Your Wedding Day Is Not The Biggest Day Of Your Life

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I’m as guilty as the next girl when it comes to having a Pinterest wedding board – yet I didn’t grow up dreaming of the day I would get married, waiting to get swept off my feet by my prince charming. I guess I’ve always been the way I am now – practical and a little skeptical of the enormity of the modern-day wedding.

A couple months ago, after a particularly annoying, needy episode of The Bachelor (my guilty pleasure), I posted on Facebook stating how much I hate when girls claim that their wedding day is the “biggest” or “most important” day of their life. As if their whole existence has built up to that day – the day they join their life with another life. My statement seemed to rub some people the wrong way.

To clarify, I know the wedding day is an important, happy day, full of celebrating love. I wouldn’t opt to be married at city hall over having a wedding, I am not an evil, jaded person who does not believe in love – I just believe in other things more.

And believe it or not, I do have some logic behind my seemingly untraditional view of weddings. Hear me out:

  • There are so many unrealistic expectations. Such a staggering amount of money and preparation go into a wedding, which makes it almost impossible to meet every expectation when the day arrives. We (generalizing type-A women here) like things to be correct down to the last detail, and because of that, often set ourselves up for disappointment. Imagine the amount of disappointment we would be facing if we were to label our wedding The Biggest Day of My Life and then the chicken was undercooked. Or it rained. Or the flower girl decided she was suddenly too shy to walk down the aisle. No thank you. No expectations = no disappointments.
  • The biggest day of your life cannot be planned in advance. Grey’s Anatomy said it best: “You never know the biggest day of your life is going to be the biggest. The days you think are going to be big ones, they are never as big as you make them out to be in your head. It’s the regular days, the ones that start out normal. Those are the days that end up being the biggest.” The biggest days are big in retrospect, not when they are planned months or even years in advance.
  • The day you decide to marry your significant other is more monumental than the wedding itself – think about it. Sure, the wedding day is what joins two people together legally, but the day you say “yes” to spending forever with someone – that is the day that really alters the course of your life, not the day you say “I do.”
  • Something is bound to go wrong with the combination of two families on each side, a likely ex in attendance, and alcohol. It’s just going to happen. No avoiding it.

That being said, I do see the value and importance of a wedding. It isn’t something to be pushed to the side, planned at the last minute, or disregarded, but it shouldn’t be the be all, end all either. As with every aspect of life, balance is key – even when it comes to love.