Wedding Blog

Like I’m sure many of you did, Mr. MJ and I spent the Fourth of July holiday with family. We ate delicious hot dogs and hamburgers, potato salads, chips, and desserts and lit off fireworks until the early hours of the morning. Hanging out with family is always fun for us, but as we departed for Mr. MJ’s family home this year, there was a bit of extra “prep” to be done.

Mr. MJ said to me: “What do I tell them about the wedding?”

See, they all know we’re getting married, and they know we’re doing it this year. But they’re not coming. Of course, they’ll all be there to celebrate with us at the picnic/party FMIL is planning, but our ceremony’s going to be short, small, and simple. As you know, we’ve kept the guest list very small. So telling all of the aunts, uncles, and cousins exactly where and when the ceremony will be held wouldn’t be the best idea.

I do want to clarify something very important here: it’s not that we don’t love our families and friends. They’re wonderful and supportive, and we’re very much looking forward to celebrating with them at the aforementioned after-party. But our marriage ceremony will be most meaningful to us if it is semi-private. We’re not extroverts - in fact we’re quite shy - especially when it comes to our personal feelings for each other. The presence of lots of relatives during our ceremony would make us very anxious. (”Kiss? Like, in front of grandma? Are you KIDDING?”) And on the flip side (as I just mentioned), our marriage ceremony’s going to be very short and very simple. It will probably last 5 minutes. I’d hate for a bunch of relatives to show up and expect programs, readings, speeches and the like. We’re not doing all that. It’s not going to be much of a show.

So what did we tell them about the wedding?

We’re going to make it legal at the courthouse in September.

It’s not a lie, it’s just not the whole truth. The word “courthouse” implies “no wedding”, which answers the next question in the expected series: “Am I invited?” (And since the answer to that second question would have been a stuttering, bumbling, “well, um… you see…,” we’ve avoided a sticky situation.) We come away from the situation looking like we’re pretty aloof of this whole marriage thing: we don’t even appear to have thought about a date for this very important, life-changing event. This irks me a little, yes, but only a little.

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What irks me more is the guilt. The guilt of hiding this from people who are so loved, and so important to us. Occasionally I do think that we should scrap the whole courthouse wedding idea and just have the big fancy “everybody’s-invited” wedding (like many of you are planning). It would make the families happy.

But it wouldn’t make me or Mr. MJ happy. And it definitely wouldn’t make our wallets happy, either. We don’t like being the centers of attention at all. It would feel like an act, and we’d both be twitchy and uncomfortable all day long. Our intimate courthouse wedding plan is very much us, and we’re extremely excited about it.

But I have to tell you: I am looking forward to the day after our wedding. Because then it will be over. We’ll be married, the announcements will be in the mail, we’ll have our photos to look forward to, there won’t be any more questions about when the wedding is. And, we’ll be able to kick back and enjoy the family picnic celebration (where I’m sure we’ll be introduced to the next blush-inducing question: “When are you two going to start a family?”).

Have you had to keep secrets or tell “little white lies” throughout your planning process?