Oh-so-cliché

I’ve been having nightmares for a few weeks now, often more than one a night. The dreams are always me and Rob arguing to the point of screaming at each other until one of us – usually me, runs away. In my dreams we never get the chance to resolve the fight. I’ve woken up in tears on more than one occasion and had to fight the urge to call him to check we are still on speaking terms. Ironically if I did wake him at 3am we’d probably end up in a tiff!

I’ve always had incredibly vivid dreams that often can’t be untangled from memory and affect my mood all day. Although after these current episodes I can wake in a tizz, they don’t hang around. I believe because I know they are stemming from anxieties of which I’m fully aware – wedding organisation for one. Which is most annoying as it makes me such a cliché bride-to-be.

We’re actually on top of most ‘big’ things to do with the wedding. Church, venue, photographer, florist are booked. My dress is ordered and pretty much everyone we want to take an active part in the celebrations has been asked and happily agreed. However, the fact is as I'm not in full time work (though you might not know it to look at my diary) I’ve been doing a lot of the organising on my own and simply catch Rob up with the progress every so often and that’s where some of my anxiety is rooted.

We want our wedding to be about us as individuals and as a couple but as, if not more importantly rooted firmly in our Christian faith.  Although there is no such thing as a truly new idea anymore, we want to make sure our faith and personalities are reflected in the celebrations, especially as the sacrament of marriage is very important to us. We view our day as being an opportunity for worship as well as the legal and fun bits. 

Recently, I have felt I’ve rushed a few details and plumped for easy, convenient choices rather than spending time ensuring meaning in many of the arrangements. This has made me uncomfortable in a few ways as I used to envisage a very personal wedding experience. I dreamed of an eco-friendly wedding with lots of homemade elements and tiny details embelishing the day alongside well thought out spiritual content. I won't say how Rob saw his wedding day but we're different in many ways!  

I have blamed my simplified 'just-get-it-done' process I've fallen into on our budget being (rightly) small but moreover  on our time limited. However, I’ve come to realise that these are just excuses  after all 7 months is plenty of time and it is possible to make the day what we want it to be if we organise it together.

For a couple who on the face of it have very little in common, we do an awful lot of activities and serve together and having me lead on organisation, purely checking in with Rob is alien. So we’ve scheduled a wedding catch up to think again about some of the decisions that have been made to see what we can do about tweaking them to ensure we’re both comfortable with how our day will match our goals.

Jesus started his ministry at a wedding, performing His first miracle at one, turning water in wine*. Our guests may not notice much difference from any other wedding they’ve been to –and that’s fine, I want them comfortable and relaxed and to enjoy the day.  But our hope is maybe they do notice it a little.

Of course, ask me again in late October when I’m studying as well as arranging this and I’ll probably not give two hoots and just want everything to go off with only one Hitch. Old joke, but it works!

*anytime You want to do that one again – fine by us J