Hollywood loves to reference how little girls sit around and dream of their wedding day, but for me the daydreams didn’t really start until the beginning of the planning process. I read bridal magazines, followed wedding websites and basically aspired to be the Martha Stewart of planning my own wedding. I should have known better.
There hasn’t been much in my relationship with Corey that has been easy or perfect. There’s no sense in dwelling on the hardships now but we’ve had our share. The past few years should have been the indicator to me to not plan anything and just run to Vegas, but stubborn as I am I pretended that I could disrupt the flow of destiny.
Turmoil reared her ugly head early on the morning of the eleventh when I opened the curtains and saw the thunderheads surrounding the downtown area, spinning like the cauldron stirred by the three witches. Like Macbeth I had tempted fate, and lost.
The average rainfall in Phoenix for the entire month of April is .5 inches. On my wedding day it rained .6 inches by noon. By the time we arrived at the ceremony location the hair and makeup that had been painstakingly arranged for hours prior were limp, lifeless and smeared. My hand-beaded Acra ballgown was coated with about six inches of mud, sand and city slime before I even walked down the aisle. Our beautiful garden location was reduced to a 10x10 tent that our guests were huddled under, and the melodious din of the waterfall in the background could not be heard over the gusts of frigid wind and incessant thump of the rain on the vinyl ceiling.
Every girl’s dream. Sigh.
The platinum lining on our day was that we actually did get married. Our families made it here safely, our vows were beautiful and when I wasn’t crying crocodile tears of disappointment I was crying tears of happiness.
And my husband couldn’t have been more handsome or loving.
We survived. We survived our lovely imported modern art cake topper committing suicide an hour into the reception by flinging itself off of the cake and onto the tile floor to shatter into a million pieces and take half of the cake down with it. We survived an illness causing an early end to the reception, thusly skipping our first dances and necessitating that the bride and groom drive hours across town instead of retiring to their honeymoon suite. We survived stepfamilies in the same rooms for the first time in years, delayed airline flights, weeks without sleep, and even the flu on our honeymoon.
We survived and came out of it all married, and still happily so, and although we wouldn’t do it again for less than seven figures we are still happy that we did it. We are thankful that our families were able to attend, and thankful that at the very least we had a lovely reception dinner.
We are even thankful for those dozens of frustrating but well-meaning people that told us matter-of-factly that, “rain on your wedding day is good luck.” I have yet to meet a happily married couple who actually had rain on their wedding day, but that is beside the point. We make one.
So while our wedding day was a far cry from the ever after fairy tale image that I had envisioned while planning, it still accomplished what we set out to do: become husband and wife. And when we think about it, it was fitting that our wedding was less than perfect. The only thing that has been perfect when it comes to Corey and I has been our love and if I had to choose between an amazing wedding or an amazing marriage I would choose the marriage every time.
Thanks fate, we owe you one.
