Wedding Ceremony Next Wednesday

So I haven't been around in the past couple weeks because the computer I was using blew some capacitors on the motherboard, but in that time, I've been finalizing my wedding plans. I'm not really here for advice or anything like that, just want to tell someone about it all (it's going to be waaay TLDR) because the forums I'm able to access on my phone (mostly reddit) aren't very open-minded and weddings are supposed to go just so for them, I guess.

Anyway, we're not getting a marriage license yet. We will be having a semi-traditional wedding ceremony to announce our common law marriage to our friends and family. We're going to keep the words "common law" out of the ceremony, but being as there is no license to be signed, that's what it is. We are not joining our legal corporations together (ie- joint taxes, shared credit score, etc.) because his credit still sucks and mine is non-existent. We're working on getting his credit in a better position, but he doesn't want that to fall on me. Should we get that patched up and in good shape and/or find any other reasons to get a marriage license later, we'll make a trip to the courthouse. I'm also refusing a marriage license in protest of gay marriages being illegal in my state (Texas). I don't know that will ever change, so I may have to get over that one day, but I understand the absolute bullshit behind the idea of marriage licenses and for now one will not benefit us in any way that being recognized in common law as married wouldn't. I'm only slightly worried this subject will come up at the wedding or reception, but at least after lots of explanation, I finally got my parents on board with us.

Our preacher dropped out on us a month ago because he thought his work schedule would be conflicting. He's since gotten a job transfer and it won't, but we asked our longest-standing mutual friend to fill the spot and it should work out much better since he is such a good friend (and a good public speaker). I read his introduction speech the other day and almost cried. It's going to be beautiful.

There won't be enough chairs for everyone that RSVP'd because my friends are dicks and are still RSVPing this week and the wedding is next week. Thank god I've had some people drop out. All I could find was 30-40 (not 100% on the exact number) chairs we'll borrow from the city, and I've had about 60 people RSVP, 10 or 15 of which are children. So I'm asking people to bring lawn and camping chairs. We'll be out at the lake bed close to our house and I'm hoping for a quick ceremony. The high for that day is forecast at 95 and there is supposed to be a 0% chance of rain. It might be windy, but it says 22 mph which is something a crapload of hairspray can withstand.

My mother-in-law is taking care of dinner, burgers and chips. It's going to be a completely DIY ceremony and reception and the reception will have a 50's flair to it because my dress and the bridesmaids dresses have pin-up feels to them. I'm doing the totally cliche mason jars with tea lights and glass Coke bottles with red and white silk spider daisies on white and red tablecloths with lots and lots of 45's as decoration. We've got the community center in the little town my in-laws live in reserved for the reception.

My sister-in-law studied photography in school so if she can get someone to wrangle my 4 month old niece for awhile, she'll get some more "professional" type shots, while we're mostly relying on family and friends' phones and digital cameras for photos. My maid of honor wants to take some pictures, too, but she's the MOH so she won't be able to get any pictures of the wedding party, lol. She's also doing my makeup.

And the very best thing of it all is I've spent months talking to Daniel's childhood best friend's wife and we've got it arranged so he can be here. He will be the best man and two of our other guy friends will be groomsmen. They'll be wearing tux t-shirts and jeans. I think I'm more excited to see his friend than he is, lol. He's one of my favorite people in the world.

Anyway, I think that's all I have to say for now, so if you're still with me, thanks for letting me get that all out somewhere.

 

Could you make a TL;DR please?

 

I have a new computer, so I'm still trying to work things out on it, so it made it a giant text wall. Fixed it. Fuck. No, I didn't. Give me a minute...

edit: Okay, try it now. Had my Javascript all wonky but now I shouldn't have to do the damn HTML to get it to post right, lol.

 

I didn't mean paragraphs, I meant a proper TL;DR. Although I am sure many more people will read it now. :2thumbsup:

 

Good luck with the wedding. Sounds like it's going ok.

 

...and another good one gets taken off the available list

 

yeah well marriage is a 3 year commitment so she should be back on that list fairly soon.

 

not this one...she will stick with him

 

Haha, we'll be celebrating our 8 year anniversary on that day, so I think we've surpassed the 3 years already. The only thing that this ceremony changes is what we are to each other in our family's eyes.

 

So you're already married or no? The marriage clock start ticking once you've finally become "married". It doesn't matter now long your been dating or living together before.

 

Ramona, that sounds just wonderful! I've been having a rather shitty day (well, much more than that actually but anyway), just reading about this wonderful planned affair that is rooted in love has made me feel better. You've put so much thought into this, and apparently y'all love each other very much, plus you have the support of family and others...it just has helped me to reaffirm my faith in people.

Especially since y'all aren't doing this to fulfill someone else's idea of what y'all "should do"; but this is being done as a celebration of committment and love, well...I wish y'all the best and I'm sure everything will go well.

And about the legal paper thing...I couldn't agree more. Y'all will be making this committment "official", and imho y'all are already "married". :sunny:

The only thing I would add is to make sure you have something out to KILL THOSE LOATHESOME MOSQUITOES (which I hell hate). lol

:2thumbsup:

 

I don't care if you have a license or not, I just want to see the pics.

 

once you finally get married, the sense of relief is amazing. no more planning, etc etc etc. just thinking about retirement.

 

And where are YOUR wedding photos, Death?

 

Common law. This is just a ceremony to celebrate that. I wanted a wedding and I don't want to wait until we're ready to get our license. Only got one grandparent left out of the 2 of us (my Nana) so we'd better jump on the wedding train while she's still in excellent health.

And thanks for the positive words everyone! There will be pictures (though there will be more on FB than I'll share on here, so we need to friend each other, daisymae!). I think it's going to be really cute. It won't be the elegant affair people tend to drop $10,000 or more on, but hey, I think I did pretty good with a budget of less than $600. lol

 

well it sounds like you did a great job of putting this together with what you had to work with. I hope it works out for you. Props.

 

Ooh how exciting, congratulations! Your plans sound awesome! What is your dress like?

 

I have to give a ton of credit to his mom and my local bridesmaid (my MOH and other bridesmaid live about 6 hours away). His mom is taking care of dinner, which is why we cheaped out for burgers and chips, and my bridesmaid drove my car around (because I'm scared of driving in the city), taking me to every thrift store, craft store, and the mall to get what I needed. And Pinterest. Thank GOD for that website/phone app because I planned most of the decor based on crap I saw on Pinterest. lol

Kozmic here is a link to my dress (I hope that isn't considered spam). It's a little longer than me than it is on either of the models because I'm short, lol. It falls on me a little more like the bigger size model, but that also might be because I don't stand stupid when I'm wearing it, lol.

 

Ahhh--very nice KR. Pretty dress too. I'm happy for you guys.

 

Ooh nice dress, it's beautiful. You'll look hot. I wore a funky dress too for my wedding.

Can we see your pins? Haha, Pinterest is awesome. Home decor is like porn for me.