a wedding rant (at the air, or the voices in my head)

I’m full of cider and a Yorkshire roast beef wrap. I seem to be mostly over my jetlag and my feelings are turning more positive. Homesickness is leaving as this becomes home, or at least something like home. I don’t want to think too much about Christmas just yet, because with poverty and distance from family it doesn’t yet seem like a promising holiday. That will change in time, I know, but at the moment I am trying to take it one day at a time and not think overmuch of “tomorrow”. I am hoping we can go somewhere to experience a “traditional English Christmas” and get into the proper mood of it, or that some of our friends will also be stranded so we can band together and make a jolly time of it.

But I’m not sitting to write about Christmas or the day to day details of Cambridge life. This is a wedding post, for my somewhat neglected wedding. Since my planning spree in September I haven’t done too much but I’ve been thinking. Thinking, mostly, about the costs of weddings and how this is at odds with moving and looking for work and one of us being a student. Thinking about how, despite my efforts and purpose that it would not become a focus, the idea of The Wedding seems to have superseded the purpose of a wedding—namely to unite two souls into a sacramental bond with close friends and family witnessing this sacred event.

Caught up in the Offbeat world of zany and wonderful weddings it was easy to think that because I too am planning something different I won’t fall victim to the Wedding Curse. Alas, this was not to be. It’s funny how one can get stuck on certain ideas, the motivation from which is not me & David, but ensuring that our guests have a good time (so nothing wrong with that) but also wanting to impress people and make it something memorable and beautiful. Nothing wrong with wanting a nice wedding, of course, but I think it’s too easy to get to the point where the plans become a little more pressing than what the whole thing is about.

I want to get to that point in my head where I don’t care and where I don’t worry about my wedding looking cheap and pathetic. I mean that is really such a lame thing to worry about, isn’t it? I want the confidence to know that if it were just us getting married in a plain ceremony and we still invited people they would come and be happy and enjoy it, whether or not there were decorations or good music or even a reception. I want to know that we are more important to our friends than exotic food and cheap drink. And thinking this way makes me want to cancel my reception or scale the guest list down to almost nothing or..or...I don’t know.

I think I’m coming back to my original thoughts about this whole thing. A marriage is about community. So if you want to come and support this step we’re taking in life, that’s awesome, and I hope you stay for the reception because I just want to kick back and celebrate. And if our money is lacking and our reception consists of music played off the laptop and everyone sitting on the grass because we can’t afford tables & chairs, and no decorations and all the stuff that you supposedly need to pull off a successful wedding, well—if you don’t like it, don’t come. Because if the only reason you want to see me get married is for the reception, to satisfy your idle curiosity over how we’ll “manage” or what weird idea that crazy LeAnna is going to come up with, then don’t bother coming. Because I am not your sideshow.

Close friends, close family, and those with honest good intentions toward us at heart only please.