Lulls, Lanterns and How to Better Love
Imagine with me, standing in the room scattered with the leftover clippings from your own wedding flowers, gathered and arranged by your very good friends. There was a lulling moment. I was barefoot, adorned in my wedding gown, dangling flowers of fabric trailing my ears, hair cascading down my shoulders with flowers tucked around braids and locks. Physically I was ready and so was everything else. It was 6 o’clock. Was I ready? Was I truly ready for this moment, this commitment, this life? Yes. A resounding yes filled my person clearly, completely, strongly and with absolute peace. I felt that peace from my bare toes to my chest and then felt it come out through my voice in a confident and excited “Yes.” I walked around the venue, the wedding party made their way and then there was me. The aisle to my fiance was grassy, sprinkled with rose petals covered by a giant tree towering above us strewn with lights and lanterns, and prisms catching the sparkling summer light. It was a perfect sight. I saw my best friend and love standing waiting, surrounded by our best friends and family. As a favorite song lilted across the grounds, I heard the lyrics fill my ears, “I’m where I’m meant to be.” And it was so. Whenever things get really hard, and they have, I think of this beautiful and true moment of my life.
The following is unsolicited marriage advice from a not so newly wed. Because I remember the start.
I’m talking about more than “pray when he does something irritating like leave his socks on the floor” and “communication is key”. Specific things that mattered a lot for me and mine.
Don’t let others call the shots on your day. There is no etiquette or tradition or “this is how it’s done” that overrides what you want your day to feel like. Our inclusion of not only our interests, but our most dearly held paradigm, our faith. From Rapunzel to the Cosmere to flowers to music to good pipe tobacco, our wedding felt like us. It felt like us. And it felt magical. Jesus was on display. Authenticity, excitement…love. If people doubted us before that day, they saw us together and never doubted again. Putting on a wedding with your best friend is pretty extraordinary.
Take the year. Deuteronomy 24:5 says, “If a man has recently married his wife, he is not to be subject to military service; he is to be free of external obligations and left at home for one year to make his new wife happy.” Now I thought this meant that we should not do new ministries or big projects, but what I learned after that year came to an end is that we should have been more reclusive. Perhaps it was our lifestyle, but we needed more time together, more time for arguments and conflict resolution, more sleep, more healing from our engagement, more time to sit with one another and feel comfortable in each other’s presence. We had been best friends, but life partners takes time spent together to build. I won’t even say work, as others do, but intentionality and prioritizing. Prioritize the lulls. A marriage, like a wedding day, needs the lulls. Just as in silence we can know ourselves, hear from the Holy Spirit, sense nature…it is in these moments we grow a deeper knowing of who our spouse is truly.
Get the dress. This is both practical and sentimental. It took way longer to order a dress than I anticipated. So while I thought I went looking early and had lots of time, I barely got my dress in time for fittings. And the woman who fitted my dress was horrible and kept canceling so it was not done the way I wanted it to be because it was rushed. So get to it right away. I wish for every bride to fall in love with their dress. I quite literally prayed over finding the right magical one in my budget and thankfully God worked it out to that end. I felt so beautiful. It really was a dream come true for me once all was said and done and I stood there ready on my wedding day. So get the dress.
Accepting help on your big day is the same as accepting help in your marriage. Only have people on your special day that you know and trust and want in your corner in your marriage. If they have no skin in the game, if they don’t know you, they are often full of hot air. Maybe it was different twenty years ago, but today people want to hear themselves talk more than they want to listen to the heart of the matter and genuinely advise you. If they can’t listen to how you want the dessert table decorated, then you shouldn’t trust in their ability to listen to your heart concerning the most important relationship of your life. In my view, the people who are witnesses at your wedding are also the people who hold you up in your marriage.
Take the most chill honeymoon you can fathom. While I don’t regret the romance of a Disney Park trip for a moment, I do wish we planned more time to just exist together as a married couple. There was not a single lull during our honeymoon. For the next three years we felt like we needed a vacation. So while it is tempting to do the adventure and excursions and the dream trip, make space for rest together.
When possible, have a singular focus on the engagement and preparation season. You are only a fiance for a short season. Avoid learning and doing new things. While I can’t regret it, learning how to play DND right before we were married, making some new friends, getting to know the inlaws… just to name a few things, plus becoming a wife was wild.
The vows. Make them count. Opportunities to profess your love and your commitment publicly do not come often. We added a bit of our story, bits and bobbles that held a lot of meaning for us both and of course, communicated our commitment to one another and also professed that commitment before God. I was so proud to say outloud my admiration and love for my husband. It was my favorite part of the ceremony.
Balance both levity and seriousness in your relationship. My husband is a stoic and quiet man, yet clever, witty and genuinely hilarious and sometimes downright goofy. I tend to think deeply and be very sentimental but can be bubbly and bright and full of laughs and sunshine. Having times of joy and simply setting aside work has saved us when things have piled up, grief and loss have almost taken over our lives and our goals keep slipping through our fingers. It is written for husbands to love their bride as Christ loves the Church. A tall order. And wives to respect, but also love their husband as a best friend. Occasionally illusive. And I count it as a blessing that we cannot always meet each other’s needs in marriage, because that is our opportunity to love like Christ loved. It is also our reminder to seek God to meet our needs. In doing so we love one another better.
I have no doubt that over the years I will be adding to this list. I hope you do too! What is a piece of advice that you would add? It would be an honor to read a comment or message from you!
The triumphant sound of Star Wars played as my man kissed his bride and we were pronounced husband and wife. I bounced down the aisle, raising my bouquet in the air, my husband dipped me and kissed me again. And if you have read previous essays, you may have read about this moment before. Flowers and friends watched as we made our first walk together as one. Our second lull of the day arrived as we were ushered into the arboretum to sign our marriage license with our wedding party–our best friends as witnesses. My husband’s account is that that is when it hit him that we were married. I don’t think it hit me until the next morning quite honestly. But there we were, taking a rest and freshening up, friends coming to congratulate us and then a stillness settled upon the room. We could hear the wedding playlist we built together, composed of vintage big band music, instrumental Disney favorites and the themes to just about every romantic movie I loved and romantic song I dreamed to growing up. My mother-in-law said it felt like she was on Disneyland’s main street and that was probably the best compliment I could have received about the magic my husband and I created together. And here it was that I read the engraving on my ring: You are my new dream. And we have been making dreams together ever since.
Our wedding began with a walk and ended with a dance. Hours later, another beautiful lull. The crowd faded away, preparing for our exit. The dancing lights came down, casting a romantic blue and lavender hue across the dance floor. “So This is Love” playing, and just like in the Disney film, the colors seemed to melt together like a lovely dream, punctuated by the glittering of fairy lights and lanterns hung above us. Our fairytale moment.
The bookends of our wedding, “I See the Light” and “So This is Love.” Celebratory John Williams in the middle and many more. Three lulls in a magnificent, magical and a full of movement day. Our lives continue to be so–full of movement, but we look for the lulls of peace and presence with each other in the middle of everything else swirling around us.
References and Inspiration:
Collette Carol deNevers. “Wedding Vibing“
Cinderella. Directed by Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske, and Wilfred Jackson, Walt Disney Productions, 1950.
Deuteronomy 24:5
Menken, Alan, and Glenn Slater. “I See the Light.” Tangled. Performed by Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi, Walt Disney Records, 2010.
“So This Is Love.” Cinderella. Music by Mack David, Al Hoffman, and Jerry Livingston, Walt Disney Productions, 1950.
Star Wars: A New Hope. Directed by George Lucas, Lucasfilm, 1977.
Tangled. Directed by Nathan Greno and Byron Howard, Walt Disney Animation Studios, 2010.
Williams, John. “The Throne Room and End Titles.” Star Wars: A New Hope. 20th Century Fox, 1977