We’re Married

12 years ago

Best Day Ever? Yeah, it absolutely was.

I was able to marry my best friend, who I already deeply loved, and fall in love with him over again all in one day. Our wedding day was one that was marked by many changes, including the date, location and size of our wedding. But, despite all of the insanity that moving your wedding up by 6 months creates, we pulled it off exactly how I imagined it.

Something changes when you marry your significant other. A shift so subtle that when you focus on forming words to express it – it disappears. I reach out to grasp it.. and wisp…. its gone.

When you make that commitment to another person for the rest of your life, the dynamic of what you knew as love and partnership is altered. I used to believe that signing a paper that binds me to a person that I had already been living with for 4 years (dating for close to 6 years) couldn’t possibly make a difference. But, I was wrong. Saying vows to a person you have laughed with, cried with and grown with over the years makes a huge difference. There’s a deep desire to keep the peace and to try harder to make things work that is just not present until that point. There is an intense sense of team work that feels indefinitely powerful resonating through both of us now. Our house is filled with a lot less need to be right, and a lot more desire to be happy. We’re married, and it is fantastic!

People who are in a comfortable stage of dating have asked me how can it be any different – and its strange, it doesn’t take away the comfort you’ve worked so hard to establish by living together year after year; you certainly can still lay around in your under ware and its totally cool. But, its made me hyper aware of my own limitations and skills – I suddenly considered all of my “flaws” in terms of being a good or bad wife. What I do has a direct impact on another person’s life. A person that I love. That responsibility carries some serious weight.

Everything should be PERFECT because we are married… at least I wanted my husband to think that. But, it won’t be. And I am slowly learning to accept that. We will still have disagreements (we definitely bicker), and we will not always see eye to eye on everything (we are actually quite polar opposites a lot of the time). But, what is important is the collective desire to get back to being the team we know we are best at being. Life ebbs and flows, and marriage is no different.

The details of our DIY and budget friendly wedding:

Venue: My parents house – you can’t get better than a space that already holds many memories for us

Décor: Everything was created by our own blood, sweat and tears – ok, not really but kinda… We put a lot of time and effort into bringing our vision to life. We created all of the decorations with the help of our friends and family. I spent a night with my bridal party making our own bouquets from baby’s breathe and lace; we worked with my parents to create the floral arrangements for the tables that included flowers, feathers and stones that I purchased from Michaels, Tom helped to finalize the boutonnières and the bottles we placed at the tables, my Step-Father’s handy work helped to hang the banners that my sister made along side the café lights outside; and we used trinkets that we loved from around our home to finish off the centerpieces. An old friend of ours created the bouquet that I carried and we ordered a few items from Etsy. This was the best part of the planning – it was totally up to us and it came out beautifully!

Dress: My dress was love at first sight – I only tried on 4 dresses and knew that I wanted this one after only looking at one boutique. I bought this off the rack for a deep discount and was able to have it altered for very little money.