Words (and remaining ME)

Last night I had a huge girl moment courtesy of IndieBride Kvetch's vows forum page, specifically their "giant ceremony readings repository." I was completely teary reading some of the most beautiful words about love and marriage. It struck me: getting all our logistical/attire things out of the way early means that I'll have months and months to think about words and the meaning of what we're doing, and I love that idea.

The IndieBride forum, by the way, ROCKS. I love the community there talking about weddings from the perspective of intelligent, progressive, feminist, aware, independent women. It's the opposite of how I feel logging onto The Knot message boards from time to time, looking for vendor-related stuff or just peeking in. I feel like a complete outcast among those girls, although admittedly, an outcast by design. The attitude so prevalent in the wedding industry is that life begins and ends with that walk down the aisle, and I couldn't feel more opposed to that concept. I know that so many of us are opposed to that concept, but the industry built to feed us that line is insanely dominant. Staying real and true to ourselves becomes a conscious decision when tradition dictates that some lame DJ will announce us as Mrs. HisFirstName HisLastName, as if our identity was erased the minute we said "I do."

Some of the forums active on IndieBride right now are topics that are incredibly relevant to me: "Marriage and Feminism," "The Bouquet Toss... And Other Antiquated Traditions," "Changing Your Name," and "Ridiculous Bridal Ads and Articles." The threads and discussion in each is fantastic. All of these concepts are things I'm going to break down here over the next few months, as I find that perfect balance of frill and depth about this whole getting married thing. Actually, I think a balance of frill and depth pretty much sums up exactly who I am. ;-)

I'll leave you with one of my favorite Rumi excerpts, which gets me every time.

When I am with you, we stay up all night.
When you're not here, I can't go to sleep.

Praise God for these two insomnias!
And the difference between them.

The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along.

-Rumi