Just One Day?
Ah, now I've opened a real can of worms. Based on Karen and Bree's responses to the last posting, I feel we really need to dig a little deeper into the philosophy behind the big day. All along I've been struggling with spending so much money on an event that only lasts for one day. The whole it's just one day philosophy. The follow-up to this is that every day after the wedding day is actually more important than the one that came before because each day you love each other a little more. Isn't your life together more memorable as a whole than the day you officially embark on it? Wouldn't it be a little sad if the best day of your relationship grew increasingly more distant in your past the longer you were together, rather than a better day to come the next day and the next? (Maybe you can see toward which philosophy I'm already leaning.)
The flip side to this argument is that the wedding represents something big and so wonderful - a combined life, a symbol of love and a shared everything - that it needs to properly express that. In which case nothing can be too big or elaborate. To which I say, can't that be expressed in the words we choose to say to each other and the people we ask to be present to witness our union - both things that go beyond things of monetary value, like a dress and a suit? But this argument doesn't hold either because if I said I'd be happy getting married in a paper sack as long as j. and I expressed ourselves to the best of our ability in front of family and friends, I'd be lying. It's not how I'd want to explain the day to our kids someday. Unless it had a good story behind it.
So there must be some happy medium? It's just one day, but a really really big day. The biggest day so far. What's even more promising about this big day is that there's so much to look forward to afterwards. Let's look at past big days so you can see what I mean:
1. High School Graduation: Starting drinking at noon and by dawn the next day was making out with my friend's recent ex-boyfriend. A bad sign of things to come. In the following months, I gained 10-20 pounds, drank excessively, and felt increasingly alienated from my friends, who had all gone straight to college while I took a semester off and had not yet discovered email. Later owed my parents hundreds of dollars in phone bills - all those phone calls and still I was lonely and depressed most of the time.
2. College Graduation: Pretty anti-climactic since I'd finished classes a few months before. In the following months I worked at the Gap and lived at home. In the following years I had no idea what to do with myself or what I even wanted to do with myself. Typical quarter-life crisis filled with misery and self-doubt. Until I met j.
I'm sure there are some other big days in there, but honestly can't think of anything good? Besides marriage seems like some sort of graduation in itself. Like adulthood - a similar feeling to the first time I paid my own car insurance bill, only magnified.
The flip side to this argument is that the wedding represents something big and so wonderful - a combined life, a symbol of love and a shared everything - that it needs to properly express that. In which case nothing can be too big or elaborate. To which I say, can't that be expressed in the words we choose to say to each other and the people we ask to be present to witness our union - both things that go beyond things of monetary value, like a dress and a suit? But this argument doesn't hold either because if I said I'd be happy getting married in a paper sack as long as j. and I expressed ourselves to the best of our ability in front of family and friends, I'd be lying. It's not how I'd want to explain the day to our kids someday. Unless it had a good story behind it.
So there must be some happy medium? It's just one day, but a really really big day. The biggest day so far. What's even more promising about this big day is that there's so much to look forward to afterwards. Let's look at past big days so you can see what I mean:
1. High School Graduation: Starting drinking at noon and by dawn the next day was making out with my friend's recent ex-boyfriend. A bad sign of things to come. In the following months, I gained 10-20 pounds, drank excessively, and felt increasingly alienated from my friends, who had all gone straight to college while I took a semester off and had not yet discovered email. Later owed my parents hundreds of dollars in phone bills - all those phone calls and still I was lonely and depressed most of the time.
2. College Graduation: Pretty anti-climactic since I'd finished classes a few months before. In the following months I worked at the Gap and lived at home. In the following years I had no idea what to do with myself or what I even wanted to do with myself. Typical quarter-life crisis filled with misery and self-doubt. Until I met j.
I'm sure there are some other big days in there, but honestly can't think of anything good? Besides marriage seems like some sort of graduation in itself. Like adulthood - a similar feeling to the first time I paid my own car insurance bill, only magnified.
posted by hannah at 9:59 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home