Rich bride, poor bride

We're heading out of town this weekend for a friend's nuptials. Every time I attend a wedding, I'm reminded of my two marriages/weddings and how vastly different they were. This is one of the hundreds of book ideas I have swirling about my cerebral cavity. Tentative title: Rich Bride, Poor Bride. It's a story of my two weddings, but more importantly, a story of what's wrong today in regard to marriage. We're all a bit too focused on the 'wedding,' and not focused at all on what really matters-the marriage. Kim Kardashian's multi-million dollar wedding, resulting in a marriage that lasted only 72 days, could not have come at a better time to support my thoughts.
Every time I have conversations about this topic with my mom, who has been married to my dad for 40 years, she tells me the story of her wedding. Her and my father were married on a Friday evening in their church, surrounded by about 150 of their closest family and friends (this is a lot of people for back then, but my grandparents were well-known in the community for all of their charity and involvement-I'll be writing a lot about them at another time). Her bridesmaids, all three of them, wore rented dresses. Their reception, in the church's basement Fellowship Hall, featured cake, nuts and punch. The whole shendig probably cost around a hundred dollars. Result? A 40-year marriage. A perfect one? Definitely not. But they made vows and stuck it out-for better and for worse. It seems like today, when the 'worse' part comes, people just jump ship. It's so easy to get out of a marriage these days because everyone's doing it. There's no longer any shame in saying 'I'm divorced.'
And I'm speaking from experience here because I, too, jumped ship when things got tough. I got married the first time when I was 25 years old, to a man I had been dating for 6 years. We had dated throughout college, and I moved away from my family to live with him near his family after I graduated. We had a pretty dysfunctional relationship (stories for another time), but we had it pretty good. I was a 23-year-old college grad, had a pretty good job, and lived in a house that was bigger than the one I had grown up in. My mom would constantly ask when we were getting married. To her, we were 'living in sin.' It became a running joke, but I knew she really meant it. When he proposed, with an incredible 1.25 carat diamond ring, I couldn't really say no...so, I said yes. He proposed in January, and we were set to marry in October of that year. I had so many doubts, but thought it was just cold feet and that this was 'the right thing to do.' Although I had so many dreams yet to be accomplished, so many unfinished desires, I thought it was time to marry him and start the life that everyone is supposed to have.
After a close to $40,000 wedding and a year of not-so-wedded bliss (we didn't even have sex on our one-year anniversary), I couldn't stand the thought of who I'd become, or who I was on the road to becoming. I literally had flashes/dreams/nightmares of my future self. I saw an old woman, wrinkled and sad, with defeat clouding her eyes. I was a divorced drunk (my father was an alcoholic, again, stories for another time). I had money, but I hated my life. I had children, which I always wanted, but I was miserable. I can't explain how clear these visions were. I felt like I was literally seeing my future. The day I found myself wishing that husband's plane would crash while on the way home from a business trip was the day I decided I did not want this life. This beautiful on the outside but cold and hard on the inside life.
Wedding number one-beautiful, gorgeous, over-the-top, wedding number one-with a $40K tab, resulted in a short-lived marriage. Why? Because I got caught up in the wedding. The dress, the flowers, the party. Getting that life that I should have. Planning the life-altering event that I thought I, and everyone else, wanted.
Fast forward two years later, following a disgusting divorce that took nearly a year, to my new life in the city, which is where I'd always wanted to be. I'd dated a few guys (stories for the book), but had just met someone at my new job that I genuinely liked. He wasn't like anyone I'd met before. He was a real, working man. He was poor, but rich in spirit and all of the qualities that mattered. Total opposite of husband #1. We met and fell in love in a matter of weeks. Literally. I thought I was crazy. My family and friends thought I was crazy. Especially since new man was Mexican and not exactly 'legit' (stories for the book). But I didn't care. We made each other happy. He moved in with me after about 5 months of dating, and after about two more months, we were overjoyed at the fact that I was expecting our first child. At three months pregnant, we married in the courthouse, just us and the judge, wearing brand-spankin-new outfits from Target. Total cost of the wedding, including train fare downtown? Around $80. Result? So far, so good. Things aren't always perfect, but this time I'm in it for the right reasons. I got married because this is the man I love (not because I was pregnant). The man I want to go through difficult times with, and then come out stronger and more closely bonded. We've had our tough times (stories for the book), but the d word has never once crossed my mind.
This poor bride, now with a beautiful, healthy son and a wonderful, well-paying job, has been married for almost 3 years. More than twice as long as rich bride.
Every time I attend a fancy to-do, I pray that the two people at the front are doing it for the right reasons. I pray that they are truly in love and that they realize what really matters is that they are marrying each other-not the overdone floral arrangements; the ridiculously expensive dresses; the five-course meal. People become so engrossed in planning these fairy tale weddings that they're forgetting who they're meeting at the end of the aisle.