My sister’s bridal shower is this afternoon and mostly, I can’t believe it’s here. One thing (among many) that has bugged me about my sister’s upcoming wedding is the fact that she had such a long engagement. In all honesty, it was probably pretty average. They have been engaged for a yearish and their wedding is next month (“41 days,” she would gleefully pipe in here), so 14 months altogether.
I know there are plenty of people who do the multi-year engagements and I apologize if that’s you and I know everyone has their own reasoning for such things, but I don’t get it. I worked in the events industry for about two years and know first hand it doesn’t take that long to plan a wedding.
I also know first hand that a long engagement drives the people around you crazy. Even my mom, who is thrilled to be a MOB and has seemed to delight in the process thus far, said recently that my sis was in super wedding mode and that’s all she talks about or something to that effect. This confused me because my mom said it like it was a recent development. Maybe she hasn’t been paying attention for the last year?
This incessant wedding talk and her perception that she is the most important person in the room at all times and her wedding is on everyone’s mind constantly might be why I am bothered by the long engagement, it might also be because it’s not how I would do it and obviously my way is right and much better.
In fact, just this morning, I decided I’m totally eloping or something very similar. Yep, I said it here first, so mark my words. No need for the fuss, the ridiculous cost or the hushed drama of a big production. When I get hitched, I just want to get hitched.
I have also considered that the long, drawn out engagement bugs me because I am actually excited about it as well and would like for it to be here because it will be a fun event. The thing is, though, that when they picked their date last year, I thought it sounded so far away, yet now it seems so close.
With the shower, the bachelorette party, rehearsal, rehearsal dinner and actual wedding all hurdling toward me, I’ve realized that events that seem so far in the future will arrive regardless of how I spend the interim. The time passes if I spend it enjoying the moments just as it will pass if I wish away those moments for events or milestones.
It’s truly not that I’m so unhappy in the present, it’s just that my mind is always thinking ahead to what’s next and I know I miss out. The big picture in the future is built by the small pictures right now anyway, right?
Like the inability to recognize freedom of choice, I’m good at noticing this fatal error in other people, but not controlling it in myself. A friend recently posted to Facebook that she wished it was two weeks from now so she would be a flight to Europe. I’m not great friends with her, so I didn’t feel comfortable replying, but I would have loved to tell her that, yeah, Europe is great, but so are all the little moments that she will experience in the next 14 days before she leaves.
I didn’t tell her, but I’ll tell myself. In the next 41 days before my family from the midwest descends on beautiful Arizona, before I don a terrible dress, but adorable shoes, before Lucky twirls me around the dance floor, I will be enjoying (and reminding myself to enjoy when needed) the in-between.
The Next Moment 