I have prided myself on being quite decisive thus far in the Wedding Planning Process.  And this is not a quality I possess in spades.  I agonize and second-guess with the best of them.  When, a week after our engagement, I still couldn’t fall asleep at night because we hadn’t booked a wedding venue, I knew something had to change.  So I resolved to have a new attitude: don’t sweat the small stuff.  A dress is a dress.  A band is a band.  The important thing is getting married to my best friend, the love of my life.  Everything else is minutiae.

This attitude actually worked for awhile!  I chose the first dress I tried on. I picked the location, the band, and the photographer without looking back.  I even banned myself from looking at wedding magazines, as they are full of possibilities regarding decisions I’ve already made, and the last thing I need is a catalog of second guesses. And last Tuesday, I picked the bridesmaids dresses.  I met the Roommate at Priscilla of Boston on 40th and 8th, which meant that my schedule that day was the following: work on 55th and 2nd, gym on 51st and Lex, Buttercup Bakery on 52nd and 2nd (present for the Roommate for standing half-naked in a room in front of myself and the salesgirl as we threw silk chiffon at her), Preschool of America in Tudor City to tell three-year-olds how to brush their teeth, and finally Bridal Central. And all of this through freezing rain, wearing too-small rubber boots that grind my foot bones together so hard I swear I hear them sparking up sometimes, without gloves because one got lost on the trip from the dryer to my bed (Seriously?!).  I even braved Times Square as a thruway, and it looks markedly more spastic in driving ice sheets.

So, you could say I’m a wedding warrior.  I did, by the end of last Tuesday.  Then I had to face…The Registry (cue ominous music).

If there is anyone more easygoing, anyone better to go through this process with than the BF, I’d like to meet him and his pet unicorn.  Last Sunday, walking the aisles of Crate and Barrel with him was a pleasure.  We reached instantaneous decisions.  We liked the same colors and designs.  We smiled and laughed.  We were in perfect harmony.  We looked like we were making a commercial.  We were the people I used to hate.

Then I got home and had to face someone with whom I am rarely in perfect harmony: me.  The past few nights, I have stared at the computer until my eyes blurred trying to decide between three china patterns.  Then two.  Then back to three. And I have wondered to myself, as words like Library Lane and Blue Duchesse float around my head like flies I want to swat, What the hell happened? Where did Decisive Me go?  And who is this freak who can’t pick out a plate?

And then, insight.  The elements I’ve chosen so far all have a one-day limit.  I’ll never wear that dress again, unless I want to get really serious about a Halloween costume.  The band will hit the road after I (Dad) give(s) them a check.  The venue will clean up and prepare for the next event.  But the china…that we’ll have for the rest of our lives (cue ominous music).

What if, on one random Thursday afternoon, the BF/my husband and I really piss each other off (this would, of course, assume that he develops the propensity to get pissed) and I look at that china in the cabinet and think, “If I had only gone with the Vera Wang.  Those stupid thick lines drive me INSANE”?  Or, more likely, what if, on one random Thursday afternoon, I’m sitting in my dining room, irritated about some way the world is not turning in my favor, and I look at that china in the cabinet and think, “Blue plates are ridiculous.  I hate that china.  I hate EVERYTHING!”

Oh right, I mentioned insight, didn’t I?  Okay, here it is: the china is giving me fits because of its permanence.  It will be around forever, like us (God-willing and as long as the BF’s judgment doesn’t improve).  It is a symbol of our lives joining and lasting, and for that, it matters.  And for that, it scares me.  Because there is nothing in the world I want to do right more than this marriage.  And someday, there will be nothing I want to do right more than my marriage and raising my children.  But just like plates, people can get broken.  And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that I don’t do most things right.  I tend to get them wrong a few times first.

But…

I did end up here.  Five years ago, if you had told me I would be living in New York City, planning a wedding to a real live good man, drawing up our life together and picking out plates to match it, I would have…well, I would have asked if there was an express train to that destination.  But there wasn’t.  It took every second of those five years for me to get here.  And every second of the years before that.  And in the process, every mistake I’ve made has either landed in my “Forgotten” bin or been pressed and molded and glazed into something beautiful.  After all of it, it’s not just the times I got it right that gave me a story to tell.

And for that, the minutiae matter.  And the mistakes need to be allowed.  But there’s no need to go sweating about any of it.  Those plates are important, but I will surely break them, or get tired of them, or burn what I put on them.  And, like Julian of Norwich said, all shall be well…because I will still have the grace that wrote the story that led to the plates.  Not to mention the good man with clouded judgment sitting next to me.