Perspective, Anxiety, gah...

First-- a huge thank you to those who responded via comments or by private email to my fears yesterday. Lots of suggestions and encouragement, and two very lengthy emails with two close friends who are at different stages of this wild wedding planning thing-a-ma-jig, and I'm feeling a tiny bit better. Hopefully that'll grow with time. And maybe a couple of verbal brawls with my mother. Which will hopefully lead to things calming the fuck down.

Upon the advice of four people, I've registered an account on the Kvetching forums at IndieBride. Lots of different topics over there, and I beelined to the one simply named "Anxiety."

Me? Anxiety? Tell me one you haven't heard...

A big part of what really set me off was a discussion with my mom on Sunday, in which she made a comment about reserving a hotel for the reception in downtown Providence, but that we should just have the ceremony there because "we didn't really need to have it outside."

Well... yeah, we kinda do.

And my mom has been told why this needs to happen. I'm already making some allowances-- by my own choice, with no pressure by others-- to NOT have a full Pagan handfasting. This is because, despite my openness about my faith, I'm not completely "out of the broom closet" when it comes to extended family. My parents know. My brother knows. Anne (dad's wife) most likely knows, but already thinks I'm weird, so probably thinks it's some weird New England thing. And I think my Grandma Lillian knows. Mom's side of the family? Nope. Lots of conservative Polish Roman Catholics. A couple of them would probably be okay with it, or at least not say anything.

But breaking the news to my grandfather that we would not be getting married in a church was a bit difficult. He was upset, but I told him that neither of us belonged to a church. And I had to remind both my mom and my grandfather that neither of us would be able to get married in a Catholic church anyway. I was baptized and received my first communion in the Episcopal church. Erich recalls receiving first communion, but doesn't know the denomination beyond "Protestant." He's not particularly religious, although spirituality crosses his mind from time to time. And I hold mine as more of an internal ethics/morals structure than an open practice.

Having the ceremony outside is MY way of expressing my faith during the ceremony in a way that's meaningful to me without being obtrusive to other people. And really-- if we're shooting for an autumn wedding. It's NEW ENGLAND. You get married out under the gorgeous leaves!! Instant ceremony decoration-- and one that we couldn't top anyway.

So having a completely detailed Pagan handfasting during the "public wedding" is something that I don't want to do. At least not openly. A later handfasting, just with friends and us, might be in order later. And that's something we don't have to arrange a big whoop-de-doo about. Maybe we will-- but I'm not worrying about it.

With the "Melissa's not marrying in a church?!?" issue now out on the table for family consumption, it's time to start getting into some of the grittier things of a wedding. Like... picking a date.... you know, one of those minor things. And everything's just hitting me at once. Really stupid little stuff that I don't need to be worrying about yet-- like how we're going to address engagement and wedding invite announcements when we have two sets of divorced parents, and one of the four has remarried... because we don't need some retarded "Jennifer, Thomas, Deborah, and Arthur... and Anne (kinda)" thing going on for our announcements.

Although I am leaning toward an amusing reply card like I saw in the forums. "will be there with bells on/won't be there - childhood bell issues." Indeed.

Hello, IndieBride... I am about to become your slave...

I hope it'll be okay. It's just that I had to forcefully shove wedding stuff off my plate with all of the moving. But it seems like family and co-workers pushed off the "so... when's the wedding?" questions just until they determined we had a box unpacked at the house. Whammo! It all starts back up again. "When's the date?" "Have you bought a dress?" (Dude, we're trying to figure out how to adjust our finances due to the friggin' flooring bill at the moment. I can't buy new bras, let alone a wedding dress at the moment).

And Ivy... per your email... you may have to go dress shopping with me. Because I'm certainly not going with my mother. I can only imagine... *shudder*

At this point, the only goals I have for the wedding for the next say, two months or so, is this...

1) Check out reception places downtown.

2) Pick a date-- either randomly or by necessity in a deposit on a reception spot.

3) Thereby having a date so I can start researching what I'll need to find an officiant (since different officiants have different preferences to meet with couples beforehand).

4) And really casually, start putting together a backbone of an invite list.


Maybe we can just get married and not tell anyone... *scratches chin*