Here Comes The Bride (part one)

      12.31.12
      That’s our wedding anniversary. We snuck in just under the wire for 2012 tax purposes (not that it helped us, argh), though that was not the purpose of a New Year’s Eve wedding.
      I’m not sure exactly when I got the idea for a NYE wedding; years ago, definitely, probably while reading some cool blogger’s account of a disastrous NYE wedding they had attended. “Oh”, I’m sure I thought to myself, “How romantic? A kiss at midnight to seal the deal and starting a brand new year as husband and wife! Some day, we should totally get married on New Year’s Eve. There’s no possible way it could ever go as wrong as that one chick’s did!”
      Fast Forward to 2012.
      Now, Mark & I have been together since 2004. That’s a goodly long time to be in limbo, relationship-wise. We had always intended to get married; we knew from the start that whatever it was between us, it was forever. Yeah, we were that kind of couple.
      Anyway, to be honest, I never really saw the point in marriage. I mean, I saw benefits to legal status for joint children, taxes, severing of relationship (boo-yah, community property!), and all that jazz. But I also did not see why I – or anyone – needed a piece of paper from the state to prove I loved someone and wanted to spend my life with them. And okay, to some extent, I still feel that way. Love is love, guys, paper or no.
      Mark, on the other hand, is a pretty traditional guy. He wanted to have a real wedding; a cavalcade of groomsmen and maids of honor, fluffy dresses, flowers, a minister, and all our friends and family around us. He wanted ‘the dream’, the very thing that spawned television shows like “Bridezillas” and “Say Yes to the Dress”. I wanted to elope, or just to keep it simple (and cheap – I’m practical like that).
      That impasse led us to making absolutely zero progress toward marriage for oh, about seven years. Then, in April of 2012, Mark survived (Thank you, God!) a nasty little heart attack, the specific type he suffered is better known as a Widow Maker, and we both got a wake-up call. Life is too short to dick around. Figure out what you want and make it happen!
      So, we set a date. I had talked about NYE a lot over the years, and it was months away, thus we decided that was plenty of time and started (sort of…) making plans. Naturally, the weeks blazed by and by Thanksgiving, we were still totally unprepared.
      It was not a well-planned affair on my part. I admit that. It was hard for me to make any choices or decisions because, well, I am a tight-wad about things like that. Luckily, between my dear sweet Mother on the West Coast, and my dear sweet Mother-in-Law/Sister-in-Law on the East Coast – everything got sorted out.
      A simple event, we planned for thirty-to-fifty attendees (but assumed it would be on the lower end of the spectrum), had our super-awesome friend, Tim, build an arbor, and pulled together inexpensive solutions for decor and food. My sister and her family, who couldn’t be there, joined forces with my BFF, Tim (the E-burg Tim) to fly my mother in for the event and frankly, that was all I needed to be happy.
      You’d think, with a wedding so low-key and purposefully-designed to be totally non-stressful, that not much could go wrong… right?
      Hah!
      Tune in next time to find out why even the simplest of ceremonies can go awry!

Signed, Josie

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