wedding bells
will there ever come a time when i don’t start a post talking about how long its been? we can only hope that day comes. time will tell.
in my last post i talked about filling everyone in on the wedding/engagement year(s) process - so i plan to do some of that today, and talk a bit about future plans.
anyways.. the great news: i got married october 7th of 2023! i have a new last name, point of view, and ability to tolerate a ~lot~ of emotional distress!
i’m going to preface this by saying my experience is not at all representative of everyone’s experience. i do not intend to paint with a broad brush, but simply share what my partner and i went through and some takeaways - especially if you’re thinking about marriage or about to get married.
to be honest, i never expected to be the first out of my friends to get married. if you knew me back in college or even high school, i was adamantly unsure if i even wanted to get married. this partially because i internalized a lot of the pre-conceived notions about marriage, but also because i am queer - and i don’t feel at home with a lot of the weird gendered expectations associated with the whole Thing. thankfully, when i met my partner four years ago, he expressed the same reservations. i can’t begin to express how much of an equal partnership our relationship is- and while that was something i always wanted, i never found it before we started dating. (i could go on and on about how wonderful this man is, but then this would be a very long essay. just know, he is, in fact, incredible.) when we got to the stage in our relationship where marriage was on the table, what secured my feelings about getting married was the agreement that we would have a wedding that was Ours, not anyone else’s. a lot of people found it surprising that i wanted to marry, but i think the truth is that it doesn’t feel horrifying when you’re with the right person. you can take the things you like about the process, and leave what you don’t.
keep in mind that i think a lot of couple’s say they’ll do this and don’t actually mean it, or know how to follow through with it. i’ll say that picking your battles is really important. it was something i struggled with during our engagement year, because the people who love you will always have opinions. balancing doing what you want while also making them feel heard/considered/important is difficult, especially if you have different views on traditions and vision than they do. i found the most crucial thing is keeping the lines of communication open with the person you’re marrying, and relying on each other to feel grounded in your decision making. at the end of the day: you will make choices that other people don’t agree with or even like. if you’re a bit of a people pleaser mixed with mouthy and ‘i will do what i want!’ like me, it can be hard. but at the end of the day, you don’t owe anyone anything. just remember to be up front about how much input and when you want from the people closest (or not closest) to you.
that being said, we faced a couple of challenges on our way to getting married. the biggest was a falling out with two people who were supposed to be in our wedding. i won’t go into a lot of details, but it was largely over a lack of respect and positivity surrounding the attire we wanted for the actual day. to be frank, it was wayyyy more than just clothing that caused this - which leads me to a point that shouldn’t be taken lightly: if you have any doubts about ANYONE that you’re planning to have in the wedding party beforehand, LISTEN to those doubts. in my case, i selected someone who i had vocalized concerns about their behaviors/intentions, but ignored that intuition in hopes that they would change. to be clear, your wedding + the events leading up to it is not a period of time where you can just hope people will become less difficult and self-centered.
we learned a lot as a couple from that experience, and i hope you never have to find out the quality of a friendship and its durability because you’re getting married. however, the reality is, you will. everything is heightened when you’re planning a wedding, emotions included. i worried a lot about being a ‘bridezilla’ just for having concerns and asking people for things. psa: you’re not a bridezilla or unreasonable for asking people to respect your wishes and you.
the other major challenge we faced was marrying our own visions/beliefs/ideas, and fitting them into a budget. we saved a lot of money by getting married at a generous family friend’s home. she lives near a gorgeous forest, which made for a lot of beautiful photographs and space for a venue. that being said, there are pro’s and con’s to largely diy weddings. i would ask yourself up front how much you’re willing to do yourself, what is feasible to do yourself, and what you can afford to splurge on. as much as i love saving money, there are areas of your wedding i don’t recommend cutting corners with - like food and photography. whatever you do, you have to decide what matters most to you and your future spouse! those conversations can be tough, and they were for us at times, because we were raised differently in our beliefs about marriage and what a wedding looks like. i think the key is being willing to hear each other and respect wishes. if you can do that, you’re going to get through so much of the uncomfortable stuff together leading up to the wedding- and after. (which matters the most, in my opinion.)
at the end of the day though, the day itself was perfect. everything that really mattered to us, like the ceremony, the food, dancing (we actually purchased a wooden dancefloor to go over grass, more on that later) was so special. i attribute most of this to the people who we had in our wedding and our families who really showed up to make us feel valued and seen. there was so much work they all put in and dedicated to making the wedding beautiful, leading up to, the morning of, and after. we could never thank them enough. mostly, i just feel grateful to be with my person?? looking back on that year, there was so much stress about everything - simply because it was this major long term project- and it’s so relieving to feel like we can just be married in peace.
since this is already getting ~long~ i’m going to list the rest of my takeaways below, keep em’ in mind or don’t, up to you!
1.) our jeweler told us that our rings are the only tangible everyday memory of the wedding itself, therefore they should be quality and worth the splurge. i’m so thankful she told us that, because this is something i was trying to cut corners on. out of everything you do, invest in your rings. you don’t want them to be falling apart in a few years. it might be nice to order something off etsy or go to a big box store, but i don’t think you’ll regret meeting with a professional to find something within your budget that you’ll love.
2.) i touched on this a bit above, but be very clear with everyone at the beginning of the wedding process what their roles are, and stay consistent with this. do you want everyone’s opinion on every little thing? you might think so, but you don’t, really. minimize the conversations you have with anyone besides your future spouse to avoid unnecessary input or judgment where it isn’t warranted.
3.) be willing to be flexible and compromise. this might seem like the anthesis of what i said in bullet point 2, but it’s not, really. you don’t have to be flexible on boundaries, but it is worth assessing if you need to pick fights with people over little details that you won’t care about in 30 years. this is especially important for diy weddings where you’re relying on family and friends to help you the day of - does the table setting have to look exactly what you imagined as, or are you going to be ok with small adjustments? worth asking yourself these questions.
4.) stand up for yourself. if you feel bullied, pushed, antagonized, say something. you aren’t rude for that and don’t let others try to paint you as unreasonable for this.
5.) assess practicality. i mentioned earlier we got a dance floor to be placed over grass. we did not realize the slope in the grass would also slope the dance floor, or how small it ended up being. it didn’t affect the fun too much, but it’s something we could’ve avoided if we had looked into it more. it also ended up being very cold on our wedding night, the first cold day of the fall, and we didn’t get sides for our tent thinking it’d be warm. thankfully we had fireplaces and everyone was able to bundle up, but it wasn’t ideal. don’t skip on things because you don’t want to deal with them, you’ll have to deal with it later.
6.) remember the why. you’re not getting married to impress others, flex your wealth, or prove anything. you’re marrying this person because they are THE person. don’t forget that.
hopefully all of that was helpful, or at the very least, interesting? i’d love to hear about others experiences with getting married, if they were similar or not- so please feel free to reach out! and if you are getting married: good luck! it won’t always feel this complicated or stressful. the view from the mountain is a beautiful sight.
and now we get to look ahead!
i’ve talked a little on my instagram about this, but i’m planning to apply for poetry mfa programs for the fall 2025 semester. it’s been slightly slow to start since the beginning of this year was A Lot but i might discuss that another time. it does mean that i am writing everyday to keep up with my month to month applications timeline, so that will mean more content for ya’ll. i’ve already nailed down all my schools, so let me know if hearing about that sounds interesting to you.
a letter i wrote for Bi Women Quarterly will be published in their Spring issue, so i’ll be sure to talk about that and post when it comes up. some other things are in the works too, but i’ll keep all of you in the know! you can also now navigate to my ‘about’ tab for previously published works.
i’m sending you all a lot of love and wonderful wishes into the universe.
until next time,
scm (or, dani.)