It’s hard enough being a new bride at any age or dress size, faced with making decisions about location, attire, seating plans and budgets. It’s even harder when you’re a real sized woman (you gave up wearing your thong and cone cupped bustier as outer wear 7 years ago), over the age of 30.
Most real, life sized women over 30, whether you’ve never been married or this is your second time around the track, packed away their dreams of a princess like extravaganza of a wedding when they bought their first home, became the breadwinner in their family, and focused the best of their efforts on defining their career.
This was the situation I found myself in. At the age of 33, I had been living on my own for seven years, had owned my own home, and had developed a pretty strong career in the IT sector. I had also checked the baggage of blissfully wedded dreams on a flight I never expected to take to a place I never allowed myself to go, back when I turned 30. The reality was, that anything I had ever dreamed about in a wedding for myself simply didn’t suit the woman I had become, and after years without any prospects, I had simply resolved myself to the recognition that I may be single the rest of my life, or that IF I ever took the deep plunge into the deep end of the pool, that it might come to be in as casual a way as a renegade Vegas weekend.
Fast forward to the day I met my future husband. Even in the early months of dating, while I knew that he was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, I had locked away those thoughts and dreams of a wedding so far at the back of my mind, that I had lost the key to that vault. When he asked me to marry him, and my long lost dreams jumped to the forefront of my life, I found myself lost amidst the person I was, the person I am, and the people he and I were going to be. I found myself leaping into a new sisterhood of women, and found myself almost distraught at the thought that I might not be prepared for it like my metaphorical sisters were. I concerned myself with whether or not I would actually belong amongst my new sisterhood, and whether I actually deserved to sit among my sisters’ ranks (given how I had convinced myself that I must not be worthy of being married years ago). And lastly, while I knew I had grace to spare, I had not had an opportunity to share that grace in so many years, that when I called upon it, I found myself dealing more often with the criticisms of others, than pushing forward with complete ease.
After all was done and dusted, and I was enjoying the fruits of my planning labour, I came to receive a compliment from many of my family members, friends and most importantly, from my vendors, that I had been one of the easiest brides they’d ever had to deal with. As much of a compliment as this was, I felt that this meant there may be some lessons to be learned from how I approached the project of planning my own wedding. Any ease people felt in dealing with me, came from a confidence of having made decisions before speaking with my vendors, and came from knowing when I needed guidance and from whom. Funnily enough, my career as a project manager prepared me for this job of planning my own wedding. All of the same organizational skill sets and strategies apply to the function of planning one’s own wedding.
Consider me your no nonsense great aunt handing you the goods on reality.
While 40 is supposed to be the new 30, there have not to my knowledge ever been documented rites of passage for the 30 something woman. 30 something women have actually come into their own, and it is well understood by most women that this means we are recognizing our own intelligence and confidence for the power it truly has. It is the first in a sequence of liberating decades that we can claim ownership of. At 30 we have established careers, homes, and independence. We know who we are and where our lines and limitations are. We are more comfortable with our bodies, and know that our skin or our clothes no longer define us, but are reflections of what exists on the inside. When we marry, we are more likely to marry for the marriage than the wedding, and all of these newly known facts, blow away our younger aged perceptions of what our mile markers in life look like. Our weddings are a prime example of this. And if we methodically re-investigate our wants and desires for that day, and recognize the day as a party planning activity where themes are much less linked to the definition of our love than to the esthetic of the event, then I think we better recognize the priority of each item, and realize that each piece of our wedding is a blessing, rather than an entitlement.
If there are two things you will learn from this entry and the ones that will come, they should be that a wedding is a celebratory day for you and your fiancé, and that with the right ownership and organization, your day can only be perfect, no matter what happens to slightly derail your schedule. It’s yours to own, to enjoy, and to take in with every breath…so just do it that way.
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