365 Days Later…

I spent the weekend in Atlanta to celebrate our one-year anniversary. It was an awesome weekend. During dinner on Saturday night we pondered if we’ll always celebrate January 20th or if this might be the only year? April 20th will more than likely eclipse it…

Or will it?

CBL and I talk a lot about the Wedding Industrial Complex. We aren’t fans. We remind ourselves (and those around us) that we have had lots of “Special Days” already. We intend to have lots of “Special Days” after April 20th.  We really don’t understand how or why people spin completely out of control over one day. That isn’t to say that we aren’t incredibly excited about getting married… we are stupid excited. We spent this weekend doing “wedding things” (you should check your mailbox in a few days) and every now and again we would look over at each other and just get these stupid grins on our faces.

We’re really gonna get married.

Neat!

But when it comes to the idea of the WEDDING, I just can’t bring myself to get too bent out of shape. I don’t care about flowers. I don’t care about place settings. The ladies are picking their own dresses (and they are doing an awesome job). It’s not that those things aren’t nice – flowers are nice – I’m sure we’ll have some. You will have plates, forks, and knives to eat with, we promise. It’s just that the wedding isn’t about any of that. It’s about marrying my best friend. It’s about marrying the man I wondered about for the better part of 20 years. It’s about getting all goofy when I wrap my head around just how much I love him. It’s about making a commitment to hang out with him after work and on the weekends; to allow our laundry to merge into one load; to live through good times and bad times; to share the stomach flu and the winning lottery ticket. That’s what a wedding is all about. It’s a formal contract outlining the terms of a life together.

(And I’m the non-lawyer saying that).

These sorts of events require witnesses, and once you start that ball rolling, the next thing you know, you’ve got a party on your hands. I love to throw a good party. We made the decision to make it a good party. We’re excited we have an excuse to get all you good people together. In our 20s, when weddings were a weekly occasion, I don’t think we appreciated it as much. We didn’t see the beauty of groups of people coming together, reuniting, and meeting.  Now, the opportunity to get a whole lot of our friends together for a weekend is a savored and incredibly rare event. That’s a much better reason to celebrate than whatever flavor the wedding cake is going to be (although I’m actually really looking forward to the cake tasting – that’s some wedding planning I can support).  This is as much about y’all as it is about us. Thanks for being a part of one of our “special day(s).” I’m sure April 20th will be memorable for lots of reasons for years to come.

I like an excuse to go out to dinner. Therefore, I figure we can justify going out on January 20th and April 20th. Both will be sacred to me. The former was the day that two not-so-young-anymore friends threw caution to the wind and stood outside the Delta terminal at the Tampa International Airport and hugged and unexpectedly kissed and walked hand-in-hand to the car.  The latter will be a day when I put on a pretty dress, Crawford gets spiffied up and we have somebody who has power invested in them by something or another wave their hand and we agree to lots of beautiful ideas, practical matters, and a nice piece of jewelry.  The kiss won’t be unexpected, but I suspect it will be just as amazing.

And I have a feeling we’ll walk out hand-in-hand.