Wedding Book Woes...

One of my best friends gave me this wedding book at my bridal shower called, “What No One Tells the Bride” by Marg Stark. I was all excited to read it- thinking I would learn a bunch of juicy secrets about how to solve wedding cake disaster or a flower girl tantrum, but it’s not about the wedding at all. It’s about marriage- and not only that- it’s about all the things in marriage that are supposedly inevitable and how you, as a ‘wife’, deal with them.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in liberal California, maybe it’s because I’m a pretty independent yet social woman or maybe it’s because I didn’t grow up in the 50’s, but I don’t understand half of the problems in this book. I’ll give you an example—there’s an entire paragraph dedicated to being “Off the List”- as in, once you get married, your single friends cross you off the list of being able to go out with them for a drink or a skiing vacation or a celebration on New Years Eve. How once you get engaged or married- you don’t fit in with your single friends anymore and you have to adjust only hanging out with married couples. WTF?? If I become the woman who doesn’t go out anymore once she’s married, someone shoot me in the leg. (I don’t really want to die yet, so I figured the leg is a good wake-up call).


Now to the books credit- after laying out a bunch of these new issues- it tells you how to solve them- ie: make sure to take the time in your newly married life to still do things you liked to do when you were single and don’t let your husband tell you that you can’t do them. Make sure to write to your single friends and tell them how much you miss them.

Really? That’s the solution?

The book goes on to demystify the classic myths of marriage – like, “I will be the perfect wife.” Who says that?? What modern day woman gets married and seriously thinks to herself that she’s Martha Stewart (who went to jail by the way people- no amount of perfectly hand decorated cupcakes= the perfect wife).

In reading this book- I’ve realized that I’m a truly blessed individual- not only do I live in a state that supports a woman's rights, but I have an incredibly smart, savvy and sensitive fiancé (and he can hoop!). We adore our friends- often host BBQ’s and during hockey season- there’s not a lot of days when our living room isn’t full of friends cheering for Canada’s Blue & White. He takes evenings and goes out to play pool with the boys and I take time to have margarita’s with the girls, and we always have Sunday night together to make dinner, drink wine and snuggle on the couch to watch a movie. I’m not saying we’re perfect- no one is, and deciding to spend the rest of your life together comes with unexpected challenges and compromise- but I feel like the less you think of getting married as changing your whole being to accommodate another – and think of it more as opening your life to allow more in- the more that the natural compromise that’s inevitable is easy. Ultimately we are all just Shawn Johnson on the 4" balance beam - working for balance each leap we take...

xoxo, Keaton