A Little Freaked Out

In 10 days, I do what I thought I would never do… I get married.  Most little girls imagine their dream guy and their dream wedding and grow up knowing that they will find the one.  I grew up knowing that if I found my dream guy, I was pretty much not interested in the fairy tale.  Marriage is about a lot more than fairy tale weddings and perfect days.

Which is good, because our wedding month hasn’t been going as expected.  I’m hoping the old wives’ tale is true: imperfect wedding, perfect marriage.

First, only 3 of the wedding invitations we mailed out arrived at their intended destinations.  In a moment of irritation, I posted about it on my Facebook page which alerted a great deal of my family to the fact that I had not invited them to the wedding.  This seems to have struck a nerve with one of my aunts.

It’s nothing against her.  It’s just that we are still going with small.  A mere 41 people got invited, including the minister.  Considering the SO and I both have large families, this meant most of our aunts and uncles didn’t get invites.  Just like the majority of our cousins didn’t get invites, no matter how much we like them.  I will have 3 cousins in attendance; one is my Maid of Honor, one is my Matron of Honor, and one is coming as my sister’s plus one (cousins really do make the best of friends). The SO has no cousins coming.  I have one aunt/uncle coming; we invited them because my SO knows my uncle well through work as well as my aunt.  He has two aunts/uncles coming, but they are part of his family that I know well.  And one of his uncles is pulling double duty as our photographer.  My parents will be there.  His parents will be there.  His grandmother will be there.  Both of us have siblings that will be in attendance.  Both of us have nieces and nephews that will be there.  Jude the Great Nephew and his mommy will be there.  Lola the Destroyer will be there, because she’s our surrogate child (since neither of us has children).  However, by the time we got done with immediate family and family we both knew well, there weren’t a lot of vacant spots left.  And since Lola the Destroyer doesn’t require a chair, I didn’t count her in that 41.

But we also wanted some friends.  The minister is one of my former supervisors that I have remained close to.  So, we squeezed in a friend there.  His best man is the guy he races with, no relation, but they are close enough to be brothers.  His groomsman is my Matron of Honor’s husband and part of the reason we met (My SO was the best man when the Groomsman and Matron got married twenty years ago… the Matron is one of my first cousins because like I said; cousins make awesome best friends, it was obvious that they were both going to be involved).  Meaning he has my cousin by marriage standing up with him, but they have been friends since junior high, so I’m not sure which one of us has more claim on him.  Then there are the friends that are just friends.  People that have impacted both of us enough that their attendance at our wedding was a big deal.

Second, I broke a tooth and I have thought of everything on the planet to avoid what’s going to happen today, but there just weren’t any viable options.  My left front tooth is being extracted at 11 am.  I talked to my “regular” dentist who has told me a couple of times that my teeth aren’t worth saving.  But he couldn’t fit me in.  So, I’m going to the place in town that specializes in extractions.  I don’t remember the last time I was in this much pain.  Cutting the tip of my finger off didn’t hurt as bad as having the pulp of my tooth exposed.  I’m not sure the third degree burn on my thumb hurt this bad, but that has been more than 2 decades ago, so my memory is a little fuzzy on it.  One of the nieces is in dental hygiene school and I discussed it with her.  I get that she isn’t a dentist, but she knows more about teeth than I do.  Normally, when I have a tooth that chips, cracks, or breaks, it doesn’t hurt.  I don’t even notice it’s happened until I have to spit it out.  My teeth have decalcified to the point that before the headbutt, the last tooth that broke, snapped while I was chewing on a tater tot.  I didn’t notice it until I bit into the remnants.  Anyway, the point is, since this tooth is causing me so much pain, the only answer is extracting it.  It’s probably one of the few teeth where the pulp, dentin, and nerves are still completely intact.

That means I’m shelling out $400 just 10 days before my wedding to extract a tooth and guarantee that there will be no open mouthed smiles from me.  I’m a little bummed about that.  I don’t normally give big, toothy smiles anyway, but this is a little different. Plus, I despise spending that kind of money when there are still some wedding and reception expenses to be paid.

Third, I don’t know why extracting teeth is so incredibly painful.  I usually consider myself very pain tolerant.  I once spent a week walking around on an ankle that had a broken bone and torn tendon in it.  I thought it was just sprained.  Turned out the swelling kept the broken bone from being noticed and the tendon was found years later on an MRI.  I did that without pain meds, without a walking boot, without even an ankle brace.  When we did finally realize it was broken, it had already started to remodel, so we just left it and I walked around on it until it healed without anything more than an ACE bandage wrap.  Last time they pulled one of my back molars, I thought I was going to die.  I even went back to the dentist three times thinking I was suffering from dry socket.  I’m supposed to be getting together with the nieces this weekend for a keepsake box making event and dinner.  I’ve been in so much pain, I haven’t went and got the boxes.  I won’t go get them today.  Tomorrow is probably not going to happen either.  Friday and Saturday are giant question marks.

Finally, despite these things; which to me are somewhere between abysmal and catastrophic (not helped by my anxiety disorder because I stress out easily anyway)… Everyone has been incredibly helpful.  One of my wedding guests is a hair stylist.  She offered to come early and do hair before the wedding, eliminating the need to go get my hair done.  Another great friend is picking up the cupcakes for the reception.  Yet someone else took over making all our side dishes because she wanted to do it… and actually she just flat out told me she was doing it and there was no room for debate or negotiation.  My Matron has taken care of pretty much everything that has needed to be done on the wedding side of things.  My Maid went to a lot of trouble to set up my bachelorette party (that I couldn’t attend which has lead to some serious guilt issues).  My minister wrote custom prose and vows that fit more with my SO and I’s outlook on life.  She is also the one teaching us how to collage the keepsake boxes because she is a minister, artist, and just all around nice human being.  My SO’s brother is a chef and smoked all our meat for the reception.  All of which has allowed me time to work… something I desperately needed since writing is one of the ways I cope with stress.

Will it be perfect?  Not in the least.  Am I okay with that?  Yes.  Because at the end of the day, it will be perfect for a couple of reasons: I will have my two closest friends standing beside me as I marry a man I love enough not to smother in his sleep and who loves me enough to not smother me in my sleep (I snore really loud, so this is actually an achievement).  My closest family members will be there, excited and smiling.  My closest friends will be there, making sure I don’t get cold feet and run out the door.  There will be food, dancing, darts, conversations, and we will all have a good time.