Weddingbee Blog

This is a post I’ve wanted to write for a while…what happens when you regret your choice of maid of honor? I’m not sure I have an answer for you, but this is my story.

Long before the Mister and I got engaged I always knew whom I would ask to be my maid of honor. She was someone I had known for several years and was married to a person who was very important in my life. I had stood up for her when she got married, so she being my maid of honor seemed like a natural choice. She  was one of the first folks that we announced our engagement to. As soon as I told her we were engaged I asked if she would be my maid of honor. She didn’t hesitate to answer yes.

Soon after, a few red flags were raised.
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I have a younger brother, and even though we weren’t the closest throughout our high school years, that all changed when I graduated (2 years ahead of him) and started to appreciate having him in my life. When he turned 18 he signed up for the army—something we always knew he would do. This was in at the end of 2002; so he attended boot camp and then got stationed, and then promptly got sent overseas in 2003 to the Iraq War. Our relationship transitioned from taking him for granted to obsessively watching the news to know what was going on. He’d send letters and call when he could and when he came home on leave, picking him up at the airport in his military garb was one of the most proudest moments in my life. It still gives me chills. He served just over a year in Iraq and the remainder of his term stationed in the US. When it came time to re-up, he chose not to. We became extremely close, we spent a lot of time together and I considered him to be one of the closest people to me, obviously. And then it started to fall apart.

Shortly after he was done serving in the army, my brother was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a direct result of his time served in Iraq.
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Let’s just get to it: I am going to talk about sex this entire post. I guess a more accurate warning would be to say that I’m going to talk about a lack of sex this entire post.

I love Mr. Anonymous. Every cell of his body, every fiber of his being, every hair on his head, I love. So why exactly is it that I don’t naturally and consistently want to jump the bones of someone I love? Don’t get me wrong—I enjoy sex. When we do the horizontal polka, I feel happy and in love and satisfied and content. It’s just that there are so few instance in which I am motivated to go the extra steps to actually initiate any action. And, on a related note, whenever Mr. A initiates, if I’m not in the most perfect mood, free of stress and distractions, his efforts usually come up short. I’ve become a master of evasion, excuses, and rejection. As you would probably expect, this state of affairs doesn’t exactly make for a happy marriage, in fact, it’s actively hurting both of us individually, and us as a unit.

It’s gotten to the point where I’ve considered whether something is truly wrong with me, physiologically, hormonally, or psychologically.
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I feel very privileged to have grown up surrounded by different cultures, nationalities and races. It was no surprise that I ended up in an interracial relationship; with the environment that I grew up in, it’s not really a big deal. Our immediate families are fine with it. A few of the Mr.’s relatives are not OK with it and didn’t come to the wedding. I’ve never been exposed to this kind of blind racism before and I must be honest: it was a little shocking. The fact that they had written me off without even meeting me stings. I guess I’ve had a sheltered life. Lately, my eyes have been opening and I’m becoming more aware of the effect our relationship has on others.

Sometimes it’s a subtle comment. “Oh, another interracial couple. How nice!” Subtext: “Wow, another interracial couple.” Or the ever popular, “Your children will look very exotic.” Subtext: “Your children will look…different.” My hairdresser for more than two years now was shocked to learn that I was in an interracial couple. When I told her she was quiet for a long time before finally asking, “But what does your mother think?!”

Seriously?
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Okay, you’ve heard about it, you’ve seen the sitcoms, you’ve seen the movies, you’ve heard the clichés…but it would never happen to you.

I mean sure, the stories are always funny in theory. Bridesmaids trying to hook up with wedding guests? Groomsmen making a move on your friends? Hilarious!

But it doesn’t really happen…right?

I mean, your bridesmaids are too classy. They’re your best friends for goodness sake. You picked them out of all your friends, everyone you know. You’ve got a stand up group of ladies standing up for you. Awesome. Best day of your life.

I mean, it’s such a funny idea, it’s such an oven-done thought that it doesn’t even occur to you on your big day. You’re dancing with your girls, you’re smiling at your new hubby’s buddies, and it’s a magical night.

Then what happens?
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You know that cliche saying “You find out who your true friends are when…” Like, when you were going away to college and some friends stick around while you drift away from others? Unfortunately, I’ve found the same to be true for weddings.

I had a friend—a BEST friend—who flaked on every wedding event leading up to our wedding…I’m talking dress shopping, bachelorette, rehearsal dinner… even the ceremony… and she was supposed to participate IN the ceremony.

After the wedding, said friend could not figure out why I no longer wanted to be friendly towards her. I no longer made an effort to hang out with her, catch up—to be honest, I could not be in the same room with her for very long. My husband suggested I was holding a grudge.

Gasp! Oh no he did not!

Granted, most girlfriends I’ve talked to about bad ex-BFF and her behavior have told me she was completely out of line and messed up. But the fact that my own husband thinks I’m holding a grudge made me think.

Am I being a bridezilla?
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My relationship with my future husband is not even remotely like a traditional romcom movie. To be honest, our relationship has never been like that, not even at the beginning. Unless it’s a kinda boring movie that is rated PG-13 with occasional moments of The Break Up thrown in there.

The Break-Up trailer via YouTube

We have that damn lemon fight every time I turn around.

Me: “Did you test the string lights to make sure they work?”
Him: [Blank look] “No…was I supposed to?”
Me: “Well, I asked you to do it and you said you would do it so….”
Him: “Why do we need to test the lights?”
Me: [Blank look] “…to make. sure. They. WORK!!!!”

And then I look like this:

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OK, hive, it’s time to get real here. Let’s talk about sex.

Or more specifically, the lack thereof.

You see, there are several of us bees who are choosing to wait until after marriage to have sex. Now we fully realize that such a choice may seem strange these days. Choosing to wait is not a particularly popular approach to dating, sex, relationships, and marriage, and a lot of couples today ascribe to the “test drive” philosophy. We live in a pretty sexually open society, and let’s be honest, sex is kind of everywhere: TV, movies, books, the news, ad campaigns, and US school curriculum. For many individuals today, sex is an important part of a healthy relationship between two people. Plus, we hear it can be pretty fun and awesome.

So why would anyone choose to wait until marriage to have sex these days?

Well for us, the decision is in large part a faith-based one. Those of us writing this post, as well as our partners, identify as Christians and have made a commitment to save sex for marriage. To us, sex is God’s gift to a husband and wife. It is a sacred and intimate act, and when it comes to our own relationships, we see sex as this amazing thing we get to enjoy only once we’ve been joined together with our spouses as “one flesh.”

But even setting aside faith, there are still a lot of other secular reasons we’ve chosen to wait.

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As a little girl growing up, we think about all-things-fairytale surrounding weddings. Engagement parties, oohing and ahhing over diamonds, and giggling with our girlfriends about all the details. We go dress shopping and twirl around in a big princess dress with all our friends and mom watching. We dream of having this amazing time preparing for such a big day and everyone helping create that day with us.

Then when you get to that point in your life and you get asked that question by your love. All those dreams come whooshing back. You have this preconceived notion of what it’s supposed to be like because the media hypes it up that way and you grew up on that fantasy.

Then reality sets in, family dynamics get in the way, financial struggles come along, and you feel like all your fairytale dreams were just crushed in front of you.

You feel entitled to have that dream, because it’s your dream. As brides, we feel entitled to this fantasy that we have created for ourselves and we feel betrayed when others don’t help us achieve that.
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So, you know that whole thing where you date for a long time before you get married, live together, get to know each other, make sure you’re on the same page before you make the ultimate commitment? Well, what happens when you do all of those things, and you’re as confident as you possibly can be that you and your partner are on the same page, and so you get married—but then you change your mind about something huge?

I’m not saying I’m there. But I might be. Or at least I might be unsure about something that I thought I was sure about before.

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I wanted to confess my biggest wedding fear, but I knew I couldn’t under my moniker. My family reads my blog and I didn’t want any hurt feelings from them. However, I know that I am not the only bride who will have to deal with this, so when  an anonymous post series was suggested, I knew this was my chance to share.

Here it is: I’m the adult child of addicts. One of my parents has been sober for a while now, but the other is not. It is my fear that the parent who still drinks will cause problems on our wedding day. I’m afraid that I am going to be so focused on that parent’s behavior that I will not be able to fully enjoy my day. When you add to the addiction that this parents tends to be a bit drama filled and attention-seeking, my anxiety triples.

It’s something that I deal with every day. I worry about more than just our wedding day. I worry for their health; I worry for their life-choices. It’s something that a daughter should never have to do, but I have most of my life. The wedding is just another thing that makes that addiction monster abundantly clear in my life. It affects every part of my relationship with my parents.
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Warning: I talk about fertility, periods, and sex below. If you are sensitive to these topics please be forewarned.

Image via life-times.net

We are both on the same page as far as whether or not we’d like to have kids (we would) and when we would like to have them (soon-ish). But I have this horrible, nagging fear that we’re going to have trouble having a baby.

I’ve talked about my desire to be a mother with pretty much everyone I know. We’ve even discussed our timeframe with some close friends of ours. But, I kind of regret that.
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Maybe you know the story: Your best friend is getting married and excitedly asks for your help planning her dream wedding. You pull out all the stops with a surprise bachelorette party, multiple wedding showers, expensive wedding gifts, and you happily buy a bridesmaid ensemble even though you’ll never wear the shoes or dress again.

Fast-forward a few years and now you’re engaged. It’s your turn to navigate planning the largest event of your life and you expect hope that you’ll have help from your married friend.

Guess who doesn’t have the time of day?

That’s right, this post is addressing the disappointment in fair-weather, flaky friends and relatives who enjoyed your help for their wedding and then contributed zilch to your special day.

Mr. Anonymous and I have both helped out with a fair amount of weddings by now, even back in our college years when neither of us had much cash. When we finally got married ourselves, we had anticipated we would enjoy all the usual benefits surrounding weddings.

Looking back, I can’t help but feel let down by some friends and family, not only for myself but for Mr. Anonymous, too.
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(Apologies in advance for the manifesto-like nature of this post. After reading hundreds of my own vendor emails and talking to other people about their vendor experiences, this post is a distillation of all the things I’ve learned about what makes for successful, and not so successful, communication between vendors and clients.)

Dear Vendors,

When it comes to communication with your clients or potential clients, I have two words for you: tone matters. The only thing worse than receiving a blah, upsetting, cold, confusing email from a potential vendor is to receive that type of email from you once you’re MY vendor and I’ve given you a significant chunk of my money to document our special day. Talk about maddening!

To clarify what I mean by tone, my sense is that tone is comprised of two different types or areas of communication. Type one I’m going to call the rules of professional and courteous communication. Type two I’ll call the feel of those communications, an obviously more nuanced topic that has to do with your ability to convey who you are and how you feel about working with your clients.

The Rules
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