Along with the annulment paperwork that finally came through we received notice that the priest we wanted to do the wedding would no longer be available. This apparently threw Friend Guy into a tizzy and we needed to take action. Isn’t it funny what makes people react? We took a trip up to Connecticut one afternoon to request a certain priest be the officiate of our wedding. He was important to Friend Guy and I of course wanted this to be his day….he was the blushing bride after all. I felt like I didn’t really get to have a say. I had done this before and he hadn’t and somehow that shifted the decisions into his court. I probably could have been more insistent of what things I wanted or thought would be important, but I didn’t. I let him have the wedding he’d always dreamed of. I never knew men thought about their wedding days like we did. I thought they just thought about their bachelor parties, the shots they’d do on that day and hanging with their friends. At least, that’s what I thought. But no, he had dreams, people, places and things all had to be a certain way and who was I to stand in the way of that. So we speak to the priest and at this point we had the date, the venue, the music, the invitations, etc. already set, but we didn’t bank on the Priest not being available. So we drove home from that meeting and it was on. A mad rush to see if we could move our beautiful winter wedding up. UP! As in, it was already MAY! We started with the church, then the venue, then called the printer for the invitations, we had already sent out save the dates and now we would have to call our guests one by one to check their availability. Do you have any idea what it’s like to call people you haven’t even met yet and say “Hi, I know we haven’t met but I’m the fiancé of Friend Guy and we have had a snag and need to move our Wedding Date up 4 months” 4 MONTHS! And that is exactly what we did. We changed everything…except our attire. We ordered tuxedo’s and my wedding dress under the premise that it would be December and cold outside. Very cold. But now we would wear these garments in the middle of August. Do you know how hot the middle of august in New Jersey can be? Hot. Very. Very. Hot. With tragedy averted we got back to planning. I had my maid of honor and the bridesmaids all wear whatever black dress they wanted. Not cause I was in mourning, which I guess that’s really what black means, but because I thought it was classy. My children would be walking me down the aisle this time around and although they thought getting their hair done and nails done was fantastic they were not a big fan of having all eyes on them like their mother. The bachelor party came and I sent a gift up with one of the groomsmen. I thought it’d be nice for friend guy to know that A) I was thinking about him and 2) in case of hookers, he had a reminder I existed, so I sent up a gift. Cigars and an engraved lighter with his initials on it. Nice right? Thoughtful right? I did not get gift at the bridal shower, but that’s ok. The night of the rehearsal dinner came and if the Nor’easter on the engagement party wasn’t enough of a sign, this night held a Hurricane. A hurricane named ironically after his best man who essentially disliked me since freshman year of high school. During that time I thought we just had bad luck, but a Nor’easter AND a hurricane….really? It was like God was bribing Mother Nature to give me all she had and I still didn’t see it. But that’s the thing about love right? It’s blind? It isn’t deaf and dumb though. I was a woman on a mission. Have you ever tried to stop someone from dating someone you knew was wrong for them? If you have, you are probably no longer friends with that person. There is nothing more irritating than someone telling you they know better what is right for you. I had one friend try to stop me from marrying Friend Guy. One. And I stopped speaking to her. One of the biggest losses of this marriage was losing her. Relationships are about compromise, but when and where do we find ourselves no longer compromising, but merely giving up pieces of ourselves. We hold on so tightly to the thought that we know what we are doing, that no one could possibly know us better than ourselves, but sometimes, just sometimes we don’t know ourselves at all.