“Don’t marry the person you think you can live with;

marry only the individual you think you can’t live without.”

-James C. Dobson 

In case you hadn’t guessed it by the quote and photo, I took a giant leap with Adam and got married last week!  That is last Tuesday to be exact.  If it were up to me, we would have snuck away and eloped on a beach somewhere.  However, because I love him, and I know how much he wanted his parents there, I suggested we elope when they came to visit for July 4th.

We picked a local beach that just happened to have a carousel and then shared the good news with our families.  That is when things began to snow ball out of control (and the nightmares of my previous wedding came back to haunt me with a vengeance!).  It started with a stream of uninvited guests.  I’m not sure whether Adam’s mom invited people out of pure unbridled enthusiasm or whether they just decided to come on their own, but I found myself, again, in the midst of planning a full blown wedding that I never wanted.

Foreseeing the meltdown that was about to ensue, Adam actually offered to elope before they got here; but seeing how excited he was about all the extra guests I could never bring myself to do it.  I had originally planned on having only our closest friends and family present.  I figured how could anything go wrong when I’ll be surrounded by love and support.  Now, I was planning a wedding with people I had never even met.  This was not my safe, comfort zone, elopement ceremony.  This was a full on, no-where-near-my-comfort-zone wedding.

We were engaged all of 2 days when this happened.  I felt like his family had ripped any carefree happiness away from me, and I resented it tremendously.  I could not imagine how these people could think it was okay to just invite themselves without ever even talking to me or Adam.  I was terrified that I was going to be bullied into another wedding to please another bunch of rude people who didn’t respect my feelings.

Then when Adam offered to sneak off and elope before they got here, I realized that even if his family behaved as badly as my ex’s (which would be an achievement to equal) he was nothing like my ex.  He was going to have my back, and he was willing to disappointment his entire family if that’s what it took to get me down the aisle with him.  What Adam wanted more than anything was just to be married, not the wedding or the frills.

So, for this man, I was willing to go through all of it again- the planning, the cost, the stress, the drama.  I gave him a wedding that was everything he wanted because he is worth it.  He is worth taking the risk for.  He never pressured me to marry him and didn’t ask for a wedding.  He was willing to elope despite how much having his family (even the self invited family) meant to him.  There is no one else I could imagine reliving and digging up my past trauma for; and just maybe now that we have dug it up we can bury it somewhere for good!

So once the dust settled and everything was sorted out, Adam and I exchanged vows in a small ceremony at Light House Point in New Haven.  We had our reception at the carousel with less than 20 guests, and everything went smoothly.  As if the heavens themselves were giving us their blessing, the torrential rain, flooding, and thunderstorms that raged on our way there stopped just as we arrived and held off the rest of the evening.  The storms even helped break some of the humidity and make the temperature significantly more pleasant for our guests.

Our photographer, who is the one and only, Super Fabulous, Sassy Mouth, was pleased with the post storm sky/lighting and did an AMAZING job!  I also splurged this time around and had my hair and makeup done professionally- by Krystalized Designs.  She did an absolutely fantastic job as well- which was evidenced by my makeup not only holding up all day until the wedding, but also through the ceremony, pictures, carousel rides, and playing on a playscape (obstacle racer style)… including a swing set.  In fact, both my hair and make up still looked great the next morning, so props to Krsytal!  The fact that she and Marisa (Sassy Mouth) have awesome personalities is just a bonus in my book.  They definitely both helped me feel completely glamorous on our special day which shows in the photos…and although I didn’t get a “wow” out of Adam, he did well up with tears 😉

So that is the story of my fairytale wedding, which was supposed to be an elopement.  I can’t help but think a week later that this is what “wedded bliss” is supposed to feel like.