OK, I’m married now. The wedding’s over, we bought a house and if we weren’t so backwards we’d be working on having a baby… but we did that already (the baby is wonderful btw). In retrospect, there were definitely a few things that I hadn’t planned on in our wedding. What surprised me most was:

5. Oh the guest list – The politics of making a guest list is hard. Who makes the cut, where do you draw the line, what will that say to the people who aren’t going? Ughh! In addition to that, parents and family members may have too much to say about who should be invited.  I had to remind myself that it will all work out in the end.  After all, in 5 years will anyone care that Uncle Jimmy’s new girlfriend went to the wedding… probably not. Sometimes, you gotta let it go.

4. It’s always traditional – It became clear to me that our wedding was bigger than we are. Even though we wanted to have a non-traditional wedding, and consider ourselves to be more contemporary, the act of getting married is a traditional one. Weddings come to us with all this family history. As the meaning of what we did sets in, it makes me think of our own historical context and what this means to our children and grandchildren. We are all part of something old, cultural and human which is even more beautiful than I had previously thought.

3. The ceremony – clearly the most under rated part of my wedding. I thought the reception would be where it’s at! I knew the ceremony would be meaningful but I never expected it to be quite so strong. When I walked in and found my self circled by almost everyone who is important to me in this world… it was very emotional. I truly understood at that moment the greatness of what we were about to do. Picture me, a grown man, chin quivering, short breaths with eyes so full that at the next blink, they would erupt with flowing tears.

2. My flower tie fell off – So I had this other great idea to buck tradition and not wear a tie. So instead I had our florist (John LaRoche from blueGuava… amazing!) make me something that I could fashion around my neck as some sort of a decorative flower piece. The only problem is that just before my entering the ceremony, I had picked up my 2 year old daughter who squished my flower and nearly yanked it off. About 5 minutes into the ceremony it completely fell… I felt so embarrassed it was painful.

1. Time… what was it. I was so overwhelmed by the lack of time. Plan accordingly. I had heard plenty of times that your wedding day flies by. I was really struck by the feeling of continuously trying to grasp at connecting with people. There were so many people that I wanted to spend so much time with but just couldn’t. My biggest suggestion is this: before the wedding, make a dinner date to check in with the people who you haven’t seen in a while. On the wedding day, you won’t really have a chance to catch up with any one person…. Roll With It!