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wedding shoes
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Frequently Asked Questions about Going Bridal, answered by Sara
1. What the Fuck? I mean, what the fucking fuck?
I am SO glad you asked that.
I'm going to interpret this to be the question most often asked, which is, "why are you such a wedding-obsessed freak?"
Weddings in general are fascinating to me, and my own is only a small subset of that. Some of the fascination is of the train-wreck variety, because the Bridal Industrial Complex is a terrifying thing. The rest of it is just enjoying the delightful aspects. Planning the wedding involves almost everything that I think is fun - sewing, crafts, liturgy, writing, graphic design, watching Leigh make mad-scientist cakes, getting Ryan to participate in (possibly ill-advised) creative projects, having new adventures with Dennis, and designing cute dresses for my nieces. It's a chance to have a very good time with the people I love and I'm going to enjoy all of it.
I also don't think that I'm focusing on the wedding and not on the marriage, which is another thing I get a lot. The wedding preparations are fun for me, but there is also another aspect of doing everything myself, which is that it gives me time to focus on what is happening and is about to happen in my life. Sewing beads onto fabric, for example, isn't all that intellectual, so my mind is free to wander.
Have you ever made a birthday cake for someone? Did you notice that, while you were making it, your thoughts were on that person and how much they matter to you? Maybe you thought about the upcoming party for a few moments, but for the most part, it's about the person who is the focus of the event.
For me, the focus of the wedding is on God and Dennis and this thing we're building together. Once I'm alone with the fabric and the beads and the needles, that's where my thoughts are. Things get very honest very quickly when my hands are busy. So, when I put that dress on, it's going to contain a lot of prayers, and hard truths, and there may be extra beads to cover places where I have water spots from tears. Sewing my dress IS preparation for the marriage, and it's what works for me.
2. How did you guys meet?
[Sara's version] So, epic love story...don't have one. It's just your basic
girl-posts-sleazy-personal-ad-on-Yahoo-fabulous-boy-answers-ad-they-screw-it
-up-but-return-to-their-senses-in-time-to-create-something-extraordinary-together story. And I think we're all a little tired of those, aren't we?
Wonderful boy answered my ad (along with some guys who wrote really, really
bad porn even though I hadn't asked them to, and some guys who couldn't
spell - it was particularly bad when the guys who couldn't spell wrote porn)
and made me laugh harder than I had in months. Things were great, then less
great, since I was still working out a lot of things for myself and so was
he. I behaved badly. Whiny, clingy, insecure...yeah, I was a catch.
Then something happened that I still can't explain...we both went to Europe,
separately, and somehow the time away softened us. Of course, I was
stopping in every cathedral in Paris and praying for the gift of
discernment, and I like to believe that had something to do with it (of course God, being God, also slipped some other wacky ideas in my head while I was there, since I was actually being receptive for a change).
Once
we got back to the U.S., things were just better. I
can't say for certain if God actually chose us for each other, but He
certainly has been there to make it work. Of course, there IS the fact that
Dennis had never read the personals before that day, and I would never have
placed the ad if my friend hadn't dared me to do it. A lot of things came
together! Anyway, much love, and much thanks.
3. Do you ever talk about wedding stuff?
Yes. Sometimes. But if the wedding were my whole life, I would be insufferable, so a lot of other things are in here, too.
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