Marrying Your Best Friend

"Umm you like what??"

After reading this post on A Practical Wedding, I got to thinking. Do we really marry our best friends? In the post, the author writes how her and her now-husband don't think of one another as best friends, but simply as husband and wife. In fact, she even writes that if they weren't married they probably wouldn't even be friends! You often hear the saying "I married my best friend" and her post strikes a nerve in a sensitive area.

When I first met my now fiancé I thought we were the same person. In fact, I even wrote to some friends how he was "the male version of me" haha. It was amazing how much we had in common, all the topics we could talk about, etc, etc. Fast forward to the present and I realize how different we are.

I love to read. Love, love, love to read. In 8th grade I read more than 150 books during the school year. (And not just the easy stuff, War and Peace, Anna Karenina..yes I was a dork ;)  His one completed book in recent years is The 4-Hour Workweek. I'm a music lover, but especially love hip-hop, reggae, rap, etc., whereas his most enjoyable tunes fall into the euro-style, techno category. I love to eat. I'll try pretty much anything you put in front of me and am always open to sampling unique cuisine. Whereas Patryk prefers his rotating repertoire of favorite meals and cringes at the thought of trying something new. We have different political views, different tastes in design and furnishings, and other things on which we "agree to disagree."

But as the author points out, differences in music and food are peanuts if you share the same core values and morals in which you want to begin your family unit. It is this type of heavy stuff that will determine the success of your marriage, not who likes to eat this or that. This is definitely the case for us. We share the same beliefs, values and have common goals that we want to achieve as a married couple. We have plans for our future about the way we want to raise our children, who will manage what in our household and most of all the type of life we want to build for ourselves. However, despite all our differences I do think my fiancé is my best friend; he's my closest confidant, my biggest supporter and the person I turn to for pretty much everything. That being said, I think it's our differences that make us who we are, and give a zest to our relationship that wouldn't be there if we were exactly the same person. Just imagine what a boring life that would be ;)


Photo via Jason+Anna Photography

The Wedding Planning Book to End All Wedding Planning Books

Early into the planning process I stumbled upon A Practical Wedding, a wedding blog that differed from any other. And I'm so glad I did. You will be too once you read it. It offered a refreshing, down-to-earth perspective on wedding planning and marriage in general. Not surprisingly, the blog evolved and its creator Meg Keene recently published a book, A Practical Wedding: Creative Solutions for Planning a Beautiful, Affordable, and Meaningful Celebration.

I wasn't planning on reading any wedding planning books nor am I planning on reading any more but thank goodness I read this one! You know the feeling when you're reading a book and you can't help but talk during the process? Well that's what reading this book was like for me. Kind of like this:

"Oh my god yes! I totally agree!"
"I thought I was the only one that thought that! It's so nice to hear I'm not crazy!"
"Seriously, who the hell cares about the effin' chairs?!"

Basically, Meg took a very unique approach when it came to writing a book about wedding planning: She was actually NORMAL about it. As in, she reminds us all that the whole point of planning a wedding is the getting married part, not the part about how great your reception is or what your centerpieces look like. So if you are a clueless yet sane bride wanting to plan a meaningful celebration, read this book ASAP. She gets down to the nitty gritty and helps you figure out where to start in an easy-to-understand step-by-step process.

Thanks to movies and media, the prelude to the wedding planning process — the proposal itself — has been exaggerated to such great lengths that it has made most of us forget the point of it all. Meg's insightful and empowering words shatter the typical stereotype.  I absolutely LOVED the quote from the book discussing this topic:

"It's exciting to decide to get married. And scary. But the moment of the proposal is just that: a moment. It moves you to the next step of the process; it's not the be-all, end-all. So maybe you have a fancy candlelight dinner followed by parachutists delivering you a pear-shaped, seven-carat diamond. Or maybe you decide to get married one Sunday morning over the newspaper and a cup of coffee. Either way is fine. The point is that you decided to spend your life with someone you love."

And that ladies and gentlemen is just a small piece of the wisdom you'll find in this book. Another favorite tidbit of mine featured in the book: the genius and oh-so-true tips from Kayce Hazelgrove of shinyprettybits.com and foodiewashere.com titled "The Six Stages of Wedding Planning." Kayce takes you through the various stages of emotional highs and lows of planning a wedding. 

My favorite was #4: OUTRAGE/DEPRESSION: "WHAT THE EFF" "EFF ME"

"This stage is marked by feelings of bitterness and frustration. You may feel as though you are failing in some way. This can cause you to swing between feeling angry over all the expectations being placed on you and despondent over your inability to live up. You may find yourself resenting others with friends and family who own a barn, can DJ, or have the enviable ability to craft masterpieces out of bits of random fabric and paper." 

Now I'm not sure if any of you guys planning a wedding out there have felt this way, but I certainly have and reading this book was a nice affirmation of 1) I'm not a crazy person and 2) knowing that it can be done in a sane and gasp! maybe even fun way. As Megan of notmartha.org puts it:

"It’s like having a very cool older sister who went through all this already to help guide you on what is and what isn’t important."

I couldn't have said it better myself. Buy this book and read it now. You'll be thankful you did.



P.S. Listen to Meg's interview discussing the book on NPR's Talk of the Nation here.

Wise Words

"Remember what your wedding is: a celebration. It's a reason to rejoice. And it's as simple and as complicated as that."  — Meg Keene

I just started reading Meg's new book "A Practical Wedding: Creative Solutions for Planning a Beautiful, Affordable, and Meaningful Celebration" and am already in love with it. Just the thing I need to get me through these last few months of wedding planning! 


Image via Kiss the Groom