April 12, 2011- Spending a lifetime together...

    It seems this trip has been all about weddings and marriage. Of course, that's not what brought me here, but it has definitely turned out to be a large part of where my thoughts and plans have been focused now that my baby is doing well and in the home stretch of his recovery.  With a wedding a little over a year away, there's lots to do, and not a lot of opportunities to do it in.  One of the things I have become more aware of while looking for wedding dresses, locations, etc...is narrowing down what kind of wedding we both want and do not want. From the start, my sweetheart and I decided we very much wanted our special day to be a family affair and just a really good time for everyone to spend together, including us, of course.  We don't want anyone to be anxious about the details of it, and we want it to be simply a celebration of all the things we love as well as a celebration of both our families meeting and being all together for the first time.
     The funny thing is that in the midst of all the talk and planning of what we want and don't want our wedding to be, I keep finding myself hearing about and being in the presence of people who are celebrating not their wedding, but the spending of their lives together.  From my brother and sister-in-law's 10 year anniversary celebration to visiting with the woman who made many a special occasion dress over the years, including my prom dress, the theme before me has been the importance not of the actual wedding day, but of the ensuing years together and how you handle those.  Of course, a wedding is a celebration of the beginning of your years as one, but it is hardly the most important part of spending a lifetime with those you love. I took my wedding dress to a family friend today who has been a part of making dresses for special moments in my life as a teenager and young adult to have her make a couple of important alterations for it to be just right for my special day next summer. It's been probably 15 years since I've sat down in her "sewing office" in the back of her house where "back door friends are the best" and since then she has lost her husband of 63 years.  That's almost unheard of now a days, to be married faithfully to one person for that long. And the way she talked about him was like that young person so in love and in awe of her chosen partner.
     That's what it is all about...like my brother said about most days still feeling like he and his wife are newlyweds or like our 80 year old friend who still speaks adoringly of her husband of 63 years, a wedding should be a looking forward to the years of life ahead of you, whatever they may bring. I want to look back and say it was a wonderful, special day, but mostly I want to look back and think of it as the day we became one in a million together, the day we cemented what we knew from so early on...that we were made for each other and were lucky enough to have the privilege to be joined together in the bonds of sacred matrimony no matter what colors we choose or what flowers served as our centerpiece or the type of cake we decided to serve, what matters is that we are committing to each other, through thick and thin, choosing to spend a lifetime together and loving it!