How I Want to Remember My Wedding Day

I love borrowing ideas from other blogs for posts. This one is inspired by a similar post by Julie on Peanut Butter Fingers (she has excellent workout tips, FYI).

I've heard from so many people that your wedding day flies by so quickly, which is hard to believe right now since planning the wedding has pretty much consumed the last nine months of my life. Will all of our hard work and countless hours of wedding preparations feel pointless if the day moves too quickly? Will anybody besides Drew and I even notice all of the effort that went into the details?

But then I have to remind myself that all of the details - colors, table decorations, stationary, what clothes we chose to wear - are more for us than for our guests. Of course we want to show our guests how much thought we put into the day so they enjoy the ceremony and reception as well, but at the end of the day our wedding is about us. And, more importantly, it's about us (finally) being married.

So what do I want to stand out in my heart when I look back on our wedding day in a month or a year or in 50 years?

How I Want to Remember My Wedding Day

I want to remember spending the day with family and friends. I've lived in three different states in the past three years, so keeping up with my friends and family is tougher than I'd like. When I'm constantly moving and going through different stages of becoming an adult, it's hard to visit my friends from college or even keep them up-to-date on what I'm doing with my life.

I had a phone conversation over the weekend with one of my college friends who recently got engaged about how weird compiling a guest list is when you haven't seen some of your closest college friends since graduation. How do you decide who to hold onto? Well, I made my decision on which friends I wanted to see on my wedding day a few months ago when our invitations went out, and I'm so excited to see them and spend time with them (however little) on my wedding day.

The same goes for my family, who all live in different states, that I rarely see. I want to remember the most recent reunion I'll have with my friends and family and cherish the time I get to spend with them on what will probably be the most important day of my life. And I am so blessed to have wonderful friends and sisters standing next to me at the altar. I hope the craziness of the day doesn't prevent me from enjoying the company of my friends and family and appreciating all the time and money they took to spend my wedding day celebrating with me.

With my parents, sisters and brother-in-law at my cousin's wedding this summer.

I want to remember how I feel walking down the aisle. In my mind, walking down the aisle to meet Drew at the altar is going to be one of the biggest moments of the day. I'm so afraid I'm going to be focusing on not tripping over my dress or how sweaty my hands are instead of the fact that I am literally walking towards my future. I want my focus to be on Drew and on my parents, who will both be walking me down the aisle. I don't want this moment to be a blur. I want the excitement, nervousness, anticipation of this moment to stand out in my mind long past the ceremony.

I want to remember the look on Drew's face when we say our vows.  Just like walking down the aisle, I have a fear that our vows will be such a blur in the moment that I won't remember them happening. I want to be completely in this moment. Saying our vows is the most exciting part of the wedding ceremony for me to look forward to because it's obviously the most meaningful. If I remember just one thing from our wedding, I want this to be it.

I want to remember not taking the small stuff too seriously. Like I said before, Drew and I have put a lot of time and effort into the details of both our ceremony and reception. I know not everything will go as planned. I'm sure we will have goofs in the ceremony and the reception set-up will not be exactly as I have it pictured in my mind. I want that to be okay on October 8. I want to be able to laugh at every mistake or mix-up or unexpected event that takes place that day. I want to remember feeling calm over any last-minute crises that arise and keeping my thoughts and focus on the bigger picture. In fact, I want to take the mishaps so lightly that I don't even want to remember them (unless they're particularly funny or ridiculous).

I want to remember our first dance. Drew isn't much of a dancer, so I'm glad we have a solid excuse to get him out on the dance floor. Anytime I get to dance with Drew at a wedding is special and exciting for me because it rarely happens, so I am beyond thrilled for our first dance. We've practiced dancing to our first dance song a couple times already, and even those practice runs are amazing. I can only imagine how special the real deal will be, and I hope I never forget how I feel during those three minutes and thirty-seven seconds (give or take).

At a wedding last summer. Notice how we're planted in our seats and not on the dance floor.

I want to remember the drive away from the reception. This seems kind of random, but there's a good chance this will be the first time since the ceremony that Drew and I will have to ourselves all day. I want to remember what we talk about in our first moments as a married couple. I want us to cherish that alone time we have to look back on our wedding day while everything is still fresh in our minds.

More than anything, I want to remember how happy and loved and amazed I feel all day to be surrounded by family and friends while I marry my best friend and love of my life. I know I won't remember all of the details of our wedding day, and that's okay. That's what the pictures are for, right?

If you're married, what do you remember the most from your wedding day? If you're not, what's on your list to remember when your wedding day comes along?