The wedding!

My parents' wedding album, hen 'n chick plant, and MOTHER pin on the cake table.

SO...my husband and I are now married (which you could probably guess by my use of the word "husband")! It's been almost two months now. I still can't believe how proud I feel of myself for finally gaining the strength to have a ceremony in spite of my mom's [physical] absence. It was truly a beautiful, perfect day, straight out of the vision my mind had been concocting all year long...but also full of all the people we love the most, which was the most important part. I know my mom was there cheering us on. She'd know better than anyone how much that day meant to me because of all I've been through, losing her and going through my bad first marriage and all I had to work through. But I also had several friends who commented on it. One in particular told me she started crying when she was getting ready because she was so acutely aware of the enormity of this occasion, that I was finally ready and able to do it...she's in my mother loss meetup group and has seen me through many ups and downs these last few years. I've never seen so many people SO excited, and I think it's partly because so many of them knew how much it meant beyond just being an everyday wedding. And partly just because we're so awesome together. heehee


Even though we got married in the fall, it looked and felt more like a spring wedding - and you know spring means new beginnings. No, we didn't get married in the summer at the beach as the psychic had said, haha. But he was right about everything else, and truthfully, bringing that up was one of the things that really forged us ahead with our plans because it made us start delving more into what we wanted and didn't want it to be like. Doing as he said was something we thought about and then realized it would be impractical in spite of all the reasons it seemed practical. lol I'm thankful for my patient, compassionate guy who has dealt with all my brokenness and insecurity because he saw potential in me that even I couldn't always see. My best friend told me on our wedding day that I am more "me" now than I have ever been and that she knows so much of that has to do with my husband. He's always given me room and freedom to be who I need to be and feel how I need to feel. Looking back, it's amazing in a way that we didn't do this sooner because even when my past marriage clouded my perspective, it's always been pretty obvious to us and everyone else that we were supposed to be together. But all things happen in their own good time...it's even sweeter now because I am just in a different place mentally and emotionally this year than I have ever been before. The guy was always right...but now, the time was just right too. 


We incorporated a lot of my grandmother's style into the wedding (my mom's mom). If my grandma were still mentally herself, she'd probably laugh at my saying she has a style. She just always used what she had on-hand because they were poor. But all of her handmade things, how I treasure them now. She wasn't in any state to come to the wedding. But we used a lot of things she had made and tons of vintage things that reminded me of her, and some of my flowers represented the two of them, so that was sort of like honoring her and my mom at once. We also had pictures of our grandparents, young and in love, set out. 


Tied to the underside of my bouquet, I had the "I Heart Mom" ring I gave to my mom for her last birthday about two weeks before she died and a vintage pin that said MOTHER (along with my husband's grandmother's locket). So there were lots of little things that represented my mom but somehow without it being overtly about the fact that she died and turning the ceremony into something else.


So how did I fare, you ask? Did I have my dreaded breakdown as I started down the aisle, which I have been fearing for years and years?


During the day as we were setting up, I started looking through my parents' wedding album (which I'd set out on the cake table with the hen 'n chick plant, which was always symbolic with my mom and me because they're like mothers with babies) and broke down crying. We got married in our friend's backyard, and I went inside to cry on her shoulder a while, and when I went back outside to keep setting up, my parents' song chose that moment to come on the stereo. I laughed and felt like my mom was messing with the music system. That gave me an extra boost of strength. So I had my cry early in the day and got it out of my system...and somehow I just knew that was all the crying I was gonna need. 


My dad walked me down the aisle with both of us all smiles (oh, and we also found a penny on the stoop!), and we had agreed he'd still say, "Her mother and I do," and instead of making me sad, it comforted me. My dad and I even danced to their song during the reception. By the way, things between us have been really great for quite a while now.


My mom only got to know my husband about six months before she died, but she really liked him and knew he was a keeper. I was able to be happy and joyful the rest of the day and make the day about us instead of my loss, which is how it should have been, and I'm sure it made her very happy. :) 


It's amazing how fear can control you for so long if you let it. I am so glad and proud that I was finally able to beat it!!!!!!! It's been a long journey of conquering a lot of different fears a little at a time, and now I sorta feel like I can do anything. Well...most of the time! :)

My dad and me.