21 Days

I'm down to three weeks. Three weeks until we head to the church, say some vows, slip rings on our fingers, eat a meal with friends, and then head off into the... sunset. Sort of. Sunset won't actually be until quite a few hours after the wedding, so I guess if we're being exceptionally technical, we'll be heading off into the afternoon.

At this stage in the game, I'm full of an odd mixture of nerves, anticipation, and contentment. I suppose that's the right place to be...I think that marriage should be approached with just the slightest bit of fear and trembling, lest we become too complacent and neglect to invest. Underneath everything there's a quiet fear that says, "But what if we do it wrong?" I'm ignoring that particular voice. There's nothing to be gained by paying attention to it, because if we're living purposefully, lovingly, and reverently, the what ifs will not become reality and there is nothing to fear.

I've always wondered what a bride thinks on the eve of her wedding. I guess I'll be finding out in three weeks. Until then, I suppose I'll keep pondering all of the thoughts that go along with nerves, anticipation, and contentment as we continue to make never-ending decisions about the smallest of wedding details.

On Planning a Wedding

If I were being totally honest, I think I would tell you that I'm sort of over the whole wedding thing.  Not because I don't want to get married - I have the world's greatest fiance, and I can't wait to get married! - but the whole planning process is such a massive undertaking.  In a way, I guess I look longingly at the days of yore when people would gather a few family members, head into town when the itinerant preacher was around, and tie the knot.  Think Laura Ingalls Wilder-style.  It seems a bit unnecessary to have this long, drawn out engagement processes that enables the betrothed couple to plan what feels like it needs to be the greatest party that anyone has ever planned, and heaven help us if all the of the details don't come straight from the world's most trendy Pinterest board.  Because that's not what a marriage is all about, right?  A wedding should be about two people joining their lives together in the sight of God, surrounded by witnesses.  Heck, in this case, I don't even think it needs to be a "great cloud of witnesses."  Just a few would be fine.

I suppose that I sound entirely ungrateful.  Do I want a nice wedding?  Yes.  Do I want to have dear friends there?  Definitely.  Do I want them to enjoy themselves and feel like the trip to get there was worth it?  Absolutely.  It's just that when I'm in the midst of how many tables will you need to have? and do you want white napkins or colored napkins? and if you want to spend $13,000, you could have the best catering service ever! and you need to read these 33 cool ideas for groomsmen, it doesn't feel like it's about joining lives together in the sight of God.  It feels like an industry.

[via my email inbox]

Maybe it's just something that comes with the territory, and I'm ranting about nothing.  I mean, I will admit that I sort of enjoyed looking through the 33 cool ideas for groomsmen (though I can't say I was into all the groomsmen wearing black tuxes while the actual groom wore a white one, or even groomsmen wearing jeans).  But something about the you-need-all-this-stuff-to-have-the-ideal-wedding just bothers me.  Why is it that I need to spend thousands of dollars to get everything just right?  Why should this period of life - preparing for marriage - include the undue stress of throwing the party to end all parties?

Conclusion: I'm a hopeless paradox.  The girl that looked at wedding magazines for years, but when it became real life, found out that looking at magazines is much less stressful than using the magazines.  The girl that wants a lovely wedding, but doesn't like the wedding industry.  A girl who loves shopping for a wedding dress, but doesn't like spending buckets of money on a reception.

Is this normal?

2013 Wedding No. 2

As I mentioned in my previous post, it has been a big year for the apartment friends...

...which brings me to

Meghanne's wedding!

I was the maid of honor for this wedding, so I was busy for the entire event.  Certainly not a bad thing - it was an honor to be the maid of honor.  (Too much honor?)

Let me set the stage for you.  Meghanne's favorite-beyond-all-favorites color is pink.  I figured this out pretty early on during our roommate-ship.  

It went without saying that the bridesmaids dresses and basically everything involved with the wedding would therefore be pink.  Therefore, since a picture is worth a thousand words, I present you with a post that is almost entirely pictures.

Bachelorette party:

(Please forgive the photo quality - all photos are either from my phone or taken from Facebook, which is admittedly deplorable.)

The bachelorette party was great.  We went to Fire and Ice for lunch and then walked around Boston, keeping mostly to Newbury Street to go shopping.  Woo!

After it was all over, I put together a scrapbook!

And then it was time to head to Rhode Island for the festivities.  Here we go...

Rehearsal dinner:

(Confused?)

Getting ready:

(I wrote my speech on my phone...and then I scrambled to try to write it on paper that morning.  I ran out of time.  I used my phone.  Hashtagfirstworldproblems.)

On the way to the church!

Favorite picture of us...

(CLOUD OF PINK.)

Ceremony:

Flowers:

(Super pink!)

And reception:

And once again, the beloved apartment was reunited!

It's so wonderful having watched Meghanne and Jon's relationship blossom from the very beginning until this stage in their lives.  I have spectacular friends.  If you feel like reading about that, my entire maid of honor speech is below, because I think it says it all better than anything I've written here.

And this time, while I spent a lot of time running around doing stuff, this time I had the world's best date.

If you've made it this far, congratulations!

The Speech:

I met Meghanne during our freshman year of college at Gordon.  Through a number of connections but mostly through the music department, we became close friends and eventually roommates.  I quickly learned that Meghanne considered wedding planning to be one of her most frequent past times, which I has no problem adopting as one of my own.  This led to numerous purchases of premature bridal magazines, the most memorable of which involved a trip to the grocery store at 10 pm on a "school night" for a magazine and some Ben and Jerry's.  Not wanting to be the typical "Gordon girl" - a common stereotype that usually came in conjunction with the somewhat derogatory phrase "ring by spring" - we made a point to hide the magazine under our other purchases as soon as we saw other college students wandering the aisles.

We made it stealthily all the way to the cashier, who loudly asked, "Oh, are you getting married?"  Meghanne thought fast and answered, "No, my....sister is getting married and we're going to her bachelorette party and we want to help her come up with ideas for the wedding..."  We thought it was entirely convincing.

It's worth noting that all of this happened before Jon even entered the picture. Another common past time was making lists of what we wanted in a future spouse.  We thought these lists were so important that I actually took the time to write them down.  So, as of early sophomore year, here's a portion of what Meghanne was looking for in her future husband.

- strong Christian
- has an appreciation for music
- will dance...extensively (all kinds, minus sketchy)
- likes kids and dogs
- good conversationalist
- has an equal say in matters
- doesn't mind talking
- has red hair

Clearly, the next step was to keep an eye out for said Perfect Match.  But our good friend Amber took a look at Meghanne's list and said, "You know...I don't think your perfect match is here yet.  I think you're going to meet a tall, red-headed transfer student, and he'll be the one."

I think it's safe to say that truer words have never been spoken.  Sure enough, the following year a tall, red-headed transfer student showed up in Meghanne's life, and things have never been the same.

But while we joked around about finding the perfect combination of characteristics in our future spouses, we also talked about marriage and what it meant to have Christ-centered lives.  We sought to prepare ourselves to strive to be the wives of noble character described in Proverbs 31. Meghanne...you've been preparing your heart for both this day and the rest of your days together for so long.  You look beautiful today, but what shines through your relationship with each other is a love for God that far surpasses the beauty of today.

Jon, I can't imagine a better person to be Meghanne's husband.  The way you treasure and cherish her in all of your actions, words, and attention toward her is such an incredible witness for what a godly relationship should be.  All of the above makes me fully assured that we can confidently relinquish her to you :)

I'm so blessed to call you both my dear friends, and I feel privileged that I have watched this relationship grow from the very first email Jon sent on February 6th, 2010 all the way through to this wonderful celebration of your marriage, and I can't wait to see how it continues to blossom and grow in the years to come.  

2013 Wedding No. 1

This year has been an important one for the apartment friends.  Let's recap:

Diana's wedding!

As usual, I'm well behind on blogging.  Like...months behind.  Which means that I'm now blogging about a wedding that happened on April 27th.  Nevertheless, it will be blogged!

It was a beautiful Saturday up in Maine.  They couldn't have possibly asked for better weather the entire weekend!  I traveled up with two good friends part of the way, dropped them off at their house, and then continued up to the island for two hours.  The following morning, I met Diana for breakfast.  Here's what went down:

Me: "DIANA!  You're getting married TODAY!"

Diana: "I know...isn't it horrible??"

Of course, she didn't really mean it.  She was beyond excited to actually get married, but I think it was a little overwhelming to realize that her months of planning were finally coming to fruition and there was nothing more she could plan.  I'd say that's a little stressful.

At breakfast, we ran into Laura and Nathaniel! 

Turns out when a wedding is a tiny town and you know many of the folks invited, you and your friends are very likely to take over fill up the local inn.  Meghanne and Jon arrived later that morning and Jon took a room upstairs (Meghanne stayed with me - roommates for life?).  Lauren and Nathaniel stayed in the room one floor above.  Catherine, Beth, and Joel stayed in a room adjacent to ours.  It was a glorious reunion.  

Later that afternoon, we all headed to the church and witnessed the union of two dear friends.

Their love story is beautiful, but that's worth a blogpost of its own.  Summary: read Anne of Green Gables.  Remove all the initial consternation between Anne and Gilbert, and you have Diana and Nathaniel.  What a blessing to be a witness to something so sacred and precious.

Once the ceremony was over, we headed up the hill to the reception.  I was sadly dateless due to the official blog boyfriend's business trip to India:

(I actually missed him even though this photo makes me look gleeful...)

We ate cake, chatted with friends, and watched Diana and Nathaniel dance.

It was beautiful.

After everything was over, Beth, Joel, Catherine, Meghanne, Jon, and I ran around Deer Isle in the dark.  Everyone else in town was asleep (at 9 pm).  We walked in the middle of the road.  We swung on swings in the playground.  I tripped over a curb and went flying about three feet before landing (I was fine).  We acted like we were back in college, and then we went to bed.

Finally, we met up for breakfast and then we headed home.