My name is Lindsey, and I am a wedding-aholic…

When I started thinking about what to write for this post it was very different. I was going to talk about how excited I was to try on the first toile of my wedding dress by designer Rowan Joy, how I was looking forward to munching my way through an array of enticing cake options, and how thrilled I was to have my engagement ring back from the jewellers, where it had been for a repair.

But, really, none of that matters. It has been quite a stressful time for us recently. We’ve both been snowed under with work, and we’ve been over-committing ourselves outside of work too. These things creep up on you. Each little part of it, in and of itself, doesn’t seem like a big deal, ‘Yes, I’ll come to that conference at the weekend’, ‘Let’s sign up for a Swedish class’, ‘Of course I’m free on Saturday, what do you need?’, but slowly, silently, they amass in the quiet spaces in your mind until there’s no space left, and you’re at system overload.

Photography Copyright (c) 2014, Kitchener Photography

For me there’s always a part of me that sits on the sidelines, watching this happen knowingly, but isn’t quite loud enough to make itself heard over the clamour, ‘Slow down, slow down’. And yet, when someone else gives me the same message, ‘Lindsey, slow down’, it seems so obvious. I am so busy asking myself why I am feeling so anxious, why seemingly little things are overwhelming me, that I just cannot see that the sum total of all the little things is, in actual fact, pretty huge.

Today, and every day in fact, I am grateful for all the truly brilliant friends I have in my life. Friends who know even before I do when I’m not doing so great, friends who take my jumbled thoughts and straighten them out into something more manageable, friends who are always there to just listen. Friends who, when I’m in my ‘pretending planning our wedding is no big deal’ mode, tell me how they felt when they were planning theirs, that it is a big deal, that it’s ok to feel that, that it can be overwhelming.

Because it is a big deal. This is our wedding. This is the day I will stand beside my best friend, and we will promise to support each other, laugh together, and love one another, always. Of course it’s a big deal! This may seem blindingly obvious to many of you, but somehow, to me, it wasn’t.

The concept of marriage is a funny one, and it means many different things to many different people. I guess, what I have thought, is that the ‘wedding’ itself is all just a bit surface, a tad too consumer-ey, a collection of things, many of which are completely unnecessary but somehow find themselves onto your budget, and therefore, not so important in the grand scheme of things. Only, I didn’t think that at all. I was telling myself that, maybe because as the day approaches with ever increasing speed I was starting to feel the true weight of it, or maybe because I just felt a bit guilty, a bit at odds with enjoying the pomp and pageantry of all the weddingy-ness.

Well, here it is. My name is Lindsey, and I am a wedding-aholic (hi Lindsey).

Strip away all the stresses, the hang-ups, and the nerves, and I am so in love and invested in this day that I could at times both laugh and cry. I am excited about going to try on the first toile of my wedding dress, I am itching to look through swatches of lace with my designer, I cannot wait to chat with our amazing florist, Di, of Myrtle and Bracken, about her plans to fill Crear’s hall with feathers, antlers and twigs, and my favourite thing to do of a Saturday night is dance about to our ever-increasing list of wedding songs.

At the heart of all of this is Jonathan. He is my best friend. He has been quietly tailing me in my anxiety, waiting to catch me when I was ready to be caught. He has been listening patiently, counselling honestly, and always, always just there. We have been together now for nearly seven and a half years, and I can’t imagine a day without him by my side. In amongst all of the stresses and strains of the past few weeks, and all of those certain to come, all that really matters is standing by him, my best friend, and making that promise together.

We just received our photos from our ‘pre-wedding’ shoot with the amazing Kitchener Photography, and I’ve included a few in this post. We’ve struck gold with these folks, they’re so super-talented, and every picture they take is a work of art (see for yourself here), but, for us, the most beautiful thing about these pictures is the love that’s so clear in every frame. This is what I’m holding to in the days as we hasten to our wedding, and when it all comes together on the day, and we’re standing there next to each other, making our promise. Love is all that matters.

Lindsey x

 

Lindsey is one of our ‘Lovettes’, aka, a real blogging bride, due to marry her Fiance Jonathan at Crear’ in Scotland on 28th March, 2015.  You can read Lindsey’s other Love My Dress blog posts here – and you can catch up with all our Lovette members posts here.