What Really Matters

(I wrote this post, and then I was afraid I shouldn’t post it, because it was too boring. But then I thought, oh h*ll. Why don’t we talk about what’s really important, amidst all the posts about dresses and flowers and shiny rings. Let’s talk about it, even if it’s not flashy and just true.)

So the interesting thing about having some downtime before the wedding, is it’s given me space to really step back from the details of this party we’re planning and look at the big picture. Here is what I’ve seen: All this wedding stuff? This stuff I’ve been thinking about and planning? It’s just stuff. It’s really cool stuff mostly – dresses and hand made ties and micro-brewed beer, but it’s not the point, and soon it will be gone, or tucked away. What matters is both more ethereal and more solid all at once.

Our service. We’ve been working on it for months and months, but the last few weeks I’ve felt like I’ve lived inside it. It will be over in thirty-ish minutes, but it will be in our hearts for the rest of our lives. I haven’t written too much about it, because there are some things that are just too personal to write about publicly, but this is where the soul of the wedding lives. This is why we are doing this crazy public act.

Our families. We got to spend a weekend with both of our families in a beautiful vacation home up in sunny Russian River over the fourth of July weekend. We were there for another family event, but it turned out to be just perfect – a quiet moment before the wedding. I’m hoping that amidst the busyness of the wedding, there is some of that quiet energy of important people in our lives coming together, because really, that’s the why we are throwing the party.

Our Friends. We have some good friends in tough straights these days. The economy sucks, and life can be tough. So we’ve decided we can cut nicer shoes, or fancy paper for the programs or whatever we need to cut, and get them all a d*mn hotel room, or buy them a cheap plane ticket. Because we just want them there, with us.

Us. These days we’re working on the un-romantic nuts and bolts of things: getting our living wills notarized, and figuring out how to combine our finances. Stuff that will last far longer then the wedding, ideas that will stabilize our partnership. Boring? Yes, even to us. But important and stabilizing to focus on.

And that’s not even going into the best wedding planning experience we’ve had – marriage counseling, because that deserves a whole post of it’s own.

What really matters in this crazy world of weddings to you? What is the real and the true that you don’t hear people talking much about? Dish.

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