Messages By: gitinskiny

My wedding day was far from the "perfect wedding" that every little girl dreams of.  The day before the wedding, the men went to pick up their tuxedos - and the wrong colour had arrived.  My soon to be hubby called me at work all in a panic but I just shrugged and said "nothing we can do about it.  Take what is there and wear it" - I just secretly prayed it wasn't powder blue...Turned out they were charcoal grey instead of pale grey...No biggie.

Despite my best intentions and the abnormal for me organizational skills, I had called the photographer several times from August to May to confirm the date and time AND discuss what we needed and wanted by means of pictures...and the morning of the wedding he called me to 'confirm our appointment for next Saturday'...The result was our photos are simply ones we were able to gather from guests.

It started raining that morning and by the time the afternoon approached, we had a torrential downpour - so much so that we were unable to leave the church after the ceremony because opening the doors would have let the water pour into the building.  Then we had to wait until the storm sewers could catch up because most of the cars were 3/4s under water.  My father was late getting to the church to begin with and we ended up being behind schedule with the minister - but with the rain, it turned out that it didn't matter. 

The car hubby and I were in ended up breaking down on the highway on the way to the reception...Half the decorations we had put up the night before had fallen down and the catering crew didn't bother to help out (we knew them all) and all of us were putting them back up each time we noticed something out of place - including me standing on a chair in my gown and heels pinning lights back up on the wall (must have been a sight!)...The DJ we had hired didn't bother showing up or calling us - but we lucked out there and one of the local guys who had been a guest at the wedding was also a DJ.  He raced home, grabbed his equipment, raced back, set up and entertained everyone for the rest of the night - and didn't charge us a penny!

I had carefully and meticulously planned that day - but I had never staked my whole marriage on it.  Why?  Well, for me it was two fold.  I've never been one to get caught up in things you can't control or things you can't change - if it happens, it happens.  Once it happens, you can't change it, right? 

Then there was also the fact that my mother had been diagnosed with cancer two months after we had started planning the wedding.  I told Mom that we would post-pone the event until after her treatments - and silently prayed that she'd be there to witness the event.  But she wouldn't hear anything of that kind.  Our day was going to be on the day we had set and that was that.  (Doctors hadn't given her a good prognosis - all agreed we'd be lucky if she made it to summer).  So, I planned the wedding with the knowledge that it might all change at a moment's notice - I WAS going to get married with my mother there - even if it meant putting on a cheap old dress from my closet and walking into my mother's hospital room with the minister and my soon to be husband.

But you know what?  For me, it was only ONE DAY in well over 6500 days that have come and gone since.  The wedding day was not THE most important day in my life to me.  The days that have come since are far more important - mostly, and hubby and I agree on this, the day I gave birth to our son - after 13 years of marriage and being told we'd never have children. 

Hubby and I actually recently discussed our wedding day - laughing about everything that went wrong - after the renewal vows of friends of ours on their 25th anniversary.  He asked if there was anything about our wedding I would change if I had to do it all again.  I told him I would get rid of all the "frew-frew" stuff - no tux rentals, no gown (which I can't even find any longer), less people but more friends...

If he and I were going to get married all over again, I would have something small and intimate - candlelight, wearing what we normally wear, with just our best friends and our son, maybe a hot dog and marshmallow roast afterwards.  Good enough - because it isn't the day that makes the marriage...it's the two people making the vows...