The fire that destroyed our home two weeks before our wedding was a blessing in disguise
Reading “What precious things would you grab in a house fire?” on Offbeat Home & Life last month made me realize that having my apartment destroyed by a fire two weeks before my wedding was a blessing in disguise. Did I just leave you scratching your head? The blessing the fire gave us was the gift of freedom, and here’s why…
Planning a wedding while dealing with the emotions of being a domestic abuse survivor
I have gone from being a young bride, to a survivor of domestic abuse, a divorcée, a fiancée, and now I find myself planning a wedding again. A wedding is supposed to be a happy experience. For me, this doesn’t seem to be the case. With my looming nuptials I can’t help but feel emotionally and physically drained. I remind myself every day that “he isn’t my first husband.”
Planning a wedding as a fatherless bride
Despite the joy and enthusiasm I felt about getting married, not having my dad there meant there was a shadow, which for me made wedding planning — especially some of the emotions and complexities — as if I were planning both a wedding and a funeral. Death and life. Beginnings and endings. Joy and grief. It was all wound up together in a giant ball of messy emotions.
When family tragedy strikes during wedding planning
To every cloud there is a silver lining — and the silver lining to my father’s stroke and the fear that we were going to lose him was that when, five months later (six months until the wedding), my fiancé’s mother died suddenly and unexpectedly. I was much better equipped to understand what he was going through. And I was better able to support him. In those first few days after she died we talked about many things, some trivial and some very important…
How my fiancé lost his finger tips and our friends saved our wedding
Well, technically my fiance didn’t “lose” anything — both severed finger tips are in the back of our refrigerator. I spent one sleepless night trying to decide how I felt about still having our wedding, knowing that the medical payments are going to be a part of our lives for a long time. But now it feels important, necessary even, in a way that it never really did. Now more than ever, I want to celebrate my relationship with our friends and family. Daniel is the most incredible person I have ever known, and I can’t wait to call him my husband.
Melaney & John’s small town Tex-Mex dinosaur rock wedding
Let’s see here: dinosaurs (and a dino adult piñata!), a small town outdoor setting with a big cocktail gathering before the ceremony, and 34 DOZEN tamales… where do I sign up for this wedding? Oh, and don’t forget the groom’s and the bride’s mother’s live band performances, the Monty Python call-out in the ceremony, and the unintentional ass-grab by the groom during the first dance!