Wedding Planning Revisited

I feel like I have done way too much talking about weddings this past week. I knew it was bad when I woke up this morning, having dreamed that my wedding was today and just exactly as planned as it is right now (a.k.a. nothing was planned). On top of the complete lack of anything being done, the wedding was going to start at 5pm, and it was 4:38 and my family had not shown up to drive me to the site, so I had to get completely ready for the wedding and plan whatever was happening for the reception afterwards in 22 minutes. This is when I have to wake up and decide it's time for a spiritual retreat or something.

My parents have been visiting this week, and we have gotten some time actually getting through the brainstorming about the wedding, which means potentially I'll be able to decide some details in the near future. Actually, a few of them already have been decided. I have a dress. :D And I am girlishly, irrationally, giddily excited about said dress. After my last blog entry, Joel and I, and with my parents' visit our families too, have been in pretty serious conversation about how to incorporate the spiritual aspect into our wedding, and also have the time for more intimate relationship with the people closest to us. The night I wrote the blog, Joel and I came to a late-night conclusion that we should have two wedding ceremonies...one on Friday that was casual, worshipful, and close community...one on Saturday that was bigger, more formal, more traditional.

Our families got together (at least in part--we were missing a few people (we missed you, Haidee!) last Sunday, and we got to discuss the two ceremonies idea with both sets of parents. I think the biggest thing I got out of the conversation was when my mom was questioning me about my desire to have genuine worship at my wedding. It's kind of an abstract desire...I know it. But there was something about the passion I felt in explaining to her what genuine worship is that made it clear to me: we need to have one ceremony. If we do something "real and genuine" in the first and something more for show in the second, it's just being afraid of people. Might as well go ahead and scare people by being spiritual and treating God "like He's real" in our actual ceremony. Anything else feels like hiding, and the Bible isn't too kind towards people who hide light or talents or anything else God has given. Hiding is much more my natural tendency...I have to fight it all the time. And it's a new thing to fight it when I'm making decisions along with Joel. But it was fun to see both of us come to the same realization together after the talk with our parents: we want the worship to shine.