I'm Married!

It's official, I am a wife, and have a husband!  I seriously never thought I'd see the other side of the wedding, but here we are!  It's incredible the emotions I've felt the last couple of weeks.

Here's why I am so glad the wedding is over:

• So much less stress
• No more guest drama (so and so isn't coming and didn't tell me, so and so is coming, blah blah blah)
• All my to-do lists can be retired
• I don't have to worry about everything actually happening
• No more communicating with vendors
• No more worrying about weather

But the day itself was AH. MAZE. ING.  Like, seriously.  The weather turned out to be way better than expected, even better than I could have ever hoped!  My dress was beautiful, and Dino was so surprised by it and loved it.  The flowers were incredible, so beautiful and so perfect.  The ceremony was pretty quick, but there wasn't a dry eye in the house when my father-in-law, our officiant, started to tear up and lose it during his message.  It was so special to have him marry us, and have our best friends and brothers stand up with us.  The food was so delicious (even if I couldn't fit much in with my tight dress) and the cake turned out lovely and tasted better than anything.  The toasts were so heartfelt and had a great mix of jokes and sentiment, they truly made us feel like not only were we the coolest people ever, but that we are meant to be together since everyone else sure seems to think so!  I got more hugs from small children than I can count, and more compliments than ever before.  There was so much love surrounding us, so many smiles and laughs, happy tears and all!  The dance floor was never empty, and neither was my heart!  

I just can't get over how wonderful it all was!  I am dying to get pictures back, because the sneak preview we've seen is, obviously, incredible.  

Seriously.  Can you believe that sky?  And how fun are the ribbon wands?  Does it look like some are spelling "JOY" behind my head or what?!?!  Photo by Jenny GG

And I hope she captured the little things I wasn't able to see, like people blessing our rings on the ring tree, or our brothers putting on their bright colored sunglasses during the recessional!  

I can't believe it is all over, but at the same time, I'm so relieved.  Now we get to start the rest of our lives together, and hopefully live happily ever after!  

I feel like I want to share the beautiful day with the whole world, and might do some sort of recap once we get the photos.  But I do want to talk about our honeymoon for sure, and there was a lot that I never posted beforehand!  Man.  Weddings are awesome, yo.

It's the Final Countdown (like, in hours, not even days really!)

I can't believe this journey is almost over!  All of these crazy ideas in my head, all of my visions, all of our hard work and discussions...  they're all about to become reality.  And I just seriously can't wrap my head around it!

So so much has been happening lately, all the little loose ends are being tied up, all the project being completed, and all the excitement is about to explode.  One thing we left kind of late in the process, though, was writing our vows.  And it is shaping up to be so different than I expected.

I'm somewhat of a writer.  I feel I can express myself through writing much better than through speaking, and can make my thoughts come across so much better.  Dino is not a writer.  He gets stumped, feels uncreative, and just gets annoyed when trying to put his thoughts into words on paper.  However, I desired the intimate, personal, special vows so many people seem to do lately, where each party writes their own and it's a secret until the ceremony.  I took a basic format, a fill-in-the-blanks setup, and gave one to him and filled out one myself.  I thought it wasn't terribly difficult, composed a few different versions, and planned to edit them all together.  Dino, on the other hand, spent an evening locked up trying to fill it in, and hated every minute.  He scoured the internet for inspiration, managed to get a draft, but felt so little confidence in it and when I walked in to the room, he just looked angry and annoyed.  And then I felt guilty for making him do something he clearly despised.  He was also concerned that my vows to him would be beautiful and so meaningful, and his would seem terrible and flimsy in comparison, even though we planned to have his dad review them ahead of time and make sure they went together okay.

So, the next day, I wasn't surprised when he wanted to compromise and change our plan.  He suggested we write our vows together, say the same vows, and he would write me a letter or card with all his feelings and thoughts in it.  He felt so much pressure from my plan to each write our own, and I hated that, so I readily agreed.  And it's actually been really a good decision.

Together, we wrote the vows, and have been trying to revise them to make them perfect.  We laid in bed writing together, talking about what we want to express, and practicing reading them to each other.  It was seriously amazing.  Far more meaningful and intimate than writing secret vows alone and reading them once to each other.  And though we know what the other will be pledging during the ceremony, it's almost nicer that way because I will be more likely to remember and be present, rather than worrying how my vows will go over and compare to his, and we've made sure to include what was most important to us.

So while I still like the secret, personalized, individual vows, I'm starting to think this compromise is a much better plan, especially for us.  I'm glad we talked it over and we both feel confident about the vows now!