Wedding Blog
I never really sat down and thought long and hard about WHY I wanted to get married. Prior to tying the knot, we lived together, we loved each other, and we had (and currently have) no real plans to have children in the next few years. There was no TECHNICAL reason why we needed to get married. A dental plan would have been nice, but even since marrying and hooking on to Mr. Peng’s dental plan, I still haven’t gone to the dentist (eew). So, there’s no excuse there, either.
I could say I wanted to get married because I was ready to commit the rest of my life to Mr. Peng. I could say I wanted to get married, because he was the one, and we wanted to stand up and legally commit to each other in front of our friends and family on one glorious day. But that’s not really the truth.
Mr. Peng and I moved in together when I was 23. I was ready to commit to living together, and lived happily in peace for well over a year without so much of a peep of marriage talk, either from me or from him. In college, I always thought I’d get married at 28, if I was lucky and the world worked out in the way I planned it to. It wasn’t as if my secret “magical marriage age” was even close to coming up.
Then they came.
Save the dates. Shower RSVPs. Wedding invitations. From people that had been together a shorter period than my mister and I had been together, no less. What was wrong with me? Why was that girl more marryable than I was? All of the sudden, I felt inadequate. Within a 6 month period I went from relationship bliss, to if-I-so-much-as-catch-a-peep-at-a-wedding-invitation-in-our-mailbox-I-will-have-a-breakdown. And break down, I did.
One of the sad truths I’ve faced is that I wanted to get married because other people were getting married. To deny that fact would be lying to myself. Why was my desire to get married all of the sudden so intense when I was 25, and not even existent when I was 23? I was sure I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him at 23. But why marriage?
WHY is there this invisible pressure (especially, apparently, on women) to get married? I didn’t feel the need to “lock him in”. Co-signing the mortgage took care of any lingering fears that either of us were willing to commit. I didn’t even really dream about our wedding day when I was ape-shit crazy about getting engaged. The day was a blank—no dream dress, no amazing venue swimming in my head, no color schemes or favorite songs or flowers. I just wasn’t that person that thought about those things. I just wanted, so intensely, to be married.
And now, we’re married. WHAT is different now that we’re married? I don’t know. I’m happy that we’re married, but it was not physically life changing in any way. Neither of us moved. Neither of us quit working. We wake up in the same bed we did 2 years ago. Our parents don’t treat our relationship as more “legitimate” than it was 2 years ago, when we decided to move in together (at least, not to our faces!). Same old, same old. We were a unit then, and we are a unit now.
Do I love Mr. Peng more than I did the day before we married? I know I’m supposed to say, “I love him more and more each day,” but, in the grand scheme of things, I really feel like I love him equally as much as I did before we got married, and I don’t know if I’d love him less today if we still weren’t married (although he might have some stabby holes in him from every time another save the date passed through our mailbox). Our experiences together continue to make our lives together richer, but I think about how much I loved Mr. Peng when we weren’t married and I loved him so much. And today I love him so much. Maybe it’s equal, maybe it’s more. It’s hard to say.
Why do/did you really want to get married? Have you sat down and really thought about it? Did outside factors contribute heavily to your desire?
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Nail.on.the.head, Peng. (Now that I think about it, I could have written this post–I marry on Saturday-rain, rain go away…)
this is a really good question that i think most brides come to at some point. i was trying to write out our ceremony and found this issue particularly relevant considering the current injustice which prevents most gay couples from marrying, and how to address that at the wedding. will marrying make my relationship any more valid than that of my friends, who have a loving relationship and two children together, but have not been able to marry? for me, i don’t know if there’s an easy answer and i have to admit that part of it is getting somewhat carried along in the fun of it all and the illusion that somehow you are more committed than before. i don’t get depressed by it though.
I totally get you. I definitely felt the outside pressure when about a million *much younger* graduate students in my department all got engaged a in the last couple of years. That was the start of my marriage meltdown. However, now that we are engaged, I really feel that our relationship has reached a new level (even after 3.5 years of dating). Having my fiance finally say those words — “I want to spend the rest of my life with you” — has 100% solidified our relationship. There’s a new level of closeness, which I didn’t even think was possible, and we couldn’t be more thrilled that we’ll be getting married next year.
Hmm … this post inspired so many thoughts I’m going to have to do my own blog on it.
Great post. I hear you; I feel the same way about my husband now (as newlyweds) as I did when we were living together and sharing our life three years ago. I do wonder, though, if the outside world views us differently, that there’s something more powerful in the word “husband” than “boyfriend.” Either way, I’m happy he’s mine.
I definitely feel a pressure from my family to be married. Living together in sin is a big no-no in my family. But other than that… you’re right, there’s no real reason for marriage per se.
I only had one set of friends who were engaged when we began discussing marriage. I think we both just really wanted a legal commitment to each other in front of our families. But then again, we’re sappy sap saps and not too keen on logic… 
@portlandgirl41: I absolutely think the outside world views “husband” more powerfully than “boyfriend”. It’s another one of those outside factors! I still think I loved boyfriend Mr. Peng the same as I love husband Mr. Peng. I try to think about how deeply I loved him then, and how much I do now. Love is hard to quantify, of course, but I SWEAR it’s not a lot different now, in marriage, than it was then. It’s only been one year for us though (in marriage… but we’ve been together for 8 years total)! Maybe I will feel an more deep, intense love later down the road? Perhaps when he is the father of my child(ren)? Who knows.
Yep, you sound excatly like me! It gets even more interesting b/c my FI and I don’t ever want to have kids, so why marriage?? We live together so I don’t think much is going to change there, but when I really started thinking about it, I realized that we would in fact have many changes. We live sort of like roomates, we literally take turns buying the dog food, toliet paper, dishwasher soap, so on; and this def gets annoying having to stop and say “okay so who bought this last time?” Same with resturants & bars, splitting the check unless one of us is treating…arg annoying! This will all change when we are married, thank god for joint accounts! Besides money, I think that we were just ready to be “husband” and “wife” we both want the title, plus after we are married we will both finally be able to sleep in the same bed when we visit our parents. All in all, getting married will make our lives less complicated…plus all the gushy stuff like looking at him and knowing hes my husband will totally make me happy!
Green card? Is that terrible to say?
I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with my fiance, but I was in no hurry to get married. Immigration fears moved us toward marriage a little more quickly than we probably would have gone on our own. Not that it’s a bad thing… it just changed the timeline slightly.
I’m marrying FI simply becasue he asked he to, and I can deny him nothing.
I felt that leaving someone else and moving cross county with nothing but a van full of stuff and my dog was enough. That in itself was a declaration of my love for him.
I’ve been married before, and honestly am a little skeptical of it all. A little jaded.
But FI is not, and while I may be lacking faith in marriage as an instutition, I have complete and total faith in FI. If this is what he wants, I’m good with it. It will be an honor to be his wife.
We’ve made a pact that goes above and beyond the vow. “No Matter What”.
I’ll marry him becasue I love him madly.
This is really interesting because I grappled with the same problem with why do I want children. I knew I wanted them, but I still can’t figure out the exact reason why. I guess part of the grace that is marriage and children is being able to trust yourself to make those decisions even when you don’t have the answer.
Great post. And I’m going to have to think long and hard about my answer. We’ve been together 6 1/2 years and it’s funny how now we’re suddenly more “official” than we were at bf/gf. Societal pressure? Perhaps. I don’t know. But great post.
I felt this way the night we got engaged. Nothing was going to change - not really. Everything is the same.
This cracked me up “(although he might have some stabby holes in him from every time another save the date passed through our mailbox)”. hahahaha
I was swept up with ‘wedding fever’ too! I don’t have a lot of friends who are married/getting married, but last August I was a bridesmaid for the first time…so when I started doing dress shopping with that friend, I was totally done for! So I definitely started pushing the marriage envelope a bit with Mr. S 
However, a longer engagement has worked for us because we are a solid team, we own a condo together (seriously, that mortgage solidifies everything!), before the conod we shared an apartment…we have a very settled life, and while marriage I think will but another puzzle piece in place for us, I don’t anticipate there being a monumental shift in our life. But things will still be great, or at least i hope
great post Mrs. Penguin.
I suppose I am coming from a completely different perspective… My fiance and I will not be living together until marriage, and that was a known fact from the beginning. So we really aren’t getting our lives “started” together until marriage. We live in different states and getting engaged and married were the next steps to happen before living together or making joint decisions on things. For both, it is definitely because of the way we were brought up that made that order the most logical one.
Great post Peng!
I guess in my situation it was different because I didn’t live with Mr. C before we were married, though we had a very intense relationship. We’ve been together for close to 9 years now and getting married was just the logical next step. It made co-signing our mortgage, getting our own place, setting up our home, and making mutual decisions all the much sweeter. Aside from those things those, nothing dramatic or fundamental has changed in our relationship. We are still ourselves but I do feel that we have a tighter bond and it’s more fun to mock each other as spouses (we often use the third person, i.e. your wife would like you to take out the trash) than as an unmarried couple. I do agree that it also affects how the outside world validates a relationship.
Marriage is an institution I wanted to be part of and I wanted him to be there with me.
Sad as it sounds, I know Mr. Bruschetta and I won’t get the same “respect” from certain people close to us until we ARE married. Eight years committed to each other in a dating relationship just isn’t viewed as equal to even just a few months or years married. And since that lack of equality puts unnecessary stress on our relationship, a (teeny tiny) part of my motivation to marry my mister is to finally be treated fairly and viewed as partners. :-\
We will celebrate our 10th year together just before our first married anniversary this year. I didn’t have that drive to get married - not too many of my current friends had gotten hitched. We seem to be in a group of hold outs as we’re both 29 and most of our friends are older. I must say that we’ve lived together since we were 20 and I still felt different after we got married. Part of the difference was because we had taken on a roommate for some extra money prior to the wedding. He moved out and we got our house back to ourselves right after the wedding. It made for a big change upon coming home, but there are other differences too - - more emotional differences. It brought a deepness to our relationship that I didn’t really expect. I think that we really decided that we should take the plunge when we started to consider having a child together.
thank you for putting into words what I’ve been thinking this week as the “how does it feel to be married” questions started rolling in. On one hand I feel guilty when I say, “no different really”, but on the other it also makes me happy that the relationship & love we’ve had all these years before didn’t change. I think we married more for our families truth be told…but hey….we enjoyed the party and having everyone together
Great post Pengy…
I have to agree with you… I can’t lie. Can’t say I love Mr.Flamingo more now that were married…or less for that matter. One thing that did change is that I cook more… Maybe I wanted to take my wife role a little more serious
We’ve been living together 5 years so marriage only seems to be lots of money thrown out of the window (for many people - anyway) but I’ve always had my mind set on how things were gonna role. Apartment, Marriage, House, Baby… maybe thats just wrong of me to map out my life like that…
Marriage doesn’t change much… apart from a ring and paperwork to prove it… so, ya I find a hard time explaining why i choose to get married, especially to Mr.Flamingos family you hadn’t gone to a wedding in 40 years!!!
To be completely honest, partly I wanted to prove them wrong (my family). I come from a reconstructed family and everyone i know is either separated or divorced. I wanted to show them otherwise… anyways I hope so. You never know what can happen. But that was my initial plan… and marriage was the first step to accomplish my goal.
absolutely — outside forces make it especially difficult for women! i had a lot of pressures, from family, from friends… and i can’t say my obsession with wanting to plan a wedding didn’t help either (be careful what you wish for!). i guess i just wanted to know that our relationship was progressing… and in our society, marriage is that logical next step. but it feels no different to me. except now, we have a mortgage, can have children whenever we feel like it without our parents freaking out (altho not planning to anytime soon), and are completely and totally responsible for each other… it’s a lot of responsibility.
I often wonder the same thing. Why do I want to marry him? But I know it’s because I want to be his “wife” not just the live in girlfriend. I want to be Mrs. 365, and I want to show him that yes, I do love him enough to spend forever with him.
Maybe it sounds stupid, maybe it’s not logical, but I want to show him that I am his, and be forced to work things out should they get rough.
Thank you so much for this post, Peng! I believe marriage should be treated as a conscious choice not an inevitability but I am often the minority in that viewpoint. We decided to get married because we had already told each other many times over that we wanted to be partners for life, and we decided it only made sense to share that really significant decision with the outside world. We treat our relationship with great care, and it is our highest priority. Getting married brought a deeper consciousness to both of us in terms of how we choose to treat each other on a day-to-day basis, and it was a very significant step for our families.
Good post! Why DO I want to get engaged/married? You made me think… and I’m not certain I have an answer for it yet (other than all of the obvious “because I love him!” things).
I will say though, when I mentioned we were considering buying a house together, my mom (straightfaced) told me to make sure I was “protecting my investment”; ie, getting married. Hilarious!
I married several months ago, and I felt “different” for the first time when I sat in the hospital, anxiously awaiting his test results. The doctor was kind and informative, and spoke to me with complete honesty and respect. I would not have received that without being his wife (in fact, it may have been illegal).
Society will view you differently - and offer you additional privileges - as husband/wife vs boyfriend/girlfriend. Sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes it’s not. Right or wrong, it may take that title for others to see you as you have always seen yourselves. Does it matter? For me, yes. Yes it does. As much as we may try, our relationship does not exist on an island, and I appreciate the respect that we receive as a couple with the title of husband/wife. And on a very subtle level, it positively reinforces our own relationship to us as well.
The day-to-day has not changed much yet in a measureable way (we, too, have lived together for years and have already co-signed just about everything), but who knows, it may over time. And in some way, it gives me the comfort and freedom to be myself entirely and to grow without worry. I was holding back just a little without even realizing it, but with marriage, I’ve exhaled just a little bit. This may sound stupid, but I think when we were boyfriend/girlfriend, we tried a little *too* hard to be together and become one “unit.” Now that we are married, we are actually more comfortable in our own independence as people. We’re not growing apart…but we aren’t over-compensating for our own insecurities by creating a false “oneness.”
When we inevitably hit a rough patch, marriage may be that glue that holds us together until we can make ourselves right again. It’s not infallible, but it’s something. It’s an investment you make in the happy times knowing that rough times are ahead, and that you’d like to make it a lot harder to call it quits.
And it’s just plain good knowing that he will be with me for the long haul. He hates paperwork far too much to divorce my behind.
WOW! You articulated everything that was in my head. I am speechless.
I can offer a slightly different perspective - I loved mr. moderndaisy intensely before the proposal, but at that moment and ever since we have had a much deeper connection than our pre-engagement relationship allowed. It’s something about knowing he wants to be with me forever, there is no longer any kind of lingering question in my mind and neither of us can walk away so easily now.
But Peng, you are so right about the whole reason the engagement was so important, there is an invisible pressure to get married (not so invisible from annoying co-workers and family members constantly asking when the marriage is going to take place). But, once we started getting save-the-date’s and constant comments from people, I definitely started feeling it more than before (I really wanted to get married all along).
What makes me angry looking back is that we were only together 1.5 years when we got engaged, what gives?? Why do people pounce so early - are they bored with their own lives? I know they weren’t ‘concerned with my happiness’ because I was sublimely happy from the moment I met mr. moderndaisy!
ditto!! well said, and agree with those who said the “married” status was just so much more “important” to society…
Great Post, Pengy!
Peng!! Being 4 months out(!!) I kinda feel the same way. Why do I want to marry him? Basically, cuz I can’t imagine the rest of my life without him there and things are a whole lot easier when your married than when your not. I don’t think much will change aside from us hopefully getting a house once we’re married, but a part of me cannot wait to be his wife
What a great post. When I was hinting heavily at an engagement, Mr Ruby Slippers used to ask me, “But why do you want to get married? We already know we want to be together.” And all I could say was, “I don’t know, I just want to be MARRIED to you, and have you be my HUSBAND and me be your WIFE.” And it wasn’t even the “everyone getting married” syndrome in my case - we’d been to two weddings in 2006, and there was one friend whose wedding I missed in 2002, and my sister’s in 2003. That was the sum total of weddings I’ve been to this century. But I still needed that “married” label. Eight months later I still can’t define exactly why. But I’m happy that we did. Sometimes my husband will randomly say, “I’m so glad I married you”, and I could just melt.
SO exactly how I feel! I guess we’re getting married because, well, we’ve been dating six years through a slew of unexpected major medical issues, two long-distance stints, one unapproving parent… if we’re not ready to get married, who is?! We’re living together already, in the process of buying a house, and not planning on kids anytime soon.
I even tell people it seems like a formality than anything else, which is true. For all the legal reasons, it seems like a better idea than cohabiting.
I guess I never really sat down and thought hard about why I want to get married either. We’ve been living together for over three years, we love each other, we can’t imagine our lives without each other. And mostly we wanted a big, beautiful, fun celebration with all our family and friends! I know marriage isn’t for everyone, but it’s right for us right now.
Great post Mrs. Penguin! I know a lot of girls probably have this same thought or go through a similar experience. I had that moment about 4-5 years ago when I was dating someone else. After ending that relationship, I quickly figured out that all I needed was myself and my success and happiness. That made finding my next relationship easy to maneuver. The desperateness faded once I met my now FI and I am glad that I have grown because of it.
I knew he was the man I wanted to marry, and I knew that marriage was important to me. What I didn’t know, and what affected the timing so strongly, was how much living together without being married or engaged would bother me on a bone-deep level.
I didn’t love him less or want to be with him less. It just didn’t sit well with me. To the point that- though it never got to me bringing it up- I was going to move back out this summer just for peace of mind. It was partially religious, partially me not wanting to be that emotionally entangled with someone who wasn’t fully committed to me in a public way.
Having him stand up in front of other people and saying “I want to be with this woman”, even if it’s just letting the engagement say it for him in some cases, meant a LOT to me. We had issues with this early in our relationship- how to tell people we were together, when to tell people. We’ve both come a long way in our own ways, as well as together.
So, we’re getting married. And I couldn’t be happier or more content if I tried.
One of the main reasons I wanted to get married was simply the simplicity of being married. If you’ve known a gay or lesbian couple who have had to go through mountains of legal paperwork to achieve what is conferred automatically with a legal marriage, you know what I mean. I think with all the excitement about love and passion and forever that comes with marriage, we sometimes also forget about all the humdrum stuff that comes with, such as medical power of attorney, employee benefits, being each others’ life insurance beneficiary, joint debts and ownership, tax breaks etc. We want to be each others’ partners in life, emotionally, socially, financially, and legally, and marriage is the quick way to achieve the financial and legal parts of that partnership.
My partner moved to Australia from the UK to be with me so for us the wedding back in the UK will be partly me saying to his relatives and friends ’see how happy we are? thank you for letting him go - now have some free wine’ and partly a chance to have family and friends from different continents and cities in the one place for possibly the only time.
Just today, I was asked to sign up for email notices at a store and I said, “No thanks, my husband already gets them.” A year after our marriage, I still get giddy to say that.
I was 32 when I got married and maybe it was because I waited so long to find the best man for me? I don’t know but I do think it changed how we love eachother. We feel stonger, happier, settled. Both of us have parents with long, loving marriages so maybe that’s why we each wanted it for ourselves.
I remember how he told me he was so proud to be my husband the morning we work up after our wedding and I wouldn’t trade it for the world….or a mortgage.
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Mrs. Penguin, Northern California
Age and Occupation: 27, Weddingbee Editor in Chief
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 30, Doctor of Physical Therapy
Engagement Date: January 29, 2007
Wedding Date: June 7, 2008
Blogging Since: September 14, 2007
Venue: Winery in the Gold Country
About Me: I love the Spice Girls, dogs with underbites, bean burritos, making messes, high fives, avoiding showers, crossword puzzles, blogs, weddings, and blogs about weddings!
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