Two months married!

It's been two months, already! Wow. So I thought today would be a good day for wedding reflection.

My favorite part of the wedding, honestly, was the ceremony. I knew my favorite moment would be actually MARRYING B, but how much I loved the ceremony was surprising. In my humble opinion, it was perfectly us. Church, solemn but sweet, our family and friends as witnesses, and it wasn't 5 seconds long. It was about 35-40 minutes, which, to me, was a good length of time. B and I, I feel, really had a chance to soak it in... which is saying something, considering how fast the rest of the night flew by.

The rest of the wedding, I felt like there wasn't enough time to do anything. Talk with people outside the church? Nope nope, have to run and take photos. Want to take more photos? Nope nope, have to get to the reception where people are waiting. Seriously, if I had ever needed a "pause life" button...

I have a few regrets. They by NO MEANS ruined anything. But, hindsight is 20/20, and I figured I'd finally write them down for all 2 people that may happen to get lost and read my blog.

1) I wish I had better designated a MC for the night. I had asked my sister, but I think something got lost in the translation. It's neither her nor my fault. I feel like if we had one, then it would have been more designated that this comes, then this, then that. As it was, we had toasts after dinner, and it just felt out of place, and I wish they had happened sooner.

2) I wish the wedding had been at 4 or 5 pm. Now, this would have caused problems, because hotels in town were booked due to a HUGE track event (note to world: Do not plan a wedding in town the same weekend as a big event). But, 4-5 pm means it's beginning to get dark after dinner. It felt sort of strange to be dancing and having TONS of light pour in through the windows. I also feel like more people would have made plans to stay later if the wedding had begun at 4-5 rather than 2... people came to the wedding, ate, talked for a bit, and then left 6:30/7. I wanted to get my boogie on, and that just wasn't happening.

3) Fewer people. I still have anger against a number of people who RSVP'd yes and then didn't show. It's made me question who I count as my friends, and really made me evaluate how other people treated us. We are blessed with many good friends, and, though our wedding wasn't huge to begin with, I think it could have been smaller, easily.

4) Do less. This really goes with #3, above. I really didn't mind the projects B and I took on, but I dont' like how much time things took to set up the day before as well as take down the night of the wedding. Our family and a few friends were so devoted and wonderful and giving and just helped in any way they could. While that was TOUCHING beyond belief, I wish that B and I had planned a little differently to have things be less crazy.

5) I think B and I should have created a better budget. We stayed within budget, but sometimes I think money was spent somewhere when it shoudl have been spent elsewhere. I don't know if this was possible though; we were in two different towns!

6)I wish we would have gotten outside shots of us with our families. I don't think we did. And I dont' like that. I wish I had been more forceful with the photographer that it's not just about artsy shots; it's also about family.

7) I wish we had spent less money on something else and instead hired someone to make the food go more smoothly. It did (we hired people for the actual reception), but the morning was a little crazy. I also with I had just plunked the money down for the cheapo catering dishes rather than getting different types. It worked, but there was a lot of "where'd x piece for y dish go!?" stress.

Don't get me wrong. All in all? I LOVED our wedding. Loved it. I never lost sight of the fact that it wasn't about the party; it was about marrying B. And while I wasn't STRESSED, there are things we could have done to make it more enjoyable.

I see pictures of friends, etc.... who are relaxed and just in the moment, the DAY before the wedding. They saunter to the rehearsal. Then waltz over to the rehearsal dinner. Maybe they even had a spa day. I wish we had that aspect.

Now, I realize that a lot of these people whom I'm looking up to either have family paying or debt from their wedding. And I'm REALLY glad we didn't have the debt. As for family, well, our families supported B and I through SEVEN years of post-high school education. SEVEN. EACH. Yes, we still have student loans, but not nearly as many as we would have had if we had not had our families. We are both so grateful for that, and that's why we did not want our families to pay for our wedding. We wanted that to be a thank you from us. A realization of what they did for us.

There's a new show on TV that I happened to catch an episode of two nights ago: Masters of Reception. It's this family or group that owns this gorgeous estate where weddings are held. GORGEOUS. But I don't long for that. I love where we had our ceremony, and I love where we had our reception. Not only would a place like that cost an arm and a leg (seriously: $100+ a person for food alone), but how many people before you had the same exact type of wedding? At least ours was unique.

I guess I just envy the attitude of "I get to relax because I paid x number of people to take care of stuff." But you know what? I got my man. And he's wonderful. And together we do not have the added burden of paying off our wedding. And the wedding? It was wonderful.

So long story short: I loved it. And I love him. Yes, in retrospect, there were a few things I'd change, but that's not saying i didn't enjoy myself. There's just always room for improvement. Maybe we'll have a 10-year anniversary bash!