Blue Notes #14: Wedding prep
Spiritual, emotional, social, physical, and soulful
‘Wedding planning’ happened quickly and without much fuss; the event itself was small and straightforward and everything slipped into place with a few conversations to the effect of “How strongly do you feel about the halloumi?”
I was determined to challenge the story that wedding planning is stressful and burdensome.
But even without my personal resolve to combat that narrative, I actually found it to be so much fun, and couldn’t figure out what would be stressful about having to choose between the pink ribbon or the sage ribbon?
Every decision was like pressing my nose against the glass window of a bakery and agonizing between cream puffs or eclairs, only to throw my hands up and resolve, “Oh, why not just do both!?”
Wedding prep, on the other hand, held many more opportunities for me to fuss!!
I’m a glutton for meaning and ceremony and rituals and portals, and if the engagement were any longer I could have gotten wayyyy too carried away with inventing our own river-joining tradition.
So it’s best that we kept the engagement short, and here’s all the prep I could fit in during that time:
SPIRITUAL
It was a bright cool afternoon when I took my wedding dress home from the tailor.
After days of rain showers, I was relieved that New York was dry enough so I could schlep the gown via the subway rather than have to take out a loan to just pay for an Uber from Manhattan during a deluge.
The walk from the subway station to my apartment takes fifteen minutes, but during that particular walk, with the gigantic white bag labeled ‘BRIDE’ over my arm, time became blurry, like the timespan during a dream: Did it last minutes or hours?
Nearly every person I past gave me the same smile, and my awareness toward each of them elongated the walk and secured it in my consciousness.
The smile is one I’ve given before a few times: To the couple in an elevator who were headed to the hospital to have their baby, to an older man whose new kitten was crawling all over his shoulders as he filled out adoption papers at the animal shelter, to a woman outside the city clerk office posing for a photo with a small American flag and her new citizenship papers.
It’s a smile I probably haven’t received since I was a baby myself: a smile of recognition for witnessing an individual moment that…kind of belongs to us all.
It’s a wistful smile that isn’t so much about the other person as it is the little heart-leap that happens when you yourself get to be a part of this moment that is recorded in the grand archives of collective memory.
While lugging my dress home, I realized the wedding was so much less about an individual choice, and rather about the actions that humans keep doing even when there are reasons not to.
It’s nice to see people keep committing to each other, just as it’s nice to see people become new parents and others become new citizens.
The wedding was always going to be spiritual for me, but that’s when I made a plan to start doing some serious spiritual prep over the next couple weeks:
Spirit Session
As soon as I decided to change my name, I decided to book a ‘spirit session’ with Kiki Robinson, who is a human bouquet of marigolds: a bright, soft, and sacred presence who infuses any threshold in life with more meaning.
I asked Kiki to help my ancestors release any pushback around me changing my name, and I asked for protection from ancestral baggage as I take on a name that isn’t my own.
Whenever I do a session with Kiki, my mind’s eye can see so clearly that it freaks me out; I literally hang out with ancestors (in this case, a witty crone who told me I inherited her creativity and a young man who shared my poor nose) and got to see all my guides and angels just being so psyched for me.
Kiki’s not for everyone, but I love living in the same world they’re living in, and how they bring me more deeply into the experience of existing here.
Lots of prayer
Leading up to the wedding, a few people asked me if they could do anything to help out. I gave everyone the same assignment: Pray for us.
I tweaked the words for each friend; some were more the meditating type, and others are the more sending-vibes type, but I told them I’d happily take anything they could offer.
Knowing that so many people were praying, meditating, vibing, and good-wishing in our honor made me feel held like a little ladybug in the palm of one’s hand during our marriage day.
I also loved including people in this way, giving them the sacred task of communing with All That Is to bless our ritual and our union.
Visualization
Countless times leading up to the ceremony, I visualized each person who would be in the room. I suppose that was my way of praying for everyone who came: reflecting on their presence and what it meant to have them there, and what it would mean for me to see them.
Our beautiful officiant Amanda said that as soon as she went up to begin the ceremony, everyone looked so ready. She didn’t have to corral attention; everyone was fully there.
When I walked in, I got to witness that divine attentiveness, which made me erupt in a series of happy greetings as you can easily see in this video:
EMOTIONAL
I am the vessel for some big ol’ emotions, which means I’m responsible to set myself up thoughtfully during times of intense energy when I know those emotions will be wide awake, hungry, highly-reactive, and on the loose.
Here’s how I set myself up to have one of the most relaxing days of my life:
Alone time the night before
The best decision I made during the entire wedding prep was to book myself a hotel room the night before and let it be known that I would be in a bathtub rather than at a rehearsal dinner or some such thing.
I’ve been to some lovely rehearsal dinners but I don’t personally see the point of them; I DO, however, see the point of having an early night with my bath salts, candle, journal, and some half-assed yoga before some room service pizza and a 9pm bedtime.
A nice morning
I had my ideal morning before getting ready: I slept in, I watched the Today Show from my gigantic hotel bed, I ordered an English muffin with eggs (my favorite ever hotel breakfast), and took a long walk.
I had a couple cups of coffee, which meant I got to report, “It’s my wedding day!” to several extremely unenthused baristas, and I felt like I had a fun secret as I listened to the dance reception playlist which set me up for a great mood.
Carefully choosing my beauty team
I knew the second I got engaged that I would have to be so picky about the energy surrounding me before the wedding; my nightmare was a ‘bridal suite’ filled with folks rushing around and me making small talk with all of them.
I’m a people-pleaser and I contort my personality whoever’s with me at the moment; with a few people surrounding me I knew I was going to feel like a burnt melty marshmallow in a s’more even before the ceremony began.
So, I chose my makeup artist based on the recommendation that she was a calm, mellow presence (who cares about skill?!), and I asked my beloved regular hairstylist to do my updo.
I invited my mom and exactly one friend to join me, and didn’t talk if I didn’t want to.
I made sure that coffee and champagne were available at all moments, but beyond that, I freed myself of my tendency to ‘host’ and let myself sit back and simply be spackled with foundation.
I had my go-to getting-ready playlist (I Love My 90s R&B) playing, and I asked for my mom to respond to my texts for me. I took introvert breaks when I needed them and generally felt really easeful, sovereign, and chilled out.
My photographer kept saying that I was the most relaxed bride ever, which definitely went to my head!!!
(So much so that I allowed myself one massive crying breakdown before the ceremony, just for good measure!)
SOCIAL
Solitude
The month before the wedding, I decided to not make any social plans so that I’d have time for any errands that came up, but also so I’d have time to actually reflect on what I was about to do.
After all, even though I feel like a child bride, I’ve in fact lived 37 years as a single person who’s made every decision completely according to my own whims and wants, and I wanted to prepare myself for my new chapter of…factoring in someone else!
(Something that, after a whole month of marriage, I haven’t yet mastered! ;)
Sickness
What I didn’t yet know before I put this self-imposed solitude rule in place, was that I was about to get very very sick a month before the wedding.
Solitude wasn’t so much of a choice as a CDC guideline.
Hopeful Optimistic Adorable Past Me thought, “Oh how grand! I’ll get this inevitable sickness out of the way within a week, and then I won’t stress about pesky germs swooping in to ruin my big day later on!”
Well, Hopeful Optimistic Adorable Past You, The sick lingered on. And on. And on. And on.
In fact, two full months after the first symptom, I’m not fully rid of it now.
The doctors have guessed RSV, pneumonia, or some series of infections that decided to come together for a vaudeville act in my immune system: one does a tap dance, one does a cabaret number, one does a skit, and the encores keep going.
In any case, it was a funny blessing to be bed-bound for three weeks before the wedding.
For one thing, it caused me to sloooowwwww down considerably. Being immobile will do that.
For another thing, the ONLY thing I cared about was getting better, so any small details seemed inconsequential in comparison.
If I was a chill bride before, I was basically a comatose bride at this point. All I hoped was to have a functioning-enough voice box to say “I do,” a prospect that was looking horribly grim a couple days beforehand.
Then, very weirdly, proving something to me (but I’m not sure quite what), I felt better for exactly four days: the day of the wedding through the middle of the next week.
Then I was right back to misery.
It’s as though my illness relented, knowing that I needed all my energy for just a short time, and could resume feeling awful over the next month.
(If you read the “Spiritual” portion of this newsletter, it won’t surprise you to know that I fully believe that’s what happened.)
Bachelorette celebrations
Please please please please please, don’t throw me a bachelorette party, I pleaded to my friends.
No bridal shower, no bachelorette, no anything that involves spending money.
Weddings are enough time and effort, and as much as I love being the center of attention 💁🏼♀️, it felt yucky expecting anything more than mere attendance, and help getting the dancing started (the duty I assigned to my nearest and dearest).
ALL THAT SAID…
Leading up to the wedding, I started getting a little pouty.
Even though I had explicitly and aggressively demanded that my friends NOT fete my bride-to-be status in any way, shape, or form, I found myself….sort of actually wanting that!
(This is CLASSIC Mari behavior.)
So when my friend Cindy offered to do something fun with me beforehand just to mark the occasion (the occasion being about-to-get-married I guess?), I said “OKAY OKAY OKAY” and came up with a plan:
We would catch a matinee of the 1995 classic ‘A Little Princess’ (my favorite childhood movie) at the movie theater.
She said, “Sure, fine, but how about we have lunch afterwards?” I said okay.
“And maybe invite one other person?” I responded, “How about two?”
Thus, my four-person bachelorette came to be: Me, Cindy, Jess, and Susan, all at the 12pm noon screening of ‘A Little Princess’ followed by sandwiches and salads at a nearby restaurant.
It was the cutest, most perfect celebration that has ever existed. Vegas could NEVER!
PHYSICAL
Warning: This is where the prep gets very, very silly.