Posts Tagged ‘Second Weddings’

Aug 2012

Ask Team Practical: Old Dresses and New Beards

In a nutshell—I almost got married three years ago. But I did not. He was the best mistake I have ever made. I have a dress, shoes, veil, and jewelry that I love. Still. Do they remind me of him? No. They remind me of how a bride should feel. Special and beautiful.

Fast forward. I met someone so perfect for me that it’s scary. We will (most likely) get married next year. Can I wear the stuff that I was supposed to wear three years ago to marry someone else? If I can, do I have to tell my partner?

- Dysfunctional in Des Moines

Dear DDM,

Wear whatever you want. The dress makes you feel gorgeous? Then go on, girl.

Being almost-married didn’t ruin the idea of marriage or weddings for you, right? That guy didn’t co-opt the entire wedding day process. So, sure. Wear your old dress, look hot, send us photos.

The only thing about your email that’s making me pause is that you don’t want to tell your partner. Yikes. That sends up red flags for me. There’s a reason you don’t want him to know? He probably doesn’t need to know where you got your dress. But, as all reality TV and stupid romantic comedies have taught us, if you don’t want him to know, he’s probably going to find out. So, you want to hammer that stuff now, and not end up with him finding out on your wedding day when your Aunt Matilda makes some flippant comment. More than that, if you’re worried about him finding out, that probably means he’ll be bothered by you wearing it, which probably means there’s something there to discuss. I’m of the opinion that your partner doesn’t always need to know absolutely everything, but if there’s something you’re afraid he’ll find out, it’s best to face that stuff head on and in the open.

*****

In the larger realm of things, this question may seem like a rather vain or selfish topic in comparison to some of the larger issues talked about recently, but I would love to get thoughts and honest advice on this. Recently in discussing our upcoming engagement and wedding pictures with my fiancé, he commented that he wanted to continue to have a beard and facial hair for both. He had originally just grown it out with some of his friends in preparation for an upcoming event but decided he actually liked having it and wanted to keep it. Not wanting to get all “I want my day to be perfect and capture amazing photos of the ideal and not reality,” I need some advice on how to approach this topic. Are there resources or examples of making facial hair work for men on the wedding day that doesn’t come off as unkempt or burly? I did a few searches online and was amazed at how little I found on the topic. I want to try and find a solve for this as he really has been fabulous in making this “our day,” a union of us coming together as a unit and not just “my day,” and he has had a huge role in planning and helping thus far. So I would love to find a solution that satisfies us both.

Any advice or direction would be a huge help!

Thanks,
Fearing the Beard

Dear FB,

High-five for being on board for whatever he wants to wear and look like! There’s a weird funny line between wanting your partner to like the way you look and just wanting to feel good about yourself, dammit. On our wedding day, while I really wanted my soon-to-be-husband to be straight enamored with the way I looked, how I felt about myself trumped all of that. I’m guessing the same goes for dudes. Good job at fighting the cultural narrative that says guys (both grooms and groomsmen) are just dress-up doll accessories in a wedding. Continue reading Ask Team Practical: Old Dresses and New Beards

Posted in: Ask Team Practical | 131 Comments »

May 2012

Why We’re Going Big For Our Second Wedding

Second weddings are things fraught with so much shame and isolation that I think we can’t talk about them enough. And as if it isn’t hard enough getting married again, with everyone’s eyes on you, people have a set of expectations. Surely this time you’ll sneak away to the courthouse? Surely after a divorce you wouldn’t… celebrate? And even if no one in your life is making such eyebrow-raised comments, you may pick it up in the (horrible) cultural narrative. Which is, in short, bullshit. It’s bullshit to imply that we shouldn’t celebrate what’s ours—that we shouldn’t celebrate love, celebrate building a family and a home, celebrate being brave enough to know what we need to make ourselves happy. So here is Sally telling us why after a big white wedding, she’s having big wedding. And how, this time, it’s different.

I had a big white church wedding. I had the dress. I had the flowers. I had my dad walking me down the aisle. I also had a big failed marriage.

My fiancé also had a big wedding. And a different big failed marriage.

We met each other at about the time we both realized we were in dead and loveless marriages. We both kept our relationship something we could tell our spouses about, but deep down, if I’m totally honest with myself, I knew that he was the one I was supposed to be with. That was actually a very difficult realization for me.

We’d been through a lot together. He was the one who supported me when a close friend died. He helped me through work issues. After his marriage ended, he went through a major depression (don’t think that because you wanted the relationship to end that you’re not going to go through some hard emotional stuff) and I called the cops on him when I was sure he was going to commit suicide. I was so anxious about my divorce and how it was affecting my children (at that time they were nine and twelve years old) that I was on some heavy-duty anti-anxiety and sleep pills—just to make it through the day. Through it all, we supported each other. We also managed to reach out to each other during those times, even when we didn’t want to admit what we were to one another.

Today, both of us are (mostly) free of our demons and we’re happier than, well, than ever.

When we first started dating, we kept it quiet. As a mother, I didn’t want to introduce my girls to someone until I was absolutely positive. And, as we live in a fairly small town, both of our ex-spouses still live here. Not to mention that they started hanging out together in that horrible commiseration that fed their hatred.

As things were becoming more and more serious, and we were able to recognize how serious, we slowly introduced each other to our families. The girls were accepting, but kept him at a distance. His mom believed that I was the reason his marriage had ended. My parents were sure that I was rushing into things. It took a little time to get everyone used to the idea of “us.” Continue reading Why We’re Going Big For Our Second Wedding

Posted in: Friends & Relations, Planning, Reclaiming Wife, Wedding Undergraduates | 63 Comments »

Apr 2012

Reclaiming Wife: Accidentally In Love

This week, we decided to go all in. To take all the posts we’ve been pondering for months, loving, but knowing they are really hard reads, and post them. This week, we’re talking about Deal Breakers & Hope Rising. What happens when your marriage hits something huge enough to destroy it? I wanted to start with this story, from a longtime member of the APW community, about how her current happy marriage started as an affair at the end of her previous, emotionally abusive marriage. We’ll be sharing lots of stories of couples hitting potential deal breakers and finding a way to make their marriage stronger, and it only seemed honest to start with a deal breaker that ended a marriage. I find this story so compelling, not because it’s about moral relativism: for all that she’s not sorry with how things turned out, she’s saddened by the pain her actions caused. I find this story so compelling because it’s in the rocky cracks where hope unexpectedly springs up, in the decisions that we never wanted to make, that we’re sometimes able to glimpse our own humanity.

I fell head over heels with my sweetheart (let’s call him S.) in ways that I had only dreamed possible. He made me laugh until my gut hurt. He made me think about things in new and interesting ways. When my shoulder brushed against him, lightning shot through my body. When we kissed for the first time, my knees literally went out from underneath me. When we first made love (and it was making love, from the first), everything just fit in ways that left me trembling, tearful, and understanding, for the first time, this was what the big deal was. He found my clumsiness endearing, he thought I was the most beautiful woman he had ever known and told me so. All fear of saying something that was the “WRONG ANSWER” disappeared in the incredible peace and rightness of being myself in our easy togetherness.

Suddenly we got it. Ohhhhhh, said we, THIS is what this whole soul mate thing is about: The utter inevitability of being together, the utter insufficiency of any words or poetry to capture this…. LOVE. LOVE! LOVE! Accidentally in love…. THIS! Together could never be close enough. Forever could never be long enough. People who feel like this should get married and grow old together (even though we already were a little bit old). People who feel like this would (of course!) have joyous and tearful weddings and shout their love from the rooftops!

The only thing was that we were already married.

To other people.

I am a cheater. There I said it. I cheated on my first/ex-husband. And I really don’t regret it. Continue reading Reclaiming Wife: Accidentally In Love

Posted in: Reclaiming Wife, The Hard Stuff | 151 Comments »

Apr 2012

Wedding Redux: Facing Fears as a Second Time Bride

This week, we wanted to explore different perspectives on getting married. Yesterday, we discussed becoming a stepparent at a young age, and then we talked about finding out right after the wedding that you were having a baby (surprise!). So today, Dorie is here talking about the fears of being a second-time bride and the bravery it takes to jump into marriage, every single time.

I just hauled a bag full of marriage improvement, couple-oriented, self-help books in for trade credit at my local used bookstore.

That line makes me sound bitter, perhaps, or hopeless. One might think that I just now decided that my marriage was over, that I have just decided to file for divorce. The reality is, though, I have been divorced since 2007. Instead of dumping those books in preparation for a divorce, I am getting rid of the marriage advice books in preparation for my upcoming wedding.

My fiancé and I were the product of a whirlwind romance, courtesy of, well serendipity. A native East-Coaster, R. was in Arizona doing some consulting, and he had just reconnected with his old college roommate who lived in Phoenix. Said former roommate and I knew each other through volunteer work. One day R.’s former roommate said to me, “I’d like to introduce you to somebody. He’s here on a consulting gig and a little bored. I thought maybe you would want to play tour-guide.” We met, hit it off, I played tour guide, and then those outings became dates. I really liked him, but I wasn’t thinking (too much) about our future.

We had known each other for only about five months when my now-fiancé asked me, “When do you think we should maybe talk about talking about getting married?” Despite all the hedging in that question, I nearly fell off the sofa, thinking, “What? Get married? Talk about getting married? He’s crazy! What never-married, not quite 50-year-old says things like that after knowing somebody for five months?” Yet, instead of saying what I thought, I mumbled something about the fact that I would have to move and would not be able to find a job. Lack of job security, however, was not the real reason I did not want to talk about (talking about) getting married. The real reason was that, simply, I was afraid. I had done this once before, and even though our relationship felt right in ways the other one did not, I felt worried and fretful: What if it doesn’t work the second time around? Continue reading Wedding Redux: Facing Fears as a Second Time Bride

Posted in: Reclaiming Wife, Wedding Undergraduates | 23 Comments »

Apr 2012

The Flower Girl

When A. sent me this post, she told me that as a younger woman becoming a stepmother by marriage, she felt a bit alone. She said, “In reading around the wedding blogosphere, I’ve found it difficult to locate stories of women like myself: youngish, first-time brides without children of their own who are stepping into insta-families. A lot of stepmom stories seem to be geared toward women who are entering their second marriage, or who have biological children of their own. I admit that I’ve been feeling like the lone ranger.” And I realized this is the kind of story we really need to be telling each other. We need to be talking about this not just because none of us should have to feel alone (and I know many of you are, or are becoming, stepparents). But also because A.’s story is about bravery. It’s about stepping into all the complications of loving another person. It’s about being scared, but not letting that stop you. And in the end, it’s what love is.

The first thing we knew about our wedding planning was that we definitely had a flower girl.

She’s seven years old. She loves chapter books, ballet, and swimming. She’s bright, funny, and articulate, and she has her own sense of style, favoring brightly patterned tights and twirling skirts. She is my future stepdaughter, which means I’m a future stepmother. Which means… well, it means that my baby family is going to have to become a grown-up, fully-functional one in a hurry.

There was never much doubt in my mind that I wanted to be with my partner, B. I loved him from very early on. As our relationship marched forward, I became increasingly certain that I wanted to be with him for the long haul.

But a ready-made family had never figured into my vision of the future. I wasn’t afraid enough of the concept to run away right off the bat, but I worried. I stayed up at night worrying about whether I could handle being a stepparent and all that I imagined that it entailed—and if I knew that I couldn’t, whether I had any business being with the man I loved. I wailed, I gnashed my teeth, and I sobbed in my car in parking lots across town because I was just so terrified that I might be morally obligated to walk away from him if I knew that I couldn’t handle eventual stepparenthood. Even ages before we were talking marriage, I knew it was an issue I had to deal with.

The logistics of dating a single dad were doable. His daughter was two when I met her, after B. and I had dated a few months and said “I love you” to each other. There were bedtimes to observe, custody schedules to juggle (he has her every other day) and occasional toddler tantrums to wait out. As a then-27-year-old who had never changed a diaper or rocked a baby in her life, I was perfectly happy with the fact that he never asked me to be a parent to her. Just hanging out together now and then was fine by me.

Besides, she had a mom already, who was doing a fine job of being a mom.

The things that so often bother the partners of single parents—the tough scheduling, the feeling of somehow coming second to a child—those things didn’t bother me. I never saw myself as in competition with her, because…well, because she was a child and I was a partner and those things are very different. What wasn’t fine, for me, was that I was basically terrified of a small, blonde moppet of a human being. My natural reticence around children was amplified by the fact that I believed getting too close to her was emotionally dangerous for both of us. What if my relationship with B. didn’t work out? What if I turned out to be attached to her more than him? What if… well, what if I ended up loving her? Scary stuff. I know women are supposed to be all “Yay! Children!” but I’m just not. The scariest thing I could think of would be to develop a close relationship with my boyfriend’s daughter. Continue reading The Flower Girl

Posted in: Friends & Relations, Reclaiming Wife, The Hard Stuff, Wedding Undergraduates | 95 Comments »

Mar 2012

Wedding Graduates: Kristine & Steve

*Kristine, Registered Nurse & Steve, Benefits Coordinator*

Today’s post is proof in its purest form that you don’t need a fancy wedding (or a wedding with lots of details, or an expensive dress, or any of the nonsense the WIC is selling you) to have a glowingly happy wedding. Kristine & Steve’s wedding, with a white bridesmaid’s dress, a tiny guest list, an impromptu iPod dance party, and photos by long time APW sponsor A Beautiful Day Photography, is one for the ages. Let’s do it.

My baby family is only three months old and I’m already chomping at the bit to write a Wedding Graduate post. I have been since the day I discovered APW. But I’ve struggled to begin because there is just so much to share. Do I focus on the gorgeous setting that made every venue-related mini-meltdown completely meaningless? What about the dress saga? As a plus-sized bride, I knew boutique shopping would be a challenge. After the salesgirl at the first store put her foot in her mouth one too many times, I tried to have my dream gown custom designed through Etsy. This was a disaster too. So I said uncle six weeks before my wedding day and rush-ordered an ivory bridesmaid dress from Joielle. And it was just right.

Or should I share the experience of becoming a wife for the second time by the age of thirty? There was a whole heap of baggage I had to wade through during our pre-engaged and engaged eras. But somehow those insecurities were nowhere to be found on October 15, 2011.

But what has really stuck with me is how damn joyful the whole weekend was. Pure f*cking joy.

I knew Steve and I were making an important commitment. I knew it would be special. But maybe because of the planning stress or because of the baggage, I wasn’t sure I expected to be so high that day. Maybe because I was trying to be so cool and laid back about it all, I didn’t think the actual wedding day would matter so much.

It mattered. So much.

We chose to have an extremely small ceremony. Part of it was to stay within our budget and part was that we didn’t think we needed the production, as we called it. It was about celebrating our commitment. Who cared about a million tiny details? So we invited immediate family and a couple of very close friends and called it good. My aunt and uncle and Steve’s dad generously offered to throw us a post-wedding celebration in our hometown a few weeks later. We really got the best of both worlds: An intimate ceremony that perfectly reflected our relationship and our personalities, followed by a casual party that allowed us to celebrate with everyone we knew and loved.

Continue reading Wedding Graduates: Kristine & Steve

Posted in: Wedding Graduates | 16 Comments »