The Blissfully (Un)happy Bride

I never felt like a blissfully happy bride.

With the exception of the days immediately following our engagement when our contentment was protected by the folds of Point Arena, California — with spotty cell phone service and a gray-green sea that blended into miles of jagged cliffs — there were few moments of joy. The happy moments we did have — like when I was looking at John’s calm smile as we said our vows in a serene brick-walled garden — pushed up against other emotional moments so complex it was hard to discern where the happiness started and the anxiety ended, much like those cliffs and the sea.

That’s not to say that getting married was miserable. The entire experience, from engagement to vows, was more complex than that, with threads of various emotion creating a finely spun fabric of excitement, frustration, and fear. But no one tells you to expect such a confusing mix of emotions. Or if someone did, I wasn’t listening.

Days before our wedding, I found myself revisiting the sickening feelings I had during my parents’ divorce. Thoughts spun on a track in my head, like an unwelcome earworm.

“My parents were happy on their wedding day. They thought they’d stay married. How are John and I any different from them? Why will we make it, when they didn’t?”

Those thoughts, combined with the fact that 70 people were going to watch me get married, woke me every night leading up to our wedding. I’d lie in bed and shake, drenched in sweat and unable to move. John would eventually wake and soothe me back to sleep, reassuring me that we could just walk away from the entire event if we wanted to. He was calm in the face of my uncertainty. His response comforted me, leading me to suspect that my fear was slightly (only slightly) overblown.

However, there was also the matter of our families descending to attend the wedding weekend; a moment I’d looked forward to for so long that I didn’t understand why their presence suddenly made me feel suffocated. But between the text message complaints of “My hotel room doesn’t have any shampoo!” (“Is that my responsibility?” I wondered) and heated discussions of who would walk down the aisle with whom, I felt pulled in every direction.

I remember my cousin saying to me months before, “Your wedding isn’t about you and John, it’s about your families.” At the time, I’d thought she’d been issuing a challenge. I finally realized she’d been giving us a warning.

In the midst of the emotion and the well-meaning chaos of our families, John and I pulled together. Given the challenges of wedding planning itself, we hadn’t always been a unified team on some of the more difficult decisions. Many tears had been shed and fights launched over what sort of candy we should serve at our candy bar, for example.

Definitely a critical issue.

But, in the throes of our wedding weekend, we began to build a fortress, putting up brick after brick to help protect against the small matter of our wedding, and the big matter of our life beyond.

There was a moment when everything changed, and any disconnect I’d felt from John disappeared.

We were at our rehearsal, our families had just met for the first time, and we were going through the mayhem of the procession. John and I were told to wait in a dining room of the mansion where we’d be getting married, and the doors shut firmly behind us as Mary, the Wedding Captain, organized the process. We could hear various comments coming from our families through the thin wooden door.

I looked at John, grabbed the door handles and said “Get a stick — I think we can barricade ourselves in here.” And we both laughed, not because it was particularly funny, but because we were feeling the same set of complex emotions at the same time. From that moment on, John and I were whole. The emotion and anxiety didn’t go away completely, having wreaked havoc on my body for so many days, but I felt just a little bit lighter.

The morning of our wedding, after having spent the night in our room together (despite protests from, well, everyone), I insisted that we practice our first dance just one more time. I figured if we could nail the dance, then any remaining anxiety I had about being the focus of 70 people’s attention would dissipate. After three practice runs, I realized we were not going to get even close to perfecting our first dance.

John responded to this realization with “Oh well, no one will care.” And I responded by bursting into tears. I grabbed my purse and prepared to head out to my hair appointment. Thanks to our newfound camaraderie, though, I was able to turn to John and jokingly wail through tears, “I’ll see you at the altar.” To which he responded sincerely, “I can’t wait,” and kissed me goodbye. He was so sweet, the moment was so perfect, that I felt hope and happiness push back against my fear and frustration.

Looking back on my wedding day, I can say with certainty that I had one of the best, most meaningful days of my life. But, it was not at all what I expected. I didn’t float on a cloud of complete joy from the moment I woke to the moment I went to bed. The worst part was that I was so hard on myself for not feeling overwhelmingly joyful all day long.

“What is wrong with you?” I thought. “Here’s yet another example of the fact that you are missing ‘the bride gene’ and you’re a horrible person.”

I wish I’d been easier on myself. I’m sure more brides feel the way I felt than like the blissfully happy, somewhat ignorant, vision of a bride I had in my head. After all, we’re making vows to love someone through sickness and health until death do us part. That is no small matter. Especially when you’re marrying John, who becomes a helpless whiny baby at the smallest whisper of cold symptoms. At the very least, my cacophony of feeling was fitting to the seriousness of the promise.

In reflecting on my wedding, I realize how grateful I am for the fabric of emotions I had, as they led to some remarkable memories. I was able to see John’s strength and our compatibility, when in the face of his soon-to-be-wife suggesting they cancel their wedding, he replied with comfort instead of anger.

Let me tell you, I would not have been as understanding.

I was able to walk down the aisle and appreciate the complete peace and certainty I felt holding John’s hands and saying our vows, because of the fear and uncertainty I’d overcome to get there.

But I am most grateful that John and I can look back on the experience — the complex emotions, the absurd situations, the quiet laughter behind a barricaded door — and realize that among those dark and bright moments, we found each other.