all the ceremony chairs were set up directly facing the sun, and luke and joel and cory had to move them themselves twenty minutes before the show started.  i had a nervous stomachache the entire night and didn't even get to eat any of the delicious foods or cake or drink any of the vodka lemonades, which were apparently amazing.  we found out at 9:50 pm, with the party still raging, that our contract with the caterers (who also provided the tables and chairs) was over at 10 pm (how that got lost in translation in the planning phase still beats me).  however, in the face of all that horrible adversity (sarcasm, yes?), it was one of the best nights ever.  i've subsequently had other amazing days, days i would say are some of the best days of my life, but that night, we were enveloped in love, for each other and for our family and friends and i have truly never felt anything like that before.  it wasn't the cake or the dress or the venue: it was the knowledge that everyone we loved was in the same place at the same time, celebrating and loving.  

if you can achieve that, you've got the perfect wedding, wherever you are and whatever it costs.

*my friends, the bridesmaids of my heart (too much?), actually did come to my rescue and do a few jobs the day of the wedding, even though i'd tried to spare them.  despite having chosen a makeup artist and done a trial run, it never occurred to me that i would be locked up in a secret room "getting ready" for three hours before the ceremony, and therefore, i never delegated any day-of tasks to anyone because i figured i'd just do them all.  i mean, the ceremony wasn't until 4:30 (control freak much?).  thus, there it was, may 8th, and i'm sitting in the hair chair thinking, "holy shit, there is no one to do a, b, c."  cue my amazing, glorious friends, who showed up just to say hi before it all began and were instead enlisted in hanging up place cards and arranging the candy table.  i cannot believe how much i relied on people at the last minute to make everything work out, and how they all managed it perfectly.  thanks, loves!