Three months and counting...

Originally I had planned for today the big checklist of things to do, but when I woke up this morning, that somehow seemed inadequate (the fact that I haven't actually finished the to-do list notwithstanding).

Today is Saturday June 5th, 2010.  92 days from today I will be getting married.  Exactly three months.

In the midst of planning a wedding, it is so incredibly easy to lost the plot.  What I mean is, if you get married for anything other than love, you're a fool.  That's not to say that you have to get married only for love, there are lots of other great things a marriage can bring like kids or stability or just someone to eat dinner with every night.  But marriages are hard work.  It takes a lot of effort to make them work.  Now, obviously I can't say this from experience, but I can't imagine anything other than love being a strong enough incentive to sustain a successful marriage.

Unfortunately, the business of marriage and the business of weddings are quite different animals.

Weddings are about menu choices and invitation options.  Dress fittings, china patterns, the perfect shoes and the bottom line.  Things you just have to have.  They are about pleasing everyone you've ever met while still trying to stay true to who you are as a couple (aka mission impossible).  They are the worlds' biggest confused jumble of pretty and stressful.

Last night I stayed up an hour+ after Ari had gone to bed looking for a new china pattern because the one we had chosen is discontinued (two weeks before my shower).  I tossed and turned another two.  Then a little less than three hours later I should wake up to stress about the invitations.  I'm ready to be done with this.  Don't get me wrong, I love my wedding and it hasn't even happened yet.  But in my lifetime I have traveled to Morocco, gone away to both college and graduate school, taken SATs, auditioned for plays, moved to Australia for six months, flown on the trapeze with no safety lines, written a masters paper in two days and agreed to the ultra-mega-huge life change of marrying someone.  But the fear, anxiety and stress associated with any of those things pales in comparison to the gnawing, ongoing unrest stirred up by planning a wedding.

What I realized, at 5am, when I was staring at the ceiling pondering wedding invitations and Ari snuggled up in his sleep, was that I had lost the plot.

I am not getting married for the wedding.  I am beyond thrilled about my dress and the great band and the delicious (like omgz amazing delicious!) cake.  But I'm not doing this to be the princess for a day (gag me with a spoon, please).  I am getting married because I want Ari to still be snuggling up in his sleep when we're 70.  After five and a half years, what I feel for him is so all-encompassing, it becomes harder to describe, and frankly, is so personal, that if I could, I'd tell him and not the internet (sorry, internet).

So three months from today when I'll probably be so nervous and excited that I'll be up at this hour again and the frenzy of wedding day activity begins, I hope that I can step back and pick up the plot.  Three months from today I marry the person who still gives me the good kind of tummy rumblins.  Three months from today I irrevocably join with the person I want to hug me when I'm sad.  And I'll be half of a whole but it won't make me anything less, I'll just be that much better for it.  Three months from today I become a wife.