…Get used to hearing them, even when it’s your own wedding!

Our biggest woes of wedding planning revolved entirely around others frowning upon our decisions.

When you plan a wedding – be prepared, be calm.

It was so easy to get angry! How much energy I wasted on anger, when I just needed to step back and take a few breaths.

Part 1: The Wedding Party

Through our lives together, dating from grad school through our upper-20s, we went to about six weddings a year. We spent thousands of dollars each year on travel, and many times invested money into the bottomless pit of … being in the wedding party.

It is absolutely wonderful to support friends in that way, but knowing we had less than 10 guests who were close enough to drive to our wedding, we wanted to be simple, quick, and not have any sort of obligations, or add any costs to ourselves or our friends. We wanted a brief, intimate setting with just ourselves and my brother-in-law – the officiant – on the stage. And – now it’s happened – it was absolutely perfect.

My wife’s friend was less than pleased at the prospect of us not having a wedding party. To me, our friends had the same involvement and investment in our wedding, just minus certain traditions, obligations, and financial burdens — I had not realized that by removing the title, I was (to some) removing some of the meaning, the importance, the value.

Part 2: Getting Pretty

We have been together for five years, at the time of our wedding, and lived together for over two years. We survived coming out together, while dating, a break-up early-on, getting kicked out of our church, AND nearly two years’ long distance (more on all this later)… we have been waiting and fighting for this wedding day, and we wanted to spend the whole damn thing together.

First, we planned to get ready separately… but that begged the question, why? And, when we could not answer why, we changed our plans.

It was going to be perfect. We have overlapped friend groups, no one has to fight over our close friend who introduced us, and my cousin who’s good friends with my wife can spend time with us both. It was the peak of college football season, and we wouldn’t have to fight over the TV.

But good lord, the explosion of feelings that ensued with our friends and family found out we were getting ready together. I mean, I didn’t even see my wife with people’s hands in my hair and face, but it was special to enjoy our time together.

The morning of our wedding (picture – camp wedding, fall colors, heading to the cafeteria), a friend pulls us aside.

“I really want to urge you to get ready separately. You just can’t get ready together! You just don’t realize it but it’s so important. When I got married, the best part was seeing her right before the ceremony for the first time.”

To which I replied:

“We’re getting married in a few hours. It’s much too late to change anything now, and this is what we want to do.”

… But I’m thinking WHO THE FUCK DO THEY THINK THEY ARE.  

By the way – my absolute favorite wedding picture is our first look. We partied together while getting ready, then went to put on our dresses with just our moms and sisters. We had some private time in the woods with our photographer to capture our last months pre-marriage. And – the way I’m looking at her defines my feelings and love in a way that no blog post or written description ever could.

So, why do people think that that would have been any better had we deprived ourselves of one another’s company for 24 hours before the ceremony?