Weddings are Not

"Your wedding is not the ultimate statement of who you are as a couple. I mean: your wedding should certainly reflect you two more than it reflects just the idea of wedding. Of course. But—and I know this is hard, and that my husband and I didn’t quite manage it ourselves when we wed—don’t let yourselves get out of hand. Weddings are really just a public acknowledgment, an affirmation, marking the beginning of the adventure of your (official) partnership—kind of like a bon voyage. Our parents and grandparents had such different weddings. They walked to the county courthouse, or married at a neighborhood church, with a party in Grandma’s back yard. These weren’t grand affairs, at least not in my family, but I have such romantic ideas about them: my parents and grandparents have beautiful photographs by which I still imagine those weddings.

Weddings are now so much bigger and more splendid and more extraordinary in design and scope than I possibly could have imagined when I was a little girl. When we all were. But. How you live your married life, each and every day, or rather the sum of your days, eventually becomes a much more powerful testimony of who you are as a couple. So, plan the wedding you imagine, great or small, near or far, lavish or serene. I hope it is a wonderful and honest celebration (and that the photographs are fantastic, too!). I’m just saying, I hope your marriage is even more marvelous. Were it up to me, and were my husband and I so extraordinarily lucky, I’d rather let our fiftieth anniversary than our wedding be that ultimate statement of who we are together."

{wisdom by Gia Canali via snippet & ink}