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Housewife fun fact: I was sick as a dog on my wedding day. Not from nerves, but from a flu-like virus. I was one symptom short of a full flu diagnosis (no coughing), meaning the doctor couldn’t give me anything to make me feel better. The doctor did, however, say “Noooo!!!” quite emphatically when I told her ”I’m getting married tomorrow.”
I started to feel sick two days before the big day, and by the next morning I felt like absolute death. High fever, body aches, no appetite, exhaustion – I could barely sit up straight, never mind walk. These are not bridey feelings. Not bridey at all. But we had 84 guests coming from all over the country, and a caterer and everything else paid for, so there was nothing to do but chug water and juice like it was my job, take a ton of ibuprofen and smile. So that’s what I did.
The wedding was lovely. The Accountant and I (Okay, maybe more I… But I swear, she was involved every step of the way!) had painstakingly planned this day for a year and a half. I had made the invitations and centerpieces by hand, created our reception playlist, and bought a gorgeous dress that I loved. We had picked out the most delicious cake we’d ever tasted and found an absolutely beautiful location that felt so completely “us.” I couldn’t believe how beautifully everything came together on the actual day – we even had wonderful weather! Our friends and family danced the night away and showered us with many congratulations along with compliments on everything from the food, to the decor, to the lovely ceremony. The Accountant had a great time. I had a nice time too, but not the time that I would have had if I’d been healthy.
I really tried my best, and in the pictures you can’t tell that I’m sick (maybe in a few…), but the truth of the matter is – I felt awful all day and night. I was really trying to be in the moment and enjoy this wonderful day in our lives, but I felt like the volume was turned down on everything. It’s hard to get lost in the moment when you feel like you might fall over at any second.
In the months after the wedding, I dwelled a lot on the experience lost. I had so been looking forward to the ceremony, to The Accountant and I exchanging the vows we wrote, to that powerful moment of making publicly the promises we had already made privately. Looking back on it all, it seemed unreal. We had gotten married, but I felt like I was barely present for it. I had the beautiful party that we planned, but not the experience of getting married, which was much more important to me. I hadn’t even had the chance to finish writing my vows! I had planned to work on them more in the days before the wedding, but being so sick, I never got to it and was stuck with what was really a rough draft.
After talking with The Accountant about this a number of times, I figured out what I needed. I needed for us to exchange our vows again. No one had to be there, and no party was necessary. I just truly wanted that moment of being able to look her in the eyes and say my vows in the way that I had always intended to. I wanted the chance to finish writing them, and to be fully present in the moment of saying all the things that I wanted to say. The Accountant being the wonderful wife that she is, agreed.
We had already planned our trip to Provincetown (which is also where we honeymooned – I was still sick for the whole week) and decided that the beach there would be the perfect location. We found an affordable photographer and asked her to come and take some pictures to commemorate the day.
I cannot find the words to say how happy I am that we did it.
Our wedding was an important milestone and very important in particular for our loved ones. We purposefully planned a fairly traditional event so that it would be recognizable to our families. We wanted them to understand the seriousness of our commitment and our intention to spend our lives together and create our own family. So in a sense, it was all for them. Sure, we made it very much our own (No one wore a white dress, and there were no bridesmaids or bouquet throwing, for example) and were very pleased with how everything turned out, but I think if we were somehow not a lesbian couple, and therefore didn’t feel that need to make it more traditional/accessible, we would have been completely satisfied with a much more private and intimate celebration.
Standing on an empty beach on a beautiful June morning, saying our vows to each other (or in my case, croaking them out while in full ugly-cry) was purely for us. It didn’t feel like a wedding. It felt like getting married. And it was wonderful.
Long time, no blog! I have been completely incapable of stringing together coherent and interesting sentences for the purpose of blogging for weeks now.
As the wedding approaches (it is a mere 6 weeks away!) I feel less and less like a housewife and more and more like a bride. And let me tell you, a bride is a fun thing to be. The anticipation of such a fun and momentous occasion is pretty darn fantastic. We are getting so excited about celebrating with our family and friends, seeing this event we’ve worked on for so long come together, and being officially, legally married!
But anyway….
If I wasn’t officially a bride before, I sure am now. Today I had a sampler of roses delivered to my office. It contains different shades of the colors I want to use in my bouquet, for the parents’ boutonnieres and for the flowers to put on our cake. The sampler allows me to pick out the perfect shades of red, orange and ivory. That’s right – pick out the perfect shades - bridezilla much? The roses are from Ecuador.
Now, I’m not so insane that I actually sought out roses from Ecuador (“It’s Ecuador or nothing! This is my day!” Ugh! Gross!) — that just happens to be where the company with the best options and price that I could find gets their roses from. Bridezilla? Me? Never!
So I was in the office kitchen, putting said roses from Ecuador into water and people are walking by going “You’re the lucky one who got flowers!,” and I’m like, “Oh no, I ordered them. It’s a sampler for me to pick colors for my wedding.”
…this totally makes me sound like some kind of crazy bride who has her schmancy florist send her samples of rose colors.
…in actuality I’m ordering the roses wholesale and making the bouquet myself.
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I miss blogging.
We have made it safely back to Boston after our long, fun, relaxing, tiring, overall great road trip!
I will be back soon with lots of bloggy-goodness, but for now I will just tell you that The Accountant and I are approaching the 4 month mark in preparation for the wedding…… AHHH!!!!
We are so excited about the wedding, and I love planning. After a several month break from all-wedding, all-the-time, we (i.e. I) are diving back in at full force!
So much to do, so much to do!
I will leave you with this:
I so frickin’ called it!!!!!!
Well, we went to the Rainbow Wedding Expo, which…turned out to be a little bit of a bummer.
We have pretty much everything booked for our wedding, so we weren’t really looking to find vendors, but we were hoping to get to check out some local gay-owned businesses, and maybe even get to chat with some other couples. That was not how it turned out.
There seemed to be very little in the way of gay-owned businesses, and the rooms where everything was set up were very cramped, making it all very overwhelming. It’s one thing when you can browse from a bit of a distance, but another entirely when you have very aggressive sales people quite literally in your face, and there isn’t really anywhere to turn…
Mostly, I was disappointed by the lack of feeling of community. Legal gay marriage is still a very new reality, and I thought that an event like a gay wedding expo would want to focus (at least somewhat!) on a sense of community, and on the joy of being allowed to partake in all the privileges of marriage — but the celebration of being treated as equal citizens was alarmingly absent. For the most part it seemed like the local wedding industry just trying to snag a piece of the “gay dollar.”
Ah, well. We did walk away with a giant bag of information, a couple magazines and tons of business cards to dig through. Hopefully there’s some information in there from businesses that are gay-owned/-friendly that we could get some use out of.
To anyone who might be planning on attending an event like this, I would say, by all means go – but remember that “rainbow” or not, you are walking into one giant sales pitch.
Happy Friday, everyone! I don’t know about you, but I am so very happy to see the weekend arrive! And my partner (aka The Accountant), and I have a few things planned…
Tonight we’re thinking dinner at home, catch up on dishes, and then venture out somewhere nearby for dessert and a drink. We’re not much for partying the night away (at all…ha ha ha), but tonight, I’m looking forward to getting out and having some fun!
Tomorrow we will be returning my father’s car to him. Back story: Our beloved (though admittedly…old) car died a tragic death two weeks ago today. She had a good run, but, sadly, reached the end of her road at just under 150,000 miles! Since then, we have been using one of my parents’ cars, which they generously loaned to us while we shopped for a replacement. We found a super cute car for a great price this past weekend, picked it up Wednesday, and now we get to cruise on over to see my parents’ (about an hour away) to return their car and show off our new one!!
Sunday we are going to check out the Rainbow Wedding Expo in Cambridge, MA. I’m really looking forward to this! We really have most of our wedding plans nailed down, so we won’t really be looking for vendors, but I think it will be great fun to check out all the different tables and rub elbows with lots of other gay soon-to-be-weds! If you’d like more information about this event (or others like it around the country!) check out http://www.rainbowweddingexpo.com
Have a great weekend!
