Day 18 - my wedding/future wedding/past wedding

Day 18 - my wedding/future wedding/past wedding

Yeah. I am pretty sure I talked about this before, but I will again, if anyone is interested. Sam and I got engaged in February, and were planning an October wedding, though, to be frank, I had no desire to plan a wedding. I kind of think they are silly. And yet, when I attend a wedding, the joy is palpable and it is fun, and I get it. But I am a bit too practical in the money department to freak out about wedding stuff. I was excited to marry Sam, but unsure how I wanted to marry him. I wanted to plan a foreign wedding somewhere exotic. Or just elope. Sam wanted his family there, because he never sees his family, he was in graduate school at the time, so we were broke and he was always busy and wanted to see them and celebrate. We would go back and forth with me saying, "If you want a family reunion, have a family reunion. This day is supposed to be our day and I think we should buy a house." 

My closest friend can be a bit of a scheduler and kept asking me when, how, what, etc. She was stressing me out. And eventually started getting a bit harsher with her words. She really really wanted to know, and the wedding wouldn't plan itself and you have to start thinking about it and it is important and...you know the things people say when they want to light a fire under your ass. So, in two weeks, I planned a wedding. I bought a dress from J. Crew, which was simple and stunning, and I loved it, and got a minister at the local punk rock Unitarian Church. I asked at our favorite Cuban restaurant if they cater or do weddings, and they actually have a whole, very reasonably priced, wedding floor, which overlooks a great street. I booked it. I bought plane tickets to Sayulita, Mexico, and booked a villa for a week. Done and done. Flowers was my last bit. I designed and printed my own wedding invites, and had them addressed and stamped and sitting by the front door when I woke up puking and moody.

We canceled everything. I lost no money on the planning, actually, everyone was super cool about canceling the wedding. We planned to elope two weeks later on the Friday before Labor Day. I woke up that morning bleeding bright red blood. Convinced I was miscarrying, I called the midwives. I was maybe five weeks pregnant at the time and still hadn't seen a midwife or checked the baby. We had a three o'clock wedding time set. The midwives agreed to see me at one pm, and I scheduled a hair appointment at 10:30a. I was so scared, firstly about the bleed, and then about the insanely tight schedule for the day. (see Day OCD).

Sam and I went to the midwife, and told her we were getting married that day, and she was delighted, and laughing. I was diagnosed with a subchorionic hemorrhage. I wasn't miscarrying. Incidentally, I had the same thing with Thor, but not Lucy. Strange that. Still, I cried a lot that day, and when I thought I was losing the baby, I kept thinking that this is what marriage is all about. Whatever comes your way, you face it together. We literally left the hospital, took a cab to the chapel, married, and then walked in the rain. Crying.

We bought our house a month later, and went on our honeymoon. We came home scared at all that we were facing and overwhelmed with the ways our lives changed in three months, but our wedding day was a beautiful day for us. Beatrice was okay. We were okay. Little did we know then what we would face as a couple. Losing Lucy at 38 weeks rocked our marriage, not always in a good way. We lost my grandfather, and grandmother. Sam's father died. Our daughter. We are strong now. He is truly my best friend and soul mate. I don't use that word lightly. He is an incredible husband, except for how he leaves his socks everywhere, including on the kitchen table, for some fucked up reason. But besides that, he is amazing, funny, sexy and really cute. He also reaches the top shelf and juggles and rides a unicycle at the same time, which I know, is dangerously close to clown-like behaviour, but still a very cool skill to possess. He also hunts and likes talking about RVs and guns, which is not really my thing, but still, I think it will be useful in the apocalypse.But he loves our children with the ferocity of ten hundred active volcanoes, and he makes me feels like the most beautiful girl in the world, every day. And the luckiest.

Beatrice was born a year and nine months after we met. In every wedding picture, Beatrice points to my belly and says, "There I am. I loved your wedding, Mama."

Yep. There you are. I loved my wedding too.