So, it has come to my attention that I am not getting married in five months, or three months, or even one month. This shit is going down tomorrow!!!

Beyond everything else this week has been excessively normal (except that I’ve been so busy I haven’t been reading blogs!). Fiancé walks the puppies in the morning, we drink coffee, get ready, go to work, head home falling asleep (and sincerely upset that I’ve been being harassed for taking three days off. For my wedding.), make some dinner, chill out, walk the puppies, and fall into a deep asleep. Approximately the same routine since we moved into the house in July. Last night was the rehearsal, and it went really well – I have an idea of how the entrances and exits will run, and since we wrote the ceremony together that’s already familiar.

The dinner was a lot of fun, and the wedding party gifts went over really well! The girls received a cool decorative item that hooks onto a table to keep your purse off the ground, and a piece of jewelry that suited them, the best man who lives farther away from us than we wish he did received an XBOX Live Gold account for a year so we can play and chat with him online, and the guy in my party received a gift certificate towards time with a tattoo artist he’s been talking to me about. They were all really happy, it was great to say thank you.

And then tomorrow we’re getting married!

Over the past few weeks there have been a number of conversations in a few 20-something places about weddings, about how anyone getting married under a certain age is partially deluded, or how there is so much pressure to be married that getting married is on some level caving to some kind of pressure (I point no fingers, this is 99% from the commenters). I get it, because there are mecha-weddings out there where everyone within a 5 kilometer radius is served unicorn and required to wear memorabilia with the bride and groom’s face on it to be guaranteed that their youngest child will be returned to them within a fortnight. Even when I want to be purely supportive, altruistic, and happy for the people, those Spectacle Weddings kind of make my skin crawl. They seem to usually be pushed along by either a self serving couple, or parents who don’t mind hijacking their children’s day, and neither seems to be in the spirit of a marriage.

Those posts (along with, hello, wedding tomorrow!!) have given me a lot to think about in relation to why I want to get married to this guy, it’s all very simple when it comes down to it. First, it’s not because I ever really wanted to be married in general, it’s about this relationship. Fiancé and I love each other and have a relationship that has been functioning on a very high level for a long time. We have been banking together since shortly after we met. We have puppies together, and we saved up and scraped together a down payment on a house by saving almost half of what we made for three years. Now we have a place that is completely our own. We disagree, but we really don’t fight unless one of us is sleep deprived or very hungry, in which case we either go to sleep or have a snack and resume on a more sane note.

And getting married – beyond formalizing our relationship – means that our families get to meet. So much of fiancé’s family lives so far away that there would never be a chance for them to all get together and enjoy each other’s company. This is a way for everyone to get together, have a great meal, and really enjoy themselves. It’s going to be a lot of fun, we would love to be married, and it means a lot to us for our families to meet – why not just go with that?

There is a lot to say about how the next few days will go, but I will be back posting on Monday with a SQUEEEOMG post that will make you gag – but in the mean time I’m going to leave you with a quick list that I’ll touch on more next week:

The Top Five Things I’ve Learned While Wedding Planning

1. You don’t have to imporversh yourself. Our wedding is going to be really, really nice. I have a white dress and everything, we have great favours, amazing flowers, a professional photographer, are being shunted around in a limo, a good sized wedding party, and are eating an incredible coursed meal for 30. At the end of the day we will not have spent a penny over $4500 which means no debt, no sweat, and no begging for money. You have to be smart and shop around, but you can do it!
2. It doesn’t have to totally take over your life. We planned our wedding in four months, and while there were a few moments where I cried and tore out my hair, generally I was fine – most surprisingly today I am still not falling apart. I would block one week breaks from planning and reading wedding community sites, and then go back for a one or two week intensive. I started really working in June, and was finished by Sept. 1.
3. You don’t have to kill yourself over looking perfect. Since torturing myself for most of high school, I have ceased being big on crippling myself with anxiety. I have experienced  moderate to severe panic attacks on a regular basis since I was in Grade 8 and making myself comfortable and happy when I can is a service to myself and the people around me, and if I add low self esteem to my panic issue I will be a quivering mess 75% of the time. In keeping with this I have made an effort to not do anything different for the wedding. I am in good shape now, I’m a very healthy weight, and if my arms aren’t perfectly toned I can get over it. I’m 23, no matter what I do, when I look back at these pictures in 25 years I will only think “I was so pretty and I had no concept of it”, so why be miserable when I can eat burger king and sushi when I feel like it  this week and when, it’s really not going to do a huge amount of damage in the short term anyway.
4. It can be whatever you want it to be. Fiancé and I have made most of our important “together” decisions at a late night nacho joint in town, so we mention nachos in our vows. I think everyone will laugh, I know I will. We aren’t going to make promises we can’t keep, so we’re promising to make important decisions over nachos, to try to be everything the other person needs, and to love each other.
5. You can’t live blog it and continue to be respected by your family. But you can be on twitter as muuuch as you like!

We’re not taking a honeymoon so I’ll be here Monday with a full report and hopefully lots of un-official pictures. Thank you so much for all of the bloggy love, and have a great weekend!