Overheard on... Goodreads

“If groom doesn't show up it could be for a multitude of reasons --accident, kidnapped, murder.”

So, I started a poll yesterday on Goodreads and am having a fun time watching the results. The question was; “What’s the worst thing that could happen to derail a wedding?” (you can add your vote here.) I listed a few funny option, but the truth of the matter is that I think, as long as the couple is really in love, very little would interrupt that. Of course an accident, kidnapping or murder might do the trick.

(Photo courtesy of Stephanie Gehring. Click over to her beautiful sight for amazing art and writing.)

As summer approaches my sympathies go out to all the young brides desperately trying to pull together the final details. Somehow we all survive (dare I say, even enjoy) the wedding day. Flowers may not show up, priests might
be called away to Rome at the last minute, the Maid of Honor might get lost on her way to the church, and Fathers might walk their daughters down the aisle holding the stuffed animal that belonged to the ring bearer (just saying… it could happen) and still the marriage will take place and the couple will look back later and laugh at these little
mishaps.

The problem is… there are all kinds of resources out there telling you how to create the perfect day; as if this, not the actual marriage, is the goal. There are far fewer websites and blogs geared to brides and grooms that talk about how to prepare for a perfect married life. What about finances? What about kids, and houses and job transfers and mother-in-laws. It is far easier, I wager, to derail a marriage than it is to derail a wedding. In UNTANGLING THE KNOT Gabriella, the main character is devastated to be arranging an annulment for a couple she had previously helped get
married:

Somehow processing the annulment paperwork always left her feeling both helpless and hopeless. She sighed. At least in this case they hadn’t had any children yet.

The fact that she had arranged their wedding only a year earlier, however, made this particular divorce worse than normal. Their ceremony had been really sweet, filled with excited friends, a really loving and non-control-freak mother, and a grandfather who had given the bride away.

Gabriella frowned, thinking of how something so lovely could go so wrong. She was terribly disappointed for them and wished there were a way to make them see how precious it was to find that kind of love.

She’d talked with them enough to know that they probably could have survived any one thing, but between the stress of losing his job and having to pay for the expensive house they’d bought, their honeymoon period had ended
more quickly than most.

And then, when Lisa’s grandfather had died suddenly, there had been a huge fight about being able to afford the flight to the funeral. The vicious argument was the last straw and they had given up.

Every now and then I pull out our wedding video and watch it from start to finish. I see that stuffed animal in my Dad’s hand and shake my head, amazed that even now it bugs me. At the same time, though, I am reminded that I
would not have let anything derail the enjoyment of my perfect wedding. How much more applicable, then, is that sentiment to my own married life?