Weddingbee Blog

One year ago, on our negative-one-year-aversary, I wandered over to FutureMe.org and sent Future PChips (now Present PChips) an email, which will be delivered on the day of the wedding, i.e. today. (This time travel business is confusing.) This is my unedited, uncensored email to myself.

Dear FutureMe,
Heyo! It’s one year till your Big Fancy Special Day. Let me tell you a bit about yourself (myself? This is confusing) right now: Last night you and Dave watched a Travel Channel special about top Caribbean honeymoons (that was made in the ’80s? Wowsa. You laughed. A lot.) and researched some spots. I hope you decided on something good and were able to pay for it. I hope you decided to upgrade to the honeymoon suite. Anyhoo, you did yoga and stopped at the local Mexican restaurant and ate nachos and laughed and talked about how awesome and carefree and cool your wedding and honeymoon will be. I hope the rest of the year brought more fun, less stress. I hope you didn’t, for a moment, let this thing turn into something bigger than you two. I hope you kept perspective and focused on the marriage, and not the Big Fancy Day stuff. I bet you did all right. Atta girl!

So how did your first year of grad school go? What else is new? I know a lot can happen in a year. I hope you’re excited, calm, and ready to go. I also hope the weather is better (rain and 60 degree what what??).
Don’t forget to relax and enjoy yourself. This thing took long enough to plan, you at least owe yourself that!
Kisses,
Me/You (weird!)

Reading this email now, I want to write back to Past-PChips. I want to tell her that her first year of grad school was tougher than she’d thought, and that wedding planning, at the end, did get stressful, but that’s okay. I want to tell her that so much has happened in a year, that this was the year I had and recovered from a breast reduction, the year I found my dress at the Filene’s Running of the Brides, the year I almost quit grad school, the year I found an academic field I loved, the year I was lucky enough to blog for Weddingbee, the year I started to tackle my problems with anxiety. The year Mr. Potato Head stood by me, made me laugh, and supported me. The year I nursed him to health after a bout of salmonella, comforted him after professional disappointments, and cheered him on through his many, many successes.

This was the year that went by so incredibly, insanely, head-spinningly fast. The year that, after seven and a half years of dating, we drove down to Rhode Island and kicked our flip flops off in a little beach cottage. The year that we, in a little church in a little seaside town, pledged to take one another as husband, as wife, to be none other than ourselves.

Here’s to all our Yays, Hoorays, and Happy Days. And all yours too!