FAIR WARNING: This probably won't be funny. Like, at all.
There's something that has always been true about Troy and me. He plans ahead, he works methodically, and I...procrastinate. So, we both knew that we had to write these declarations of love, you know, sometime before the ceremony. To Troy, this meant that he should sit down a few weeks in advance, work through what he wanted to say, get it down on paper, edit a little, and be ready well in advance. He's so good. To me, on the other hand, this meant no rush, no worries...it'll get done, it always does. (This is, incidentally, how I write everything--I sit down right before it has to be done, spit it out, and it's usually pretty good. I know that sounds conceited, but I'm leaving it out there.)
I should tell you that in the week or so preceding my wedding, I was crazy busy and crazy stressed. So many wedding related things went wrong, and I felt all the weight of that on my shoulders because I was the one who had planned this wedding start to finish. Just me. And I was quickly becoming convinced that if so many things were going wrong, it must be because I had done a bad job. And I wanted so badly to create a perfect day for Troy and I to celebrate our commitment with the people we love--I didn't realize until I was walking up the lawn toward the love of my life that the day would have been perfect no matter what I did. Handily, the day was perfect in every way, and I'm quite sure that had nothing to do with my prior preparation. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The point of my obnoxious complaints about my stress level pre-wedding is this: I had left writing my declaration of love until that week. Bad call. I sat down so many times that week to write, and...nothing. Worst (and only) case of writer's block I've ever had. And suddenly, it was Saturday--the day I was getting married--and I still had nothing. I told myself I could still make it happen, write something that adequately expressed my insane, overwhelming, all-consuming love for the man I'm spending the rest of my life with. Turns out, all I could think of were the 1,000,012 little things that make me love him. The little, every day things that make up a life and a love and a marriage. I couldn't come up with anything near grand enough for this monumental occasion. (This is distinctly out of character for me; I'm usually pretty good with prose.)
So, I made myself some notes and told myself that when I was up there, I would embellish with beautiful words. And then it started. I was blissfully happy as I walked toward him. Our awesome officiant read the words I had written for our ceremony and my throat started to tighten. My wonderful sisters-in-law read the passages we'd selected and I began to tear. Then when Troy started to speak.....I lost it entirely. Then it was my turn, and frankly, we're lucky I was able to speak at all, lucky that I remembered how to read, because I was so overwhelmed with love, so excited to be standing next to the love of my life, and so thrilled to be marrying him--I had lost control of almost all my faculties. So I read the words I'd put on my little card. Told Troy and all our loved ones that I love him because he makes me eat vegetables (because it means that he wants to me to be healthy and live a long time with him). Told him I love him because he drives hours on snow-packed roads to come get me when I'm afraid to drive any further (because it means that he's utterly dependable and will do anything for me and has a wonderful family who will drive with him so that there's someone to drive my car back). Told him I love him because he's so easy to look at (because I still get butterflies when I see him). And then at the end, I managed to get it together a little bit and tell him that I feel entirely and utterly safe with him and that I have no doubts whatsoever about how happy I will be spending the rest of my life with him. But it wasn't the beautiful, eloquent speech that I had assumed I'd make.
Part of me wishes that I'd been able to write the speech I'd imagined in my head. But the other part of me knows that what I said couldn't have been any more real--it was the result of the very real and intense way in which I experienced this whole process of wedding. And while I find myself wishing that I had said something half as beautiful as what Troy said to me (he had the whole place in tears), I wouldn't change a thing about that day or our incredible ceremony, or the incredible man whose steady eyes boring into mine were the only thing that kept me from falling down the porch steps we got married on when he declared to the world that he thinks I'm amazing. Fancy that.
