Today is our last day at APW before the holidays, and as the year closes, my feelings are all over the place: I’m excited to go home and see my family, baffled that the year is up, and maybe still a tiny bit exhausted (though that could be because I forgot to have coffee today). But really, I think this morning’s post from Christine does a better job of explaining the buzz around me than I can. She wrote this twelve days before her wedding (she’s married now, so let’s give her a hearty congrats, eh?) and while it’s a short piece, she nails Every. Last. Word.
—Maddie for Maternity Leave
That’s how many days until our wedding. Twelve. Is there still a long list of things that need to be finished (or, let’s face it, started)? Of course. Are we fielding emails from friends and family, coordinating airport pick-up times and planning a post-wedding brunch? Yes. Have I spent hours cutting out tiny lavender hearts, tying ribbons on things, and wandering the aisles of craft stores in a daze? How did you know?
And yet, when I think about our wedding, I don’t worry about the long to-do list. I don’t think about the unfinished projects littering my desk and taking over our guest room. I don’t think about the spreadsheet which keeps track of all the little ways we’ve gone over budget. I don’t feel calm, exactly, but I’m not panicked, either. I feel like there is a tiny alarm clock just beneath my skin, counting down the minutes until the day we’ll spend with everyone we love, until we’re celebrating and getting wine-drunk and crying happy tears, until that magical moment when our marriage begins.
One thing we’ve been practicing is wearing our wedding rings. We only slip them on at night, after the dishes from dinner have been done and the wine has been poured, when we’re sitting close on the couch at the end of the day. Neither of us has ever worn a ring regularly and, just like thinking of each other as “husband” and “wife,” it takes some getting used to. It’s not a bad feeling, it’s just an odd awareness of a part of yourself that you never paid much attention to. It feels strange, and then it feels fine, and then we almost forget to take them off before we go to bed, because suddenly it’s the most natural thing in the world.
Because of those small moments, I’m sure that, despite the scraps of ribbon and bewildered moments, our wedding will be the best day ever, and our marriage will be even better.
Twelve days can’t go by quick enough.
Photo by: Emily Takes Photos
