A Letter To My Future Husband

Dear sir,

I'm not sure who you are yet, but that has not stopped me from making some resolutions for our (very distant) future nuptials. You'll soon learn that I have a serious overabundance of opinions, so I'm sharing some now to save us time. Lately a lot of people I know have been getting engaged or married, and these are golden opportunities for me to make mental notes for our future, my dear. I will sum up my musings as follows:

1. What is the point of engagement photos? I Googled this question and found three answers: to get to know your photographer, to get some pics for your save the dates, and to waste money. I mean, two answers. Actually, this is important for you to know: I despise spending money. But I want our wedding to be a big party, so I guess  I'll write the checks and cry. Kind of like being in grad school. But I digress. The other reason I don't like engagement photos is that deep down I know I don't photograph well. So let's just skip the whole thing and save our money for the honeymoon, deal?

2. Don't feel too much pressure where the engagement ring is concerned, because I will not be posting 5,367 photos of it on Facebook. One or two tasteful shots is fine, because hey, you put a lot of thought into that choice and why shouldn't people see it? And I won't pretend that when I see a newly-engaged friend I don't grab her left hand and say, "Lemmesee, lemmesee ring!" But when someone posts a dozen images of the ring from various artsy angles, it becomes a little vulgar, like, "Look how much my fiancé thinks I'm worth!" The ring is a symbol of a commitment, not proof of winning a pissing contest.

3. This should go without saying, but we will not be getting married during college football season, or over Super Bowl weekend. We're not barbarians.

4. Our wedding reception will have a bar of some kind. If we can't afford at least beer and wine, that's God's way of telling us we're not ready to get married yet. Jesus prefers weddings with alcohol. That's in the Bible, y'all.

5. We will not be on Facebook or really the internet at all during our honeymoon. I know I'm not the only one who gets uncomfortable when couples post updates and photos when they should, I'll just say it, be naked together and definitely not on social networking sites. We will never DREAM of posting a photo of our bed in the hotel room, because eww.

6. Let's try to avoid people who seem to think life doesn't begin until they have a ring on their finger, like everything including the weather is suddenly richer in meaning because they now have a shared banking account. No one cares for this attitude, and if I ever exhibit it, punch me in the throat.

7. We will not post nauseating messages to each other's Facebook pages or tag each other in sugary-sweet status updates (occasionally is fine, but certainly not all the time). Hear me out, because in all seriousness, I find this trend legitimately troubling. It's great when people are in love. It's great when people appreciate and have nice things to say about each other. My concern is for those who never seem to express any of that in private. How much substance would these relationships have if they could no longer perform in front of their audience? Why this need for public approbation? Pillow talk has become social media fodder, and it's unsettling. You have the best wife in the world? I'm glad for you, but close the laptop, roll over in bed and tell her. Just her.

To sum up, if you can be happy with a cheap, relatively private, and extremely opinionated and snarky girl, we can have something great together. In like forty years.

My New Years Pep Talk

Over Christmas break, like 89 people I know got engaged.

Not really, but it was a lot. Folks have been dropping like flies around here lately. Facebook is rife with photos of diamond rings. I spend all my time on Pinterest unfollowing wedding boards. And my personal favorite: people have been asking me when I'm "getting a ring for Christmas."

Bleh.

Just when I was pretending to contemplate deleting Facebook (yeah, right) because I was over-saturated with all this nonsense, one of my newly engaged friends, Brittany, asked me to be in her wedding. That's right people, someone trusts me enough to be her bridesmaid. In a dry wedding, no less. And sarcasm aside, I am really excited and honored to support her through this process and celebrate with her and Mike on their wedding day. I wish and pray all the best for them. And as such, I suddenly find myself with a role in all this. I'm no longer derisively watching from the sidelines, wondering what lovey-dovey Facebook post will cause me to lose my lunch next.

It is time for me to accept reality. Welcome to your mid-twenties, Carie Mac. Anne Marie said there must have been something in the Christmas cookies, but the sad fact is that our lives are now wedding season. No, sad is not the right word at all. I don't hate weddings. In fact, I rather enjoy them. My problem is with the unbridled self-absorption we are told that our weddings entitle us to. And I don't just mean the bride (let's be honest, the groom has been socialized from birth to believe his role in the wedding begins and ends with the proposal). I mean the couple's friends and family members too, who suddenly become bossy, opinionated wedding Nazis who make the entire proceeding an orgy of misery and cause everyone to forget why partnership and commitment are pretty breathtaking to begin with. Because who wants to remember what's important when they could be starting World War III over save-the-dates?

So I'm bracing myself for the storm of crazy headed our way. The good news is that being the last to get married (in like thirty years) will afford me plenty of time to research what I do and don't like for my own wedding. Currently the "no thank you" list includes spending money, crying, and engagement photos, and the "yes please" list is simply eloping.

I think I'm in for a wild ride.