My "Unperfect" "Wedding

By the time I post this, I'll have been married 3 months to the day today. Honestly, I always imagined myself getting married young and being a wife, but in the last few years after the turmoil and heartache and trouble I let myself get into, I decided that enough was enough and that I wasn't going to get married until I graduated college and had a plan for my life. I wasn't going to let a man define me and I was going to be my own person. Well, that all happened so quickly.

My journey to self discovery came fast and I quickly found myself in a spot where I was secure enough in knowing who I am and who I want to be, that apparently that was a sign from heaven that I was ready to get married and my eyes were opened to Chris. Now, if you've seen our wedding blog, you'll know our story but in case you haven't you can read it HERE.

Anyway, things happened so quickly and I can hardly believe that I got married 3 months ago. I never would have even had the  hope to believe that I'd be married to my best friend this soon in my life. I'm only 21 years old, for heavens sake.

I guess that for anyone at any age getting married, there can be a lot of doubt or uncertainty, and for me the voice of my friends back home and even some family asking if I'm sure that I want to get married so young rang strong in my mind. I knew in my heart that Chris was my person. He's the one I want to spend eternity with, but being as anxious as I am, I worried. I worried that after two years of friendship, I didn't know him well enough. I worried that I wouldn't be a perfect wife and that it wasn't financially smart (yes, I heard that one many times) to get married so young. I worried a lot and by the time we had traveled to the wedding, I had given myself a stomach ulcer from the stress.

I cried ten minutes before I got married because my best friend decided not to show up, I almost passed out during our wedding ceremony because I was in so much pain, I was 30 minutes late to the reception and found out that our reception photographer didn't show up and of course all of the small things didn't go as I wanted them to.

I watched my beautiful friend's wedding video tonight and cried my eyes out. She was so perfect. She was beautiful and her husband was perfect. Their reception was a fairy tale.  She had everything I wish I had at my reception. I was jealous. I was completely.

I never remember being the type of girl who planned and dreamed of her wedding but once I did start planning, I knew what I wanted but I knew compromises had to be made because we couldn't afford to pay for everything I wanted.

I'm very thankful to my parents for everything they did to make my wedding happen as closely to what I wanted, but it wasn't perfect. I didn't have the perfect wedding that I wanted, and I didn't have the perfect reception, or the perfect hair or the perfect makeup, but what I did have was my best friend as my husband.

I had my amazing family and friends there to celebrate with me. I had a beautiful dress that I still want to wear every single day of my life. I had friends and family help transform a dreary old church gym into a beautiful reception site and I had friends that I hadn't seen in years show up to surprise me.  I settled for a lot in my "unperfect" wedding, but some things I didn't settle for were (1) the man I married, or (2) the family I married into, or (3) my family who did everything they could to make my day as perfect as they possibly could.

So even though I sometimes get jealous over my friends' receptions or dresses, I know I didn't need that $8000 reception venue, that $900 dress or that $1700 photographer to make my day special. I know my wedding was beautiful. I was beautiful because  I loved my dress, I loved my hair and I loved my reception. Life is not money. It is the memories you make and the people you hold dear. And my day was just that. Filled with the important people and the important memories.

PS- Shoutout to the AMAZING photographer who did our engagements and our formals. Kendra Handy is AMAZING and you can find her website here and her Facebook page here.