Final Thoughts

When you get engaged and start planning a wedding, there is a lot of advice, thoughts, memories, and warnings freely given out from a whole plethora of people. Here are some things I/we took away from our wedding (and wedding planning) experience. 

- The thing that struck me the most of everything was how cool it was to have all of those people in one place, celebrating us! It hadn't really occurred to me...I was so worried about everything coming together, I didn't think about how everything coming together didn't really matter because of the awesome group of people in those rooms. It really was pretty emotionally overwhelming! In a good way, of course. As I shared my anxiety about walking down the aisle (everybody staring...ahhh, NO THANKS...I actually thought about alternate entrances that didn't involve me walking in front of everyone) with a few people, I was told that I wouldn't even notice everyone. It would just be me and Brian there. That helped ease my anxiety, but it actually wasn't true (for me)- and that ended up being fine! I was very aware of everyone there, and I was SO EXCITED to see those people that my anxiety was gone in an instant.  

- We wanted to be intentional about our decisions. This included the ceremony. Down to the wording used in the vows (for me more than Brian...as I was reading through traditional vows, I kept noticing how redundant the wording was, and it bothered me!). But our officients- Rich and Steve- were so organized and professional, and also completely respectful and helpful in working with us to put our ceremony together. When we first met with Rich, we really didn't have any clue what we wanted. He talked us through some ideas, sent us some templates, and we went back and forth over emails moving things around, deleting, adding, etc. We met with Steve and his wife, Ellie, to talk about (well, to talk about a lot of stuff!) the verse we chose and why, and loved his idea of including our guests with vows of their own...our community is so important! And Rich's questions that he proposed to each of us individually about each other made the whole thing feel so personal, and was both meaningful to hear what the other person said, and funny. I'm so glad we were able to personalize our ceremony. 

- We heard SO many times 'don't worry about everyone else, this day is for you two', and also 'just come to the realization now that this day isn't about you, it really is for everyone else'...and I would say that both comments were true. And it was probably important for our sanity that both were true. 

- We ate our food. I kept hearing people say how hungry they were because they never got a chance to eat at their wedding. We were excited about our catering, and wanted to eat...so we went through the line first, sat down at a table, and ate. Great choice. Eat! 

- 'Stop and enjoy the moment'...I did this a few times throughout the evening. As I walked from one area to another, I took a breath and looked around. Great piece of advice (if for nothing else than to take a breath!).

- We danced. This was the day of our big party and darn it, we were going to have fun and enjoy it. We did spend time walking around and chatting with as many people as possible- but we also danced. 

- The one thing I had and still have a hard time with is our guest list...you just can't invite everyone. As much as you want to, it just doesn't work. We decided to invite the people that are in our lives right now. And in retrospect, there are several people that I haven't seen in awhile but were really important to me in different places of my life that I wish I had invited. Sigh. 

Okay...I'm sure there is more, but I'm done for now. I'll post pictures when we get them, but am moving on to normal life. Like beard hat night at the Mariners game.