I woke up this morning before Bryan and spent several minutes taking in the warmth of the bed, softness of the covers and view of him soundly sleeping. I still have these moments where I can't believe we are FINALLY together... no more painful airport good-byes. No more night filled skype conversations... no more "i wish you were here." My heart started swelling with love, as all of this flooded into my mind, I started to recall the day we got married. For anyone
that knows Bryan or me, know we ARE anything but conventional, so it was most
fitting that our wedding wasn’t either. And so it goes..
We met in January 2006 while I was on a study abroad Journalism program, in Dublin, Ireland. Our connection was immediate, but when May 2006 rolled around my program ended, and I had to get on a plane to return to my life back in Chicago. We never lost touch and after what felt like a gazillion years; we
knew we wanted to end our transatlantic relationship and hang out forever. With
the help of the Chicago Irish Immigration Services (CIIS) we were able to
actually understand what we needed to do to make that happen. The process wasn’t entirely painful; actually
looking back it wasn’t that bad at all. In total, we paid around $2,000. To scale if we had to get a lawyer it would
have cost us anywhere from 6-14K. We are forever grateful for the services of
the CIIS. And, within 5 months after we married, Bryan had his social security number
and green card. Though, not before, we were called into a meeting to present
our relationship and all supporting documents that backed us up, to the
government. That was super nerve wrecking!
Ah, well.
Our wedding
was filled with some much love despite all the love we were missing. Since it
was such short notice, Bryan didn't feel right asking any of his friends and
family to fly from Dublin to Chicago for the wedding. Due to that, I decided to
not invite any of my friends and family. However, we did have a little celebratory get together that night at a local Irish pub.
We got married in a gazebo located in the park
near our apartment. A friend officiated us and we had a photographer to capture
the moment.
Since we do
plan on having a ceremony with all of our family and friends, we deiced to
exchange rings at that time. So, we did a marriage stone.... held a stone while we said our vows to cement our words into stone.
As for when that celebration will happen, we haven’t a clue. We know one day we
will have the resources to have the best damn party. For
now, the important thing to us is being together and building our life.
In fairness, I would be lying if I didn't admit that the tiniest part of me that wishes I experienced all the traditional events that go with having a traditional wedding. To have a crazy bacheolrette party, a bridal shower where I get 5 ricer cookers and that moment where my dad walks me down the aisle. As I told my mom, I got the fairytale love and in the end, that is what matters the most. I have seen so many girls sick with stress or heck even lose themselves while planning a wedding. Better yet, I know girls who have their wedding all planned out before they even have a fella! T.V. shows like Bridezilla make me cringe with disgust to see the fundamental reasons of marriage get lost in the obsession. As I mentioned, it's just the tiniest part of me that goes to the shoulda, woulda, coulda's... And, who knows, I may still have some form of that.
What was your wedding day like?
