Sage Words: Part 1

I like to think that despite the endless wedding-detail discussion, I am keeping this whole wedding thing in perspective. Believe it or not, I don’t want our wedding day (in all of its future fabulousness) to be the best day of our lives. Its just one day: the day signifying the first day of our married life. Don’t get me wrong, I anticipate it being a good day. A fantastic, wonderful, magical day even. But I also think that the day I’m (finally) called Dr. Patti (even if only by my mama) will be the “best day” of my life up until that point. The day(s) I give birth to our children will the best day(s) of my life up until that point. The day the PHI and I pay off our student loans will be the “best day” of our financial lives up until that point. See what I mean? Context is key and I sincerely hope that my life will be full of “best days.”

Instead I like to think of our wedding day as “one day.” This mantra is what forces me to pay cash for wedding expenses because its silly to accrue debt for “one day.” It also slows me down to hear the PHI when he tells me to hold off on wedding research to watch a movie with him. One day of wedding planning will not affect how our “one day” will turn out.

Lastly, framing the wedding this way reinforces my blogging. Normal people do not spend a year talking about one day. Granted, Mom says when I was little she had to restrict discussion about my birthday (May 20th) to the month of May. If I had it my way, we’d talk about my birthday year round. Many years later, in any given year the plans for May 20th is still one of my favorite topics. The wedding is slightly different, but even still if I had to choose, I’d much rather tell people about how the PHI and I met (a story I never tire of telling) and how much I love him, than about our color scheme, the bastardly budget, or how dramatic dress shopping has been for me – which are the things people ask me about. [Sidenote: officially, the only things I hate about wedding planning are the guestlist and the budget]

In the spirit of knowing that our wedding day is just a day, this week I’ve decided to post a three-part series of articles/posts that I’m titling Sage Words: A collection of wise words about love and weddings, and how to keep them all in perspective (or Sage Words for short). Today you got my $.02. The rest of this week I’ll be sharing what other people had to say. I can’t really take credit for doing any large amount of research – these are all pieces I’ve run across and have found inspirational in one way or another. Hopefully you will too.

♥