After a long-term couple-ship, the rather jarring thought of imminent marriage takes the completely ordinary routine of two humans and challenges it by more of the same, infinitum. All at once, the life you have built with your confidant changes dramatically in ways no one else but the two of you will ever appreciate. There are the obvious things including name change, the wearing of rings, and, the vitally important to white collar female workforce identification of romantic status change when the 'Miss' becomes 'Mrs'. Subtly behind the scenes, you orchestrate two robust financial strategies into one coordinated effort. You reconcile and actively address the flaws you know to exist in the other including professional limitations, medical probabilities, and fundamental shortcomings while being exposed to the same. You fuse two futures, both of which are well on their way to full development. These sophisticated transactional navigations were my moment of total, marital consciousness. Nothing and everything changed.
To reach this stage of a relationship takes great resolve. The paradigmatic pressures of a traditionally framed American life are immense. Being bound legally matters more to the public than being bound intimately, honestly. Without the piece of paper or without procreation, your chemical ties to another biological agent are considered lesser. Every new introduction comes with over-explanation or omittance. The baited breath of society requires a resilience to their opinions. The moment marriage ceases to be necessary, presumed, or inevitable is the moment there is the purest reason to say yes.
This nearly decade of time invested in one another is not lost, and your wedding day will not restart your one year clock. The years have shown that together, without any bells, whistles, or vestiges, the two of you are enough to sustain, satiate, and surge.
You are going to be a bewitching bride. You are going to be a gallant groom. You both are already committed partners in life making this marriage altogether unnecessary and therefore absolutely sublime.
