Rage Against the (Marital) Machine

Rage against the (marriage) machine

I’m sort of abnormal. (Insert Abby Normal joke here) I’m not your average woman. I don’t like the Lifetime Movie Network and I generally don’t read romance novels. I don’t have a shoe fetish (don’t ask Chris, he’s a guy and has a total of three pairs). I don’t fall over myself trying to hold babies. (Kids are more interesting as they get older.) Also although I have an unsightly amount of costume jewelry I could care less about diamonds and jewels. Oh and don’t get me started on the color pink. Blah. I don't hate pink anymore but it is still not my favorite. Though admittedly I am fairly girly and normal in my own purple-tasic ways. I cry at Hallmark commercials, love shopping and getting dressed up. (Though I thoroughly enjoy lounging in jeans and a t-shirt.)

Now take a look at Chris. I think he is the more normal one in our relationship. (He is my "normal" half.) At least on the outside. I think he may not have shown how odd he really is to anyone else before. Now he’s embracing his lovely weirdness. He's letting his little flashing-neon-green light shine. And in many ways I'm still the odd crazy cat lady in our relationship. I'm polka dots, he's stripes. And even though he has a big hand in all the decisions and design of our wedding people still look to me for decisions because I have ovaries. (I can think of no other reason. Poor Chris gets left out again because of his lack of ovaries.....) So when I say "I" in this blog I mean "we" because I can't take complete credit for ALL the awesomeness!


So that should help you understand me when I say the wedding industry baffles and amuses me. Because: A. My fiancee has just as many opinions, ideas and is just as excited as I am about the ceremony and big party. Okay, admittedly some things like color and dresses he doesn't care about. Thank goodness. B. I generally don’t go googly-eyed over candies, cake, flowers, linens and seating charts. (Love the whipeed topping cakes tho!) C. We want everyone to have our kind of fun at our wedding.

Right now you are thinking yes of course you can have the wedding of your dreams! And where do you live I ask? In a big city or on one of the coasts untraditional weddings are huge and almost expected in this age. Here in central MN the things we want are 'just not done'. Tradition is king and conservatism is queen. People tend to look at you strange when you say you want a wii set up at the reception so people can play wii bowling. Yeah, getting crazy over here with the wii bowling, eh?!

Okay, don't get me wrong. I do enjoy going to traditional weddings. I tear up during the ceremony and first dance. (I have no idea why but I also cry during the national anthem at baseball games.) So I DO like and appreciate traditional weddings. But just as I like some of the oscar gowns on celebrities I would never wear those same gowns myself. Some things "just don't suit". To quote Sweethome Alabama.

So what do you do? You tell your family, you tell your friends and pray (praaaaaay!) they understand that you want paper flowers instead of real or fake ones from the craft store in town. Even if they don't understand WHY you want them hopefully they understand that you DO want them. When we come across opposition to our plans Chris shrugs it off. But me? I feel guilty and question what we want. That is the point where we lose everything we want and end up spending huge amounts on stuff we won't enjoy and that isn't us. I don't want a cookie cutter wedding. We don't want to go to the store and buy a kit that says "(Name) & (Name)'s Wedding" for five grand. I wouldn't buy the same size 6 neon orange thong undies just because everyone else was, why buy a wedding that doesn't fit?



And through it all Chris is unfailing in his desire for an "us" wedding. His geeky oddness doesn't waver. This strength is what keeps me from giving up and handing the keys to our wedding over to banality. He reminded me the other day of one of my favorite sayings from Dr Seuss: "Be who you are and say what you feel, for those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind". In our case I hope that means those who have your best interests in mind will try not say you can't do that, they'll say how can we make this happen?