Lavender and amethyst and grape, oh my.

In June, my wonderful to-be mother-in-law (MIL) is coming to Michigan with me so that we can go with my super awesome mom and get some wedding stuff done. I don’t go to Michigan very often so it is going to be a bit of a wedding marathon. My goals are to show my MIL the venue, book a photographer, get my first dress fitting done, have my gorgeous maid of honor try on a few (ok, a lot) of bridesmaid dresses, book the florist, pick out linens and try some CAKE. Yum.

I started to book appointments and realized very quickly that I was going to have to be able to share my wedding vision with strangers in a quick and simple way so that they can help me have that beautiful day I picture in my head. I told the wonderful ladies at Waldenwoods (our venue) that I wanted the guest table linens to be white and the sweetheart table, cake table, guestbook tables to have purple table linens. My wedding colors are gray and “various” purples. I thought I was being clever by saying that I wanted a mix of a lot of different purple touches everywhere because then it wouldn’t matter if everything didn’t match exactly. The flowers are going to, then, bring together all the different shades. Reasonably, the ladies at Waldenwoods thought I should narrow down what kind of linen (satin, taffeta, etc.) and type of purple (muted, bright, pale, etc.) I was looking for so that that Lorrie from Special Occasions didn’t have to bring over a thousand examples.

I was a bit overwhelmed by this… I am not sure why. I think it is because I actually had to start making decisions. After talking to Wes about my anxiety, I decided to pick out a few different purples that I definitely want represented on 6.22.12 so that when I pick out linens, neck ties and décor, it will be cohesive. You can buy color swatches online to give to your vendors for $10 a pop. Boo. OR, you can go to Home Depot and steal paint swatches. I proceeded to steal about 25 paint swatches while looking over my shoulder hoping that that paint department manager wasn’t looking at me funny. Here’s my stash:

Here’s the kicker. Here’s how much my guy loves me… Wes also thought of this brilliant idea and stole not a few purple swatches like I did, but EVERY SINGLE PURPLE and GRAY paint swatch in our local hardware store. A lady working at Home Depot did give Wes a weird look on his way out so he nervously said to her, “Wife is making us paint the house again.” Hahahahahahaha. He was so pleased with himself that he promptly dropped this pile on my lap when he got home:

Then, he was severely disappointed to learn that I also had gotten paint swatches. His effort was awesome, though, and I love him so much for it. Gold star, hunny. I am very lucky to have someone that cares about reducing my anxiety over wedding planning.

Working out the imperfections

I decided that all my posts should not be about flowers, cake and invitations. Particularly, because weddings aren’t really about all those details. To me, it is about two people coming together and committing to be partners in everything from then on out. I like the idea of looking back on these entries 50 years from now and seeing how Wes and my relationship evolved during this chapter in our lives.

No relationship is perfect. I think Wes and I understand this very well. And, the best relationships require effort every day. A relationship can either sink you or be the most rewarding part of your life. On the day that Wes proposed was the day that we decided that it was worth the effort and we wanted to make our marriage the best it could be.

Many churches require you to take courses to get you “ready” for your marriage. I love the idea of trying to work out the kinks and building a great foundation for the next few decades. We aren’t taking one of these courses because a close friend named Rebecca is going to marry us. She is Wes’s advisor. She has seen the evolution of our relationship from day 1….even pre-day 1. Also, Wes likes to share all the intimate details of our life with her (most of the time I don’t mind this), so she is in a unique position to lead of our ceremony. J

Usually these courses involve talking about children, money and how to share responsibilities. I think Wes and I have these things pretty much worked out: we want 2.5 kids, we would like more money, and I cook as long as he does the dishes and pretends to like everything I cook. Easy as pie, right?

Well, one thing that we aren’t always good at is communication. Most of the time, we are fine. But, when Wes is tired and I am hungry sometimes the conversation breaks down and we end up doing something that we have recently identified as “spaghetti talk”. Something like this:

Meg: Why don’t you understand everything that I think?
Wes: I think you don’t understand me!
Meg: Well, I resent that you think that I think that.
Wes: I don’t understand.

Then, I make my mad face:

Wes makes his defeated face……

Don’t worry we quickly made up on this trip in Traverse City, MI.

I digress. Back to my point. The conversation is unclear. In addition, these conversations end up being about trying to figure out what you are saying rather than being about the important issue that you should be talking about. Anyway, so we decided to buy a book about ways to better talk and listen to each other so that we can avoid situations like the one above. It is inevitable that bad things are going to happen and we are going to have to work it out together. This book is based on research done by a psychologist who conducted a study that showed that whether a newlywed couple will divorce or not can be predicted with 93% accuracy based on how positive or negative they are during the first 3 minutes of conflict discussion (Gottman et al. 1999). Crazy, huh?

We have just begun to read the book and I think it has helped facilitate a few conversations. So, A+ for us so far. It makes me very happy to know that on the day that we exchange vows that we will be even more prepared to deal with tricky situations as partners.

Did you all do something to prepare to for married life? Do you have any tips?