Weddingbee Blog

I wish I was joking, but this is a question Mr. Squirrel really asked me.

Personal image

Here I am, with a GOR-geous ring on my finger, and my fiance is asking me to define a wedding. Hmm. Maybe he should’ve thought about this on the front end?

So here’s the back story…

I come from a VERY large, VERY loud Catholic family. I have six siblings and about 60 first cousins. This is just the immediate family, plus SIL and BIL. Here we are in our full Squirrel glory:

I’m rocking the chevron in the back. / Personal photo

I go to maybe four family weddings a year. In the past two years, my brother and sister both got married, so in a way it feels like “another month, another wedding.” Now don’t get me wrong, I LOVE WEDDINGS. So much love, so much fun!

MOH C’s wedding:

Personal photo

Bro M’s wedding:

Personal photo

So, feeling like a wedding expert, I was taken aback when Mr. Squirrel asked what happens at a wedding.

Wait for it…

At the time he asked, he had NEVER been to a wedding.

Ever.

How is this possible for a 27-year-old man, you may ask? Well, a number of his friends were married pretty young, but they all had very small ceremonies with only limited family invited. His two older brothers are loving the bachelor life and his two cousins who are married both had weddings far away that Mr. Squirrel couldn’t attend.

So now we are left with:

A self proclaimed wedding expert (moi)

+

A wedding newborn baby (him)

= the need for some serious communication

Overall, what I thought would be a challenge is actually helping us create the wedding we BOTH really want. For example, when I started to talk about what seemed like a standard wedding component, a bouquet toss, Mr. Squirrel asked, “So, what’s that all about?” I proceeded to explain the background. After we talked about it for a few minutes, I realized this isn’t even something I want at our wedding…why am I trying to convince Mr. Squirrel if I can’t even sell it to myself? This same conversation has happened numerous times. There are certain elements of the wedding I would have taken for granted and included, but once the two of us sit down go over the “tradition” sometimes we don’t feel like it is really “us.” (Moving forward, we can just call that not being Squirrelicious.)

Has anyone else ever automatically assumed they would do something at their wedding and then once you took the time to sit and think about it, decided it wasn’t for you?

***Since this initial conversation, Mr. Squirrel has been to TWO weddings. (My sister’s and cousin’s!)