No Ordinary Marriage

Eight years ago, Chris and I were in the midst of one of the most stressful things a couple can experience: planning a wedding.  Is it any wonder that rich people hire someone to do this for them?  I mean, flowers and locations and photographers and caterers...its exhausting.  Throw in the fact that I thought it would be a fun and low-cost decision to make my own invitations (in what spare time,  I wonder?  I was working a full-time and part-time job, and being an awesome fiancee!).  Something that we said over and over, to each other, to our parents, to those pushy folks trying to upgrade us to the "deluxe" package, was this...We want a nice wedding, but we want a GREAT marriage.  In other words, this is going to be the first day of forever, and its not as important as all the days that will follow it.  This became our mantra.  We are not going to spend a bunch of money.  We are not going to insist that Chris be called "Christopher".  No one is rolling a special mat down the aisle for me to walk on.  We are not rearranging the furniture in the church.  We are simply two people who wish to commit their lives to one another in the presence of God and their loved ones.  The one thing we did spend an excessive amount of preparation for was our vows.  We read books and searched for the perfect words to encompass what was transpiring between us.

We wanted love and joy and peace to be the theme of our special day.  Of course, we invited other people, so that was beyond our control to enforce.  What is it about another person's wedding that makes you want to act crazy? (ahem, father-in-law)  But when all was said and done, we accomplished a fairly low-key wedding and embarked on a marriage that was worth so much more.  I occasionally see or hear about something that someone else is doing for their wedding that makes me want to go back in time and add it to ours, but overall, I know that we put priority on the most important part: the years to come.  Now they are here, they are coming and some have already passed.  We have grown a family and built a home and continue to put a priority on the marriage.  Because now we look around at our loved ones and say this...We don't want to just stay married, we want a GREAT marriage.  Its not enough to just travel life next to each other, to honor the surface commitment of fidelity while allowing all number of mistresses to come between us.  This is so much harder than keeping a wedding small.  This means every day choosing us over me.  It means going against so much of what I see and hear and absorb.  It means patience and grace and side-stepping conversational land mines.  And it means that my husband has to be just as committed to making this great as I am.  The complexity of trust that is essential to a marriage just astounds me when I really think about it.  But he does it, and I keep doing it, and by the grace of God we keep going and loving more every day.  The other day I was reminded of a phrase that sums it up: "There is no short cut to any place worth going."  There is no short cut to a fulfilling marriage, but I refuse to give in to being ordinary.