Wedding anecdotes

What? Not like I expected it to be? It's EVERYTHING I expected it to be.

I knew my wife would come down to earth with her spending habits once she had a household to run. I fully expected to make whoopie any time I wanted to. I realized that our fights would end because all we had to do was kiss and make up before going to bed. And I knew my wife would look like an absolute angel in the mornings, no matter how late we got to bed. Marriage was the answer to ALL of our relationship problems. It's like a magic potion!

And the fact that my wife might read this because she's also a writer has nothing to do with my honesty on this matter.

Actually, I was confused for a few days after getting married. I was like hey, everyone says it's different when you get married... and it's not. Going on a year this July and it doesn't feel any different from when we started dating back in late 02. We've been living together since 03, so no suprises with moving in together or anything like that. We already worked out those differences!

Really the only difference is that we're not "living in sin" anymore, which is too bad because I liked the whole concept. Now my mom is begging for grandchildren. She's not even being subtle anymore.

Basically, we just like being together, and a piece of paper along with a ceremony didn't change that in the least. Though if you want to hear some funny stories about adjusting to living together, I can come up with a few.

Have you been to EtiquetteHell.com? It has a huge bank of wedding-gone-wrong stories. Be careful, though--I think all story rights get transferred to the site owner, who makes books of her own.

We've been together for 15 years and married for almost 12. The only difference between living together and being married with children is...everything. Oy. Imagine everything you ever wanted wrapped up in everything you would do well to avoid.

I didn't think I'd want to kill him in the first week or so of marriage, and yet that happened. Ooops.

DH and I have been married for 17 years, but I still remember some of the mental adjustments I had to make. He's a great guy, but since he farms, we live four hours away from my extended family. Before I married there was always the possiblity of moving closer to them. Afterward it boiled down to seeing my closest family every couple of months, and some of my cousins only once a year.

I remember missing my parents a lot more than I expected then met them half-way between their home and the farm to help them man their booth at a craft show. I got to sit and craft beside my mom for a whole afternoon and it was bittersweet. At their age any visit could be the last.

There are gives and takes in every decision you make. That one surprised me, though.

Sorry this might not be extremely coherent. There's a lot of background noise going on here!

Ann

I agree with Sassee...the huge differences seem to come in when you move in together, whether or not that coincides with the actual marriage date.

Marriage, as my husband and I define it, starts long before you get authorities involved. Marriage as it is usually defined is essentially a legal contract. That contract changes little to nothing, in my experience.

Of course, I still wanted the official, legal marriage papers. I wanted people to see how serious we took our relationship, and I wanted the benefits of the contract (hospital visitation rights go way up, for example). Those things are all periphery to the actual marriage, though, and change nothing about our relationship.

My husband and I met on Valentines Day, 1998 moved in together in 1999, and were officially married in 2001.