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Since the beginning of the new year, I have been reflecting back on 2011 and it has made me start to think about the people that will be missing at our wedding. This might be a bit heavy, but reflection has a way of doing that to me.
Loss is something I have dealt with most of my life, and while the initial sting of grief has dissipated I still wish I could celebrate with my loved ones, especially my brother and my cousin.
My brother was my closest sibling in age, he was my big brother and my partner in crime. Twenty-one years ago we lost him; it shook my world and gave me a whole new perspective on life.
All photos are personal
Ever since I saw Fiddler on the Roof, I can’t hear the word “traditions” without singing it. Twice. Traditions are important to me. My family always laughs at me for wanting Christmas to be the exact same every year. In fact, I like to do the same thing year after year for all holidays. I feel anxious if birthdays, vacations, visits with friends, and other yearly occurrences aren’t the exact same every year. There is definitely something comforting in knowing what to expect year after year.
Just going to break a few things down. Here we are, a West Coast same-sex couple getting hitched in the Midwest. We were a bit worried about how people would react to our relationship and the concept of our marriage in the Heartland.
We fully appreciate that not everyone is in love with the idea of same-sex marriage, and honestly that is fine because everyone is entitled to their beliefs. But we do care that every vendor involved in our wedding is open to the concept, and we hope our guests are down for it, too.
So we tested the waters: we started telling friends and family. The shocking part—when we told people on the West Coast the response often was “But that isn’t legal, right? So you aren’t really getting married.” The Midwest response: “That is awesome. It is going to be a great party, We love you guys!” It wasn’t an across-the-board response on the West Coast, but it was in the Midwest. We absopositively did not foresee that difference.
The Weddingbee boards have had quite a few threads in recent weeks about mothers who haven’t met expectations during their daughter’s engagements. We’re in a period when scores of newly engaged women are embarking on the planning process (the holidays, New Year’s, and Valentine’s Day seem to create a proposal bonanza) and I thought I’d share my thoughts on the mother-daughter relationship during wedding planning.
Most of us have grown up with pretty powerful messages about how wedding planning will work. We think our mothers will be by our sides constantly during this entire process. We may even think that planning with our mothers will improve our relationships with them. We believe our wedding day will allow us to feel the pinnacle of motherly love and affection.
Image by Manuel Meszarvits
Some of our mothers will meet our lofty expectations. For many, though, our expectations are impossibly high.
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Bridesmaid Sis, AKA Little Sister Aardvark, will most likely kill me for this post. But what are big sisters for if not to antagonize/love/guide/learn from their little sisters.
The first thing you should know is that I am 11 years older than BM Sis. Technically we are half siblings, but the technical business doesn’t mean much to us. In my big complicated family we are siblings. Period.
Growing up in a house with a baby, right as I was hitting the difficult-anyway pre-teen years, did a lot to develop my patience, my people skills, and my ability to sleep through anything. I will forever be grateful to my siblings for that.
How could being 11–14 be easy with a haircut like that?
The above picture includes me, my sister, Step-mama Aardvark, and my brother. The strangest part about this photo for me is that Sis is about as old now as I was when it was taken. I remember how it was being right in between grownup and kid, and sort of jerking back and forth between the two. I loved both of my siblings but was convinced they would be eating/napping poop machines with the occasional cute moment forever.
When Mr. EB and I first started planning our wedding we had a lot of discussions about what we wanted it to feel like. We wanted the focus to be on our family and our friends—our community coming together to support our love and our relationship.
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December 12, 2011 was my parents’ 24th anniversary, so 2012, the year I get married, will also be the year of my parents’ 25th anniversary. (They are renewing their vows!) This means the year I celebrate my 25th anniversary with Mr. Boa, they will be celebrating their 50th. Can anybody say double wedding!
My parents met during my mom’s first year at college; they got married two years later, both dropping out of college at the ages of 20 and 22 to start their new life together. They had me two years later and my sister was born two years after that. Being young parents cemented their relationship even more, and their love made our home an incredibly nurturing environment to be raised in.
One of their post-wedding pics
Mr. Mole likes to watch Louis C.K. He also likes to quote Louis C.K. (And Seinfeld. And The Simpsons. And etc.) I like Mr. Mole enough to usually listen.
Anyway, when we were driving home after our book club meeting and dinner at our favorite Indian restaurant last night, Mr. Mole started talking about part of Louis C.K.’s film Hilarious, which addresses the topic of divorce. Here’s the transcript:
Let me tell you something. And this is important because someday one of your friends is gonna get divorced. It’s gonna happen. And they’re gonna tell you. Don’t go, “Oh I’m sorry!” That’s a stupid thing to say. It really is. First of all, you’re making them feel bad for being really happy, which isn’t fair. And second, let me explain something to you. Divorce is always good news. I know that sounds weird, but it’s true because no good marriage has ever ended in divorce. It’s really that simple. That’s never happened – THAT would be sad. If two people were married and they were really happy and they just had a great thing, and then they got divorced, that would be really sad. But that has happened zero times. Literally zero. Ray Charles has killed more Jews than happy marriages have ended in divorce.
Huh, right? This quotation really got me thinking.
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Hello Hive! I just arrived back home after a ten day vacation visiting my family in California. It was a much-needed break, but I can’t believe how much I missed the Weddingbee community! I’m back, fully refreshed, and I can’t wait to share what I’ve been up to! Of course my vacation had plenty of relaxation and good ol’ family time, but it was also full of plenty of wedding-related activities. I even made some time to grab a burger with Miss Doe and Mrs. Lemon. (Thank you ladies for hanging out with me! It was such a treat.)
But more important than completing wedding tasks and what really stuck with me throughout the trip was the feeling of family, of comfort, and of love. Although Mr. Hawk has spent time with my family before and even came on a trip with us last year to Arizona, this was the first holiday vacation he spent with my family. It was by no means a “test,” but it was definitely an incredibly important time for us. Family is of the utmost importance to me, and I couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome.
My family welcomed him with open arms, and he participated in our annual ornament exchange. Momma Hawk even ordered him a stocking to display on our mantle and included him in the family Christmas card. I guess the best way I can describe it was that it felt completely “right.”
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I know this topic has been discussed many times on the ’Bee (most recently by Miss Fox), but for some reason it still has a stigma attached to it, so I figured I’d throw in my experience…
In the months leading up to my engagement, I began spending a lot of time with a very good friend of mine. We had been close for years and even lived together previously, but at this point we became inseparable. From after-work happy hours to Saturday-afternoon shopping trips, we spent nearly all our free time together. So when Mr. Hawk and I announced our engagement, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind who I wanted to be my MOH. We were thrilled, and she began excitedly planning the bachelorette party and other fun activities; however, it wasn’t long afterward that things greatly changed in her life.
She broke up with her serious boyfriend and moved out of the house they shared together. She moved in with Mr. Hawk and me for several weeks until she could find a new home, and she was surprisingly upbeat and optimistic. But once she moved into her new apartment things shifted. We had a pretty big difference of opinion on something, and it created a large wedge between us. During this time, I think we both felt abandoned, and we rarely spoke to one another. Our lack of relationship during that time was not at all wedding related, but was even more glaringly obvious because of all the planning I was doing without her.
Unlike some people, I was never one to plan or even think about my future wedding before I was engaged. Sure, I knew I would probably have a ball planning a wedding if I ever did get engaged, but I figured I’d leave all the prep work until that moment. I specifically remember one night in college when my girlfriends were going around the table, announcing what their wedding colors will be and what kind of wedding and bridesmaid dresses they would eventually have. Please keep in mind, we were all very, very single at time. So when it was my turn to talk, I just laughed and said, “who the hell knows, but I really like turquoise.” They looked at me all crazy-like (HOW could I NOT know that yet?!). And thus ended my “pre-planning.”
Well, sort of. There was one thing that I did have a very strong opinion on at the time, but it didn’t quite fit in with all the girly talk going on. I knew that, when I eventually walked down the aisle, it would be with either both my parents, or just me. I still hold to that decision.
In a nutshell, as a child of divorced parents, I did a lot of traveling back and forth from one to the other. I lived with both of them at certain points, and both have had a great influence on how I was brought up and on who I am today.
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After writing this post, I realized Miss Mole just wrote something along the same lines; great minds think alike! This holiday season is a bit different for Foxy and me, and I wanted to share it with you:
Growing up, I would split Thanksgiving (and Christmas, for that matter) between my mom and my dad. In college, I would generally spend Thanksgiving with my mom, Christmas with both, and New Year’s with my dad. Since I’ve been with Foxy, it’s been Thanksgiving at my mom’s, Christmas at the future in-laws, and New Year’s at my dad’s.
Lost yet? Just remember: Thanksgiving at mom’s in NY.
Well, since I no longer live at home or a mere two hour drive away (as I did in college), holiday time generally means one main thing: traveling. Anyone who goes a distance to go home for the holidays knows that traveling = traffic. And I? Have no. tolerance. for traffic.
After some terrible experiences these past few years (like a 4.5 hour trip taking 10 HOURS), Foxy and I put our foot (feet?) down.
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This is not the first year that I won’t be home for Thanksgiving. I went to college 2,000 miles away from my family, and I always was too broke to fly home for the holiday. So one year was Thai food in the dorms, another was a takeout meal from Boston Market, a third was turkey sandwiches in Vegas. I stayed in Chicago a couple of years when I either volunteered at or ran in various Turkey Trots.
However, this is the first year that I will away from home for Thanksgiving because I am at someone else’s home. This year, Mr. Mole and I are going to Vegas to celebrate the holiday with his parents.
FMIL and FFIL in Vegas last Christmas
Quite simply, this is the most difficult post I have ever had to write in my life. I don’t even know where to begin, or what to say. My entire world has changed, and I’m still unsure of how to deal with it. Even to write the words make it real, something I am not sure I am ready to admit.
In one short phone call, my life has been forever altered. My grandmother called me this past weekend to inform me that my father, at the age of 45, had passed away. My father and I have had a very tumultuous relationship. However, in the last year we had ended our 10 year estrangement and were working to rebuild our relationship. Now, I never get to see the accumulation of that relationship. I don’t get to have my father walk me down the aisle, or do a first dance. And the most difficult of all, I don’t get to ever introduce my future children to their grandfather.
In the midst of my sorrow, something else has happened.
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I know I have talked about family before. (Hey, there is a lot to talk about.) However, this weekend we were in Michigan getting stuff done for the wedding with my parental squad, plus the in laws-to-be. And let me tell, you we got a ton of stuff done! (More on that to come!)
This story is about realizing that our upcoming marriage has grown/created a real family. We are having my 10 year old brother as a groomsman. When we were trying to decide everyone’s role, Mr. Aardvark suggested my little bro as a GM (which I thought was super sweet of him). We did not have to think too hard before deciding that this was a great idea. As Mr. Aardvark said, “Well, he is a kid now…but in ten or twenty years he will not be a kid and he will still be part of our family and I think it’s important for him to be part of our important day.” What a great point!
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