Planning a Wedding 💒 👰🏻 🤵‍♂️

 With our marriage license in hand, the courthouse gave us a list of 8 judges that could marry us. We have between 3-90 days to get married before it expires. With a slow work month ahead, our first step was to call our CEO to ask about work ahead and potential days off requests. I made him wait until I got home from my errands to talk with her and put her on speakerphone- she’s known for over a year that we are a couple, but didn’t know we were engaged. I wanted to hear her tone for myself. I care what she thinks. I just do. I’ve only met her in person once, and over email weekly. When Kevin told her we got our marriage license yesterday, she seemed overjoyed. Her tone was as positive and bubbly as could be. I was super thankful for that. Then we decided that the best day to do it would be Monday, March 24th. Since we are getting married at the courthouse, it has to be a weekday. She talked about what accounts wanted what days and such. But when talking about our wedding plans, she seemed overjoyed. 

Then Kevin went for a walk in the park, which he tries to do daily. I started calling the 8 judges. One would be out that whole week, the next one would be in a lengthy trial that entire day and wouldn’t have time. Calling these judges was a little depressing, because of all the negative things mentioned in the recordings. If you have a class C misdemeanor, press 1. For evictions, press 2. For jail press 3. If you have a ticket or whatever else kind of violation press 4.  Finally, if you’re getting married press 5. Jesus Christ, I thought. Imagine grouping getting married with crimes, evictions, and jail. It started to seem like none of the judges could help on 3/24, that is until I called the 7th one. 

His secretary answered and said she was transferring me to the judge, because he does his own scheduling. He seemed like a very elderly hillbilly and such a nice, easygoing guy. He was completely free on the 24th and let me pick a time. I asked him, what is it going to entail?  Do we say vows?  He told me, “It’s your wedding, you can do whatever you want!  You can write your own vows if you want!”  I said, “I really want just very traditional vows.”  He replied, “Ok, I got some!”  Then he asked how many people we are bringing. Since Kevin and I are kind of old (I’m 46 and he’s nearly 60), it’s not like we want a grandiose affair. No one is coming to Texas to watch us get married. I said so far, it’s both of his parents, my mother, my teenage daughter, and possibly two or three of our coworkers and possibly my one and only local friend and her husband. He said that sounded pretty good, and then he said, “Y’all are going to have to bring me fifty bucks! Can you swing that?”  I told him yes we can pay $50.  The judge then said “Ok I need some beer money!”  I said thank you several times before hanging up. It’s 16 days away and I honestly am going to call and confirm in about a week or week and a half because he seems like he might have dementia. I might talk to the secretary that answered the phone too. Like, we’re still on for the 24th right?  Either that or he was drunk. At least he was a nice guy. 

Then my order from amazon came with my dress and my daughter’s dress. They were not the dresses posted below. They were different. Mine in white and hers in green. Hers is cute, but mine is an enormous Nope. There’s no way I’m getting married in this dress. It looked like very nice polyester fabric and a nice pretty and modest design in the pic, but in reality, it’s t-shirt fabric and looks like a combination of a hospital gown and the child brides in The Handmaid’s Tale. I need to buy one in person. I’m never ordering clothes online again. 

I’m not going to return this dress though. I’m actually thinking of tie dyeing it and wearing it over the summer when it’s over 90 degrees. 

I discussed this plan with my cousin/best friend who’s not coming because she lives in Chicago and is a psychiatrist. (Has to work and I didn’t go to her wedding anyway).  I told both her and my daughter NOT to tell my mother about my plans to tie dye this dress for the summer and buy something else to get married in. My mother would purposely misinterpret as, I’m walking down the aisle in tie dye. My cousin/best friend agreed. She then semi seriously said “You would rock it though.”  I said yes. With a rainbow veil. A row of tulle in each color of the rainbow hanging from the tiara. Could you imagine?  And like the 80’s legend Rainbow Brite, I could have a bridesmaid/friend wearing each color.  We cracked up at the idea. I do not have seven local friends, though, even if I did want to pull off something that ridiculous. My mother would die. 

Tomorrow I don’t feel like doing anything. I want to shop Sunday for something to wear to my courthouse wedding.  It doesn’t have to be white. Maybe I’ll even feel like it tomorrow. I’m exhausted. I’m not only getting married, I have a kid who’s graduating from high school, wanting to move in with me upon her 18th birthday and wants to travel with me and take me on a tour of the university she’s attending next year. AND my mother is turning 80.  My life is shifting a lot. A lot a lot. Graduation is May 23, mom turns 80 May 30th, and my kid turns 18 on June 11. 

Then, after all is said and done, I turn 47 on July 17th. My godmother died of cancer at age 47.  I was 12 when she died. She was the first person I lost. Approaching the age she was when she passed is giving me existential crises. She was 47 years and 4 months when she died. It’s hard to imagine that when she was my age, she was at the end of her life and I now feel like I’m just getting started. When she died, it was hard for me to cry, because she looked so different in the casket, and since I was only 12, it was hard for me to comprehend. I was also struggling immensely in grade 7. My mother used to tell me that I didn’t care about my godmother dying. Well obviously I did care, because it’s affecting me still, all these years later. When my mom was pregnant with me, my godmother asked to be my godmother. My parents didn’t have to ask anyone- she and her husband just volunteered. In my baptism picture, she looks so happy carrying me, and I was super cute in my extremely long white dress and white bonnet. I can’t find that picture, and I don’t think I would ever want to. Fixing up my daughter’s room feels similar to setting up a nursery for a new baby. I’m planning a wedding, I’m working, I’m in love, I’m mostly healthy.  It’s a form of survivor’s guilt that I feel like I’m getting a second chance in life when she was on hospice at my exact age. Then worry creeps in that maybe God will punish me for finding happiness again and take me too at age 47. That fear is a symptom of anxiety. It’s the reason why Kevin has been prompting me to listen to Joel Osteen. But no one knows how much time they really have, so I make sure I always tell my daughter how proud I am of her, how much I love her and how glad I am that I had her. I tell Kevin I love him regularly and I thank him semi regularly for everything he’s done for me. I sometimes try to make sure I convey to my mom that I mostly forgive her for the abuse she put me through as a child and that I still want *some* contact with her even though she has friends with adult kids who are no contact.  None of us know if we’ll die tomorrow or 50 years from now, but if I do then I’m just thankful for where I ended up in 2025. I Was Here. I have had a very rough life, but a lot of happiness and success. If I get some more time unlike my godmother, let’s see what unfolds.