Up Coming Wedding

We have the lucky chance of going to a family wedding next month.
Now going to a wedding is nothing new for this family. There was one held last year, my cousin Lucy.
Steve and I got married ourselves 3 yrs ago and my other cousin (Lucy’s sister Kerry) got married 4 yrs ago. So there have been a few to attend over the years, which is quite surprising when you realise just how few people there are from the family in New Zealand. Really we should all be in Southampton, UK but that would be boring, so we are all here instead!

This was us at last wedding

Anyhow, the wedding we are going to in November is on Steve’s side of the family, and although he has many nieces and nephews, there has only been 1 wedding so far (6yrs ago) many babies but not many bells ringing! His niece, or should I now be saying our niece, is having a Civil Union to her girlfriend Toni. But for all simple purposes, there is a wedding and we are going.

We have told the boys about the wedding, they are so excited to be going to Nelson for a long weekend, in fact I really ought to start thinking about what they are going to wear. However we have not yet told them more detail about the wedding. They know their cousin Sarah is getting married and I think they may have heard the name Toni float around in the same sentence but they of course, because they have said it, think that Toni is a guy. Alex even asked if it was Tony from the Barber's that Sarah was marrying? Why would they think differently? They have never been to a wedding that isn’t like mummy and daddy’s.

Now it never crossed my mind to mention anything until some girlfriends casually mentioned it at a girls night a few weeks ago. Then I realised that yes we need to mention it and no it does not have to be a big deal. I discussed it with Steve who sort of agreed that we need to say something but he didn’t think it a big deal either. However, knowing little people and big voices, I would rather we mention it before hand.

Ben however is very good at dissecting conversations and will dissect it down to the smallest detail and recite it several times between when we tell him and actually going away, and seeing as my head can not take him dissecting it down over several weeks then the conversation with them will be had as close to the time as possible, mainly for my sanity more than anything else!

PS - any suggestions on how to broach the subject but keep it simple and to the point??

Celebrant

We had a meeting with the Marriage Celebrant on Saturday morning.
2 1/2 hours later we had chosen the whole service.
We had to decide on absolutely everything, whenever she is going to say something we had to chose what we wanted her to say and how.
We had to say how we would like my dad to give me away, is he going to shake Steve's hand? Just hand me over with a hug, or even just run me down the aisle saying "Here take her!"
Did we want to include all the parents in the service or just my dad?
What did we want her to say when we exchange rings, if we are exchanging them?
Are we writing our own vows or using one of the 50 she showed us, or are we adapting one of the 50?

There is so much to decide on and chose from just for a 20 minute service to get married.

It will be worth it though, as it makes the day extra special.

Wedding

When Steve proposed in March we had this sudden thought about why wait until September to get married. We have been together for 8 years, what was there to wait for?
In fact the date we thought of was today, 26th April.
Now looking back I am so glas we didn't go for today, ok the weather is fine, but all that work we would have had to do, all the compromising we would have made just to get everything sorted in 8 weeks.
If we had had to do it we would of, but I am glad we are waiting.

Sums it up

As several of you will know, back in October I posted a large post about Marriage.
I still stand by what I said and still feel the same way.
Anyway, I was ready a magazing the other day and one of the stories there had it worded just right for how I feel.

"For Bella, 32, who has it all - her man Justin, 31, two children and a successful career - the only thing that could make life more complete was marriage. This is the final step. It formalises it all and signifies our union. It cements things"
Taken from Woman's Day, NZ Jan 28 08

I want to cement things.

Marriage

Now this is a word that girls will happily sit and talk about for hours and will have guys rushing out the door faster than lightening.

It is a word that can reduce me to tears...
I am not married, I would love to be married and this is the biggest thing that can put me in a mood/sulk and drive me up the wall.
Now the reason I am not married is not that I don't want to be, it just hasn't happened yet.
The biggest reason is because Steve doesn't want to get married, he has been married before, but I don't understand why I should be punished for a past mistake of his.
To be honest nothing is going to change in our day to day living if we did get married, we have a house, a car, 2 children, joint bank accounts, it would only be a piece of official paper but I still want to get married.

The thing is I can't come up with a good enough reason to argue why I want to get married.
I am a very traditional person, oh yea I can hear you all say, why have you got 2 kids and you are not married, well the reason for that may be very selfish, but I knew I was getting to a stage in life that if I didn't have children soon then I would have been too old. So I took the biggest risk of my life and decided that if Steve was happy to have kids (took some persuasion) then I was having the boys (both our boys were planned not accidents) and I decided that if Steve and I ever broke up then at least I got 2 gorgeous children out of it that I really wanted.
I did say it was a selfish reason, but I had always wanted children and life was not exactly going my way in the dating field, but don't worry Steve and I had been together 4 years by the time we had children, so it wasn't a rushed into thing.

I have asked loads of people why they got married and I can give you every answer under the sun......

1. Religous reasons
2. Only way I could move out of home
3. We wanted to live together
4. Society
5. If we didn't get married we probably wouldn't be together
6. That is what you do

Funny thing is, everyone refers to Steve as my husband, they just presume we are married. That is what society thinks and I get the impression that this is the norm for society.

So where on earth did this 'we don't want to get married, but are going to live together like married people and do this for the rest of our life thing come in?' I don't actually understand what people have against getting married, what does it change? There would be no difference to how we live life today to how we would live if we were married.

And that is Steve's arguement.

What bugs me about not being married is that I think people and my family all presume that I am happy with my current living arrangements, that is must be what I want, how I want to live me life.

Well with tears rolling down my cheeks I can tell you in no uncertain terms....This is not what I want. I want to do what everyone else does at this stage of life, be married. Why me, what is wrong with me that I am not married? I look at other people and wonder what I have done wrong to not be married, what am I not doing? I have asked Steve why he got married the first time, his answer was "it was what you did" well I want the " it is what you do"

My baby brother is married, my cousin is getting married in 4 weeks, my parents are still married after 43 years. It is what everyone does, so why not me? I can hear you all say, well life is different now, you could always ask him? NO, even though I am a very independant stubborn person there are somethings in life that the man does, and proposing and buying an engagement ring is theirs to do and keep, ok apart from leap years when I have no problem with girls asking their guys on Feb 29, but that is not me. With how I have lived life I have always done what I want to get what I want, for once I want someone to want to do something for me rather than me having to make this happen.

Believe me Steve knows all this, he knows I want to get married, has done for several years now but because he is not that bothered by it, then it is no big deal to him. Don't get me wrong I love him and I am not going anywhere, well apart from to Hamilton to join him with his new job. Unfortunately it is now such a thing that if I bring it up again then if he did propose I won't know if he was sick of listening to me talk about it or whether it was what he wanted to do. I am not pressuring him into it, but after almost 8 years together I am beginning to wonder why not me?

So for now I will go on answering the phone to telemarketers and saying "No I am not Mrs......." and correcting people when they comment about my husband, telling them that I will let my husband know when I get one. And when Ben is a little older and comes home from school and asks if we are married? I will say "No" and if he asks "why not?" or asks "why do you have a different surname to me, Alex and daddy?" then my simple answer will be "ask you father!"