I should know… I’ve had two myself and I’ve lost count of the number I’ve officiated.
Every time I hear someone use the tired line about how people should spend more time planning their lives than they do their weddings it makes me cringe. Not because our lives don’t take planning, but because a wedding can tell you so much about your future if you’ll let it.
I wish people would spend more time imagining the perfect wedding. They should dream up every piece of that day and create a perfect collage of what would make that day special. Some adjustments for budget and the availability of the King’s Guard may need to be dealt with but those things aside they should have in their mind what the beginning of forever with someone should look like.
And then when the stage is set, when everyone they love has taken their seat, and the music begins to play in their ears they should look and see if the person standing on the platform looks like they should even be allowed in the room. Because if they don’t fit perfectly into the fantasy… then you aren’t ready. Or they aren’t the one.
Please don’t misunderstand. I’m not saying that every wedding should look like a photo shoot. I’m not saying that every wedding needs to look a perfect day of small town Italiana. But you know what you’ve dreamed of all your life. You have a picture inside your head and its there for a reason.
So many weddings… Too many weddings, sometimes. And as I attend each one I can see people constantly settling for things that mean nothing to them. They recite words they don’t believe because the preacher said they should. Invitations are withheld because someone said they couldn’t. They stand next to people holding a pose that neither of them feel natural in.
The wedding is not the first day of the rest of your lives… but the final audition. The chance to see if when you have months of planning and throngs of adoring help you can create an event together that will surpass even what your dreams had told you possible.
If you can do that… If you can deal with all the decisions, familial advice, and opinions. If you know each other well enough to design something that both of you can feel represents who you are as individuals and as a couple. Well then you’re not wasting time at all. You’re practicing all the things that will make the rest of your lives as beautiful as the first day.
