photo: ten sixteen photography
The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is to love and be loved in return.
Moulin Rouge
This post is inspired by conversations I overheard at my fav café on two different days. . .
The other day I was sitting at my local café, Aroma, when I overheard a young woman (20’s) at the next table declare, “I tried on my grandma’s wedding dress and it was pretty, but old-fashioned so I’m not gonna wear it.”
Okay, so you’re not going to wear it BUT that doesn’t mean you can’t still incorporate the dress somehow.
This is where creativity comes in – with how you incorporate family tradition + heirlooms in fresh, contemporary ways.
I’m not going to turn this into a DIY blog BUT I once had a bride who didn’t want to wear her grandmother’s dress BUT who loved her grandmother very much.
Her grandmother let her use the dress for part of the canopy of the Huppa the bride made.
It was beyond beautiful!
Even if you are stressing the small stuff (which you shouldn’t!), PLEASE enjoy the fun of being creative and inventive – not for the sake of wowing guests BUT for the sake of honoring cherished traditions and heirlooms – honoring family.
On another day at Aroma, I was sitting next to a guy talking about how family politics is driving him batty as he and his fiancée come closer to their wedding day.
Apparently, his mother doesn’t talk to his aunt, with whom he’s close, and the sisters haven’t talked for over a decade.
His mother doesn’t want to be in any family photos with her sister BUT he thinks it would be nice for the entire family to have a portrait taken on his wedding day.
His two friends then chimed in with tales of their parents’ dysfunctional family relationships.
Here’s the thing –
Family politics is all part of a wedding – and my experience has been that very few couples manage to get married without family wackiness tripping them up.
But, here’s the thing –
When I officiate a ceremony, I look out at the people gathered AND what I see is a bunch of people wanting to believe that despite ALL the divorce and messiness of families, there’s hope that these two people will get “it” right.
That’s why I say that your wedding is a
Big
Bold
Brash
Statement of HOPE
BECAUSE
No one knows what the future holds
BUT
Everyone hopes
That the two of you
WILL
be faithful to:
The dream of becoming who you want to be as a couple
Are you thinking of writing personal vows to each other?
If so, I invite you to check out my book –
How to Write Your Vows: Giving Voice to What Is Deep Within