Navah and I Are Getting Hitched!
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I would like to tell you that the last week has been amazing, but that would be only a partial truth. In some ways, it has been. Sharing this excitement with each other and with all of our friends has been exhilarating. There has been a lot of squealing, which is always great. And a congratulatory email every 10 minutes really breaks up the work day.
But as much as I wish that we had remained calm and collected about this whole process, I have to admit that within less than one week we were both having anxiety dreams. I can't remember mine when I wake up, but they involve the need for very intense problem solving. Though we make daily promises to each other to relax, there is just something about the knowledge that there's a wedding to be planned that makes all of life a little more stressful.
Every phone call with family has the potential to turn into a wedding conversation. Don't get me wrong - our families are incredibly supportive, and in some ways, having a lesbian wedding lets us off the hook a bit. There are fewer preconceived notions about what a wedding should look like when it's two girls getting married. And it helps cut down our numbers a bit as some more distant family members just can't get behind it.
Even so, there are still any number of issues that can have me in tears or proclaiming elopement (which I actually really don't want at all) within minutes. You've probably guessed the first one. Money. I'm not even in a place to say everything that's happening around money, though I will say that it's happening only one week in and before a single vendor has been chosen - which of course means that it's all about how much this whole shindig should cost and who's paying what.
Naively, I thought these things wouldn't come up. We want a simple wedding - nothing too fancy. But simple is in, unfortunately. Rustic, barn weddings are the thing. Every other wedding picture I see is some bride in a short dress romping through a field. So simple doesn't exactly mean inexpensive.
And, to be honest, we only want the simple that we want. So while it might be cheaper and in some ways simpler (though not in other ways) to have a wedding with 15 people, we'd really prefer somewhere around 100. While it would undoubtedly be cheaper to prepare our own wedding food, it's definitely not simpler to be preparing noshes two seconds before you put on your dress. Though Navah would prefer to just put disposable cameras on all the tables, I feel really sad about the idea of not having professional photos of the day. And I could go on. There are so many little decisions to make, and every one of them is complicated, and every one of them seems to cost money.
I've been obsessed with John and Sherry's wedding over at Young House Love, which at first had me excited about what a beautiful wedding we could plan on a small budget and has more recently left me convinced that I'm a horrible, superficial person because I
I would like to wrap this post up with a lesson learned, a pithy quote, an answer of some sort, but that seems false at this point. I'm still excited to plan this wedding, and I'm trying to take in the comments that I read all over the interwebs that It's Just Not That Big of A Deal and that The Day Will Happen and Relax. And I'm still head over heels for Navah and so happy that at the end of all of this, I'll get to call her my wife (which I will - I've told her that I will no longer user her name - only Wife). But for now, my emotions have fallen prey to all of the stories about this day and what it's supposed to be.
So here's to trying to relax and remember how flippin' awesome it is that (1) I get to marry Navah, (2) It will be legal here in good 'ol DC, and (3) It will happen, and It will be awesome.
Katie
