I have found the one whom my soul loves.
The greatest of these is love.
Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It does not dishonor. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrong. It does not delight in evil, but rejoices in truth. It always protects. Always trusts. Always hopes. Always perseveres. Love never fails.
On September 24, 2022, I married my best friend, companion, lover, soulmate, and so many other meaningful titles that he holds in my heart. Life sometimes takes you down a winding road full of potholes that leads you to a beautiful cabin in the woods just like the journey our guests had to take who were able to join us. I hope it was worth it to them just like my life’s journey was worth it to find my husband. I have never felt so full. I hope I am not alone in my experience at finding love. I’ve found the only thing that really matters is what you make matter. I choose love and connection.
Behind this picture, you wouldn’t know the dress I was wearing was not supposed to be my wedding dress. I spent 12 weeks with a seamstress designing my own idea of a wedding dress. Prior to that I bought two dresses on Etsy, neither of which fit to my liking, for a total of $700. Then another $40 on a dress from some random cheap website, which shockingly didn’t fit right either. This is what led me down the road to finding a seamstress to create the image in my head. We took those dresses and began making my vision out of them. I was so excited over those 12 weeks because she really got it. Then the dress wasn’t ready until the morning we left for the wedding weekend. I hadn’t had a chance to even try it on before we left town, but I trusted that we took measurement after measurement and it would surely be fine.
Friday night I tried on my dress.
It was all messed up. The straps were several inches too long and bunched up around my neck and the skirt was lumpy with several of the pleats sewn in the wrong direction. I was so disappointed. I cried alone in the bathroom for several minutes then called my mom. Earlier that day I asked her to bring a sewing needle and thread because I just had a feeling. “What’s wrong?” She heard the tears in my voice. I could hardly speak. I told her my dress didn’t fit and I wanted to make sure she brought the needle and thread. She assured me that she did and we would figure it out.
I packed several white clothing options including the $40 cheap dress that we ended up not using to make the dress. It consisted of a shapeless skirt and off-the-shoulder top that was completely see-through. I also had a second outfit I planned on wearing after the ceremony which was a lace halter and shorts that matched. Between my mom, sister, and best friend we stayed in that bathroom trying to reconfigure what I would wear on my wedding day, which was just hours away. We ended up gathering the skirt at the hip area to give it a bit of shape and hid the gather using the necklace my (now) husband designed and had made for me. Then she spent more time after that hemming the skirt because it was so long I would have been tripping over it. I also wore the halter top that came with the shorts outfit.
It was perfect.
It was not the image I had in my head, but it was perfect. I loved that we fixed my dress using the necklace my husband had made for me. I was so grateful to my mom for spending all day in a car and then several hours hand-sewing my dress. I know that’s not how she wanted to spend her evening after being in a car all day. But she did it because she loves me.
I knew word got around to our guests that evening that my dress didn’t fit. I could feel them watching me. As disappointed as I was, I didn’t let it ruin my night, let alone my wedding. At the end of the day, this weekend was about marrying my soulmate in front of my family and friends that I love. That night, after the dress was done, we sat around the table and played music together and laughed and had a good time. The wedding was beautiful. The dress was beautiful. Everything worked out.
Fast forward to the honeymoon.
The second night of our honeymoon I spent hours in the bathroom with food poisoning. If any of you have had food poisoning, you know how painful and long and drawn out that can be. I was in so much pain for hours. My body was exhausted from the exertion of trying to rid itself of whatever poison had entered my digestive system. When it all finally ceased I went to sleep and slept in later than was the plan, but I knew I needed the rest. In fact, resting and recharging was a goal for the honeymoon itself. It had been such a busy month of wedding planning and moving houses and dealing with car problems for both of us and healing from an almost year-long sickness and traveling across the country. I knew my body needed rest.
We didn’t do all of the things we planned to do on our honeymoon and we were both ok with that because mainly we just wanted to be able to spend time together. That’s what it’s supposed to be about anyway: time spent together to connect and love.
You have to keep things in perspective. Life isn’t perfect. It never will be. And that’s ok. Just because things don’t go according to plan or sucky things happen doesn’t mean it has to change your whole mood. As I look back on the last week, month, year…I’m so grateful for how everything played out. I wouldn’t change a thing. Even the sucky parts. Every hard thing I’ve gone through in my life has helped me become the person I am today. You can choose that for yourself, too.