Twenty Weeks

I am 20 weeks away from my first vacation from my job.  I will be taking 4 days off – 2 to prepare for the wedding, and 2 to recover from it.

 

20 weeks from now, I will have sewn my wedding dress.  I will have made the veil, bought the perfect shoes (and probably blinged them up), found the perfect lipstick, and tried tons of eye shadows as I looked for the right one.  I will have gone to the Flower District for a dry run, practiced doing that vintage hairstyle 37 times, practiced the first dance 164 times, made 60 crepe paper streamers, strung together 10 love banners, manipulated 1 “Happily Ever After” banner into a cut off tree branch, painted 1 aisle runner with quotes about love, sewn two ribbon corsages and six ribbon boutonnières, printed 200 invitations and 250 programs, spend 17 hours in Power Point making the wedding slide show, rubber stamped 500 paper bags, filled 250 of said bags with rice, and prepped the rest of the bags for the candy buffet.  I will have cross stitched two parent gifts, sewn four bridesmaids headbands and purses, and crafted three groomsmen cufflinks.  

 

In 20 weeks, I will have found people to bring hor d’oeuvres to the wedding, three more ushers, a sound person, a projector person, an officiate, a photographer or two, and a wedding stage manager, and all of these I can pay only in love and snickerdoodles.

 

During those 20 weeks, I will have had bridal showers and an awesome bachelorette party.  I will have cried a thousand tears because thisisjustsohardandwhycan’tweelope???  I will have spent untold hours prepping all the instructions and crafts and decorations.  I will have given solemn instructions to all the wedding elves, and few will have really listened to me.  I will have told all my family members that the wedding really starts at 2:25, not 2:00 like the invitation says.  (Apparently LOTS of Matt’s side do not believe in punctuality.)  I will have borrowed hundred of CD’s from the library to craft the reception playlist.  I will have bought 100 lbs of candy, and PRAY that people only take half a pound in the candy buffet (I can’t find smaller bags L ).  I will have attended 4 premarital counseling sessions, done lots of homework, and gone to 5 Homebuilders classes, all in preparation for a good marriage.  I will have spend at least 6 weekends apartment hunting, furniture shopping on Craigslist, and moving into our new home.

 

As these 20 weeks quickly fly, I will have walked the longest walk hundreds of times in my imagination, thinking about how I will grip my Dad’s elbow, hold the bouquet of flowers I carefully arranged, look at the people smiling around me, look at my best friend Gina up on stage, and then look at the man who will, in just a few minutes, become my husband for the rest of my life.  I will imagine how my Dad will give me away to Matt, and how I’ll watch Shanna sing her song, hear Gina and Andrew read their poem (have I asked Andrew yet?  Shoot…), give my bouquet to Gina, and then say my carefully written vows to Matt.  I will think hard and carefully about it what it will mean to be a Christian, feminist wife in the 21^st century.  Matt and I will have dozens of discussions about roles, what-if’s, and expectations.  We will be as prepared as one possibly can be.

 

These next 20 weeks are going to be the most terrifying, exhilarating weeks of my life.  I want to savor each moment.  I want to be present in every aspect of planning the wedding and our future together.  This is what I’ve waited my whole life for – and I can’t believe I’m almost there.