Another several days and another round of lessons.
Lesson #4: "I" don't want to plan "my" wedding; "I" want "us" to plan "our" wedding
By virtue of being raised in the South, getting married has always been in the cards and led to many a hour daydreaming of precisely how it would all go down. I have seen several brides plan their weddings without much a contribution of the groom. Given, some men don't have opinions about the wedding, which is fine. My groom has requested only that there be no cocktail wieners at the reception ("They just don't say 'wedding'.") and his sister be a bridesmaid. Since he has asked so little and been so accommodating to my requests, I have made a commitment to grant each of his. In the same breath, however, I don't want to spend the next 7 months and 5 days agonizing over exactly how I want my wedding to be. We chose to pick out the ring together, we picked the honeymoon together, and we'll do the wedding together. While I know he won't make the 49th trip to Hobby Lobby with me, he will browse through photographers websites, look at dresses online, and sign his name patiently and carefully (so that people can, oh, I don't know, read it) to the save-the-date cards. The trips to Hobby Lobby can be reserved for the Bestie and the Roomie, as long as he's there to watch me cut out 60 pieces of purple cardstock afterwards.
Lesson #5: Cost is inversely proportional to time
I decided long ago I wanted to make my own invitations. I am incredibly picky about paper products and don't want to pay a lot of money for something I could have done better myself. However. This also means I have already spent several hours picking out cardstock, researching envelopes, and cutting out cardstock to attach to the back of pictures for save-the-dates. For the most part I don't mind doing these things- I love craft projects and wedding planning is a perfect excuse to play at Hobby Lobby. It's just an interesting fact of life, and I will continue to purchase my cardstock and spend every afternoon cutting, glueing, painting, and researching envelopes.
Lesson #6: I'm still in shock
I'm not sure how other brides-to-be feel after receiving the ring, but I have officially diagnosed myself with a state of shock. I am still as distracted as a 9-year-old boy with 14 Mountain Dews while trying to accomplish anything requiring my hands palms-down; my dear Amy has caught me looking at it while trying to do things around the house. ("Yes, Heather, it's shiny." Gentle tones, as always.) We became engagement 19 days ago, and words like "fiancee", "bride", "groom", "married", "husband", "wife", etc. confuse my conscious. I'm down with "wedding", now- that one I understand. But to call Bobby my "fiancee" feels a little snotty and attention-seeking, as if the use of that word compels people to ask when the "date" is. That word is especially strange since we both agreed long ago that "boy/girlfriend" weren't appropriate labels enough for how we felt. Speaking of Bobby as my "husband" sounds so old to me, as if on August 14th I'll suddenly be transported to slowing metabolism and retirement accounts. To me, it also sometimes sounds like all the joy and excitement is gone, like those couples I fear who tolerate and ignore each other, numb and fabric-worn from the years of anniversaries and coffee and "what do you want for dinner tonight?"'s. It appears and is quite fair to say I'm afraid of being numb and fabric-worn; I don't want the heart-racing every moment of the day, but at the end of our lives together I want to say that all my years I loved him more than I did the day he became my "husband". I'm sure the further I get into AWP, these words and planner schedules and shoe comparisons will ease me into the water. For now I'll just hold my left hand out and drift off for the rest of my lunch break.
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