jumping the cultural hurdles… if only i could walk…

as the steam train of matrimony goes hurtling at light speed towards its destination… i find myself cocooned in an mri machine with plenty of time to muse the goings on of the past few weeks…

with my fiance away at work, (again) the wedding planning took on that evil turn of STRESSFUL and my inner bridezilla has more than seen the light of day…

“how are you going? all the wedding plans coming along ok?” in truth I DON’T KNOW!!!!

what is it again i am supposed to be planning????!!!!!! i feel like a deer in headlights at the very mentioning of this archtypal line of questioning that i encounter almost daily now…

groom, check, date, check, location, check… invites sent. check… yup.. what else is there???

but the more people ask…the more my little hamster wheel mind spins further and further out of control until i am now able to imagine a to do list longer than the average suburban white pages!

do we need place cards? do we need bonbonieres? do we need menus? do we need programs? do we need this trinket or that. of course we don’t… but once the seed has been planted… the tree of indecision takes root and flourishes quickly!!!!

the ironic thing?? all this was happening while i wasn’t even feeling engaged or wedding-y at all!!!

how does this work?? well, you see, the lack of bridal party means thus far i have been able to bury my head in the sand of denial… in fact… i have in truth spent more time, effort and emotion planning for a good friend’s big day than my own…i have had no supportive girlies by my side to twirl and curl ribbons. i’ve had no kitchen tea planning or girls giggle nights… and while this decision was made to save the inevitable politics that follow it… and prevent the inevitable offending of this person who should or shouldnt have been asked… this decision has in fact been my greatest undoing…

thus… taking the ‘road less stressful” has costed a few more weeks of loneliness and all out insanity and nearly cost me the whole experience at all…

i was, until recently, oblivious to the great white wedding world just lurking behind every internet side ad… in fact, until last week, i really hadnt even been asked those stock standard questions much at all or been asked to consider or discuss my wedding in depth by anyone…

i mean… the real discussions… not the ones people ask to be polite… the ones, that only a fellow bride, your bridesmaids or a real close friend will be patient enough to endure…

one could almost be forgiven for thinking it wasnt really happening to me… no bridesmaids, no groom… no excitement…

but with my dear friend’s wedding now behind me… the sun suddenly shifted position in the sky…and the dawning light of day is… OH MY GOD i’m getting married… i may be down one fiance.. but damnit… i WANT to feel like the bride. i WANT people to come curl ribbons and look through endless knick knack shops with me… i want to have the full wedding experience..

my other half’s job may have “robbed” me of the engagement period… but screw it… i want to now feel the full force of the build up!!!!

so thank god for my army of loyal friends… without whom i would be lost… for when the distress call went out last week… as the steam train went hurtling into an emotional black hole with no light at the end.. it has been my girl friends who have come through and rallied round.

my girls who have shown up and endured talks about dresses, table plans and trinkets… my girls who have pulled me out of the denial bush i was hiding in and given me the courage to stand tall and say… i am the bride.

i do want the big day.

it is my turn.

but with this new found flurry of wedding planning excitement comes with it… the inevitable hurdles…

the bridezilla moments… where doubt and indecision take hold and manifest into sheer raving lunacy… the cultural hurdles that become a battlefield of unwillingly offending or insulting this person or that… the realisation that those little wedding nuances that you had always subconsciously thought just formed part of everyone’s wedding vocabulary suddenly need to be voiced as you discover a whole new language of wedding and expectation out there…

even to the point where something as simple as making a hair appointment suddenly becomes an ordeal of moral character judgment and platform for inadvertantly insulting others in the wedding language which you dont speak…

it is now.. in light of this new wedding surge of energy that i am discovering just how important that age old role of bridesmaids or in this case… the world’s most incredible, patient and supportive friends are…

but one then asks… how is it the light of day finally dawned on my inner bridezilla??

and it all comes back to clumsiness…

for if i hadn’t been attacked by the stair en route to the seamstress for my friend’s wedding.

if i hadnt been held hostage to the couch for 3 weeks due to the ever increasingly swollen foot

if i hadnt been without fiance and left for  my mind to fester and stew unchecked as i wait for the never ending foot saga to recover itself then maybe, just maybe i would have continued on with my head in the sand…

maybe i would have made it all the way to august without once thinking about the table trinkets or what type of corsages the mothers might want…

and maybe that would have all worked fine??

but 3 weeks later… foot still crippled… internet download limits maxed and brain just about at breaking point of inactivy produced insanity it occurs to me it is all these little hiccups, these little stressors that all go into making the big day..

into completing the global picture of the stressed bride..

and in fact into my own bridal dictionary…

and while the obvious hope is today’s mri will merely reveal that i will be right to walk on the big day… the fact is the whole experience has just opened my eyes to the pieces i was missing…

batton down the hatches folks… this steam train just picked it up a gear and is now bound for all out wedding overload!!!! and lets face it… secretly, thats just the way every bride likes it…

always and ever.

bridezilla.

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