It’s Not About the Wedding – Chapter 5 – It’s Not About the Location

•September 1, 2010 • Leave a Comment

This is the 5th in a series of 16 chapters from a new manuscript I am working on called It’s Not About the Wedding: A Common Sense Guide to Getting it Right the First Time, or Any Time.  I would love to receive any and all positive or negative feedback on this topic, particularly from those of you who are perhaps currently engaged to be married!  Stay tuned for subsequent chapters to follow…

Apparently, it was either the castle or guests...

Let me begin by stating that I completely understand why 80% of all weddings take place in a church.  Being a Christian myself, and giving God all of the glory for bringing me this patient, loving, and forgiving woman – as well as the Biblical illustration of Christ as the bridegroom and the church as his bride – I get it.  At the same time, I believe that God is bigger than one sanctuary, building, or denomination.

Look, even the most pious and “holier than thou” Christian can choose the most glorious and architecturally magnificent cathedral in the world for their wedding ceremony, but if their hearts are not bound together by a cord of three strands (husband, wife, and Christ), then the bond is easily broken.  I’m reminded of a scene in the movie “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”, where Indy must choose from a vast array of chalices – silver, gold, jeweled – to find the chalice of Christ.  In the end it was a simple earthenware jug – “the cup of a carpenter”.  Sometimes the simplest choices are the best.  If your hearts are in the right place, and you “gather in His name” and make your wedding a worship service, you can “have church” on the beach or anywhere else.

I remember driving all over town looking for a perfect (and affordable) church in which to get married.  In the end, my wife and I got married beneath a Willow tree, beside a pond, on a friend’s property where our family had already created some wonderful memories.  There were, at most, a dozen people there including us.  The ceremony was performed by the ordained minister who teaches our Bible study class on Sundays at church, and let me tell you – God was there.

The truth is that people of all faiths get married in all kinds of different locations every day.  The focus should not be so much upon where you get married.  Instead, focus on where your heart is.  A wedding that is all pomp and circumstance, all gothic cathedral and string quartet, all Scottish castle and bagpipes, but has no heart will surely fail.

So, tie the knot in church, or Vegas, or on the beach, or at city hall – wherever.  If you’re like me, your surroundings will fade away as you gaze into the eyes of the one you love.

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It’s Not About the Wedding – Chapter 4 – It’s Not About the Proposal

•August 30, 2010 • 1 Comment

This is the 4th in a series of 16 chapters from a new manuscript I am working on called It’s Not About the Wedding: A Common Sense Guide to Getting it Right the First Time, or Any Time.  I would love to receive any and all positive or negative feedback on this topic, particularly from those of you who are perhaps currently engaged to be married!  Stay tuned for subsequent chapters to follow…

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Did you hear the true story about the 28-year-old Londoner who thought he had the most romantic idea for proposing to his girlfriend?  First, he spent $12,000 on a very impressive engagement ring.  Next, he decided to hide the ring inside a balloon filled with helium, figuring he would ask her to pop the balloon after he popped the question.  Finally, upon leaving the jewelry store with the ring inside the balloon, he accidentally let it go.  There he stood, watching the balloon, and the ring, disappear into the sky.  To my knowledge, the ring was never found, and the girlfriend wouldn’t even speak to the poor guy until he bought her another ring.  Clearly, her love for him was bigger than any little ring.  I wonder if they’re still together…

Admittedly, some men spend a lot of time thinking about how they will propose.  It’s just another stressful situation that doesn’t need to be that way.  The methods are endless, ranging from simply getting down on one knee to splashing your “no pressure” question across the JumboTron at a sporting event.  I have a friend in Tennessee who sent his girlfriend on a “girl’s weekend” to New York City in the dead of winter.  He then snuck up to NYC himself and waited what ended up being several hours at the top of a very chilly Empire State Building until her friends (who were in on it) brought her up.  There, in the footsteps of Tom Hanks, he got down on one knee and proposed.  Sure, he ruined it for the rest of us, but he clearly showed the lengths to which he would go to prove his love.

Honestly, I kind of got tired of trying to think of the perfect proposal.  It got to the point where I just knew it was time, and I couldn’t wait any longer.  My proposal was far from perfect.  It will never be reenacted in a feature film.  She and I may not even remember the details when we’re old.  Still, right there in her bedroom, after giving her a cheesy card I made myself, I let her know how much I loved her, and how much I wanted to spend my life with her.  She said, “Yes!”

Men, don’t get too hung up on the details.  More importantly, don’t think of the proposal as you promising her this amazingly romantic and perfectly fulfilling life.  That is a promise upon which you can never deliver.  Instead, think of the proposal as a way of saying, “This, this is what I want.  What we already have.  Right here, right now.  I have already found it.  Please let me keep it forever.”

Ladies, I know that you were all little girls once, and little girls do dream, don’t they?  You’ve grown up with a vision of your white knight.  You’ve seen the movies and read the novels.  That may even be your friend at the top of the Empire State Building living the dream.  Not every man is Mr. Romantic.  Some are not very creative.  Some believe you really want it on the JumboTron.  Find the man you love and don’t pressure him.  If you truly love him, and make him feel loved, he will be pulled down onto that one knee by forces he never knew existed!

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Deep Thoughts from a Shallow Mind – 8/28/10

•August 28, 2010 • 2 Comments


There’s actually a guy in Calgary named Kenny Bunkport.  I kid you not.  Look it up.

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It’s Not About the Wedding – Chapter 3 – It’s Not About the Ring

•August 27, 2010 • Leave a Comment

This is the 3rd in a series of 16 chapters from a new manuscript I am working on called It’s Not About the Wedding: A Common Sense Guide to Getting it Right the First Time, or Any Time.  I would love to receive any and all positive or negative feedback on this topic, particularly from those of you who are perhaps currently engaged to be married!  Stay tuned for subsequent chapters to follow…

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Chapter 3 – It’s Not About The Ring

A ring is a symbol.  An engagement or wedding ring is supposed to be a symbol of love and never-ending unity.  Instead, it has become a symbol of status.  Spend a day watching wedding-themed television shows, movies, and even commercials, and you would think that the success of your marriage is determined by the size, cut, cost, color, and design of your engagement ring – and/or where you bought it.

As a man who was once young, poor, and engaged – all at the same time – let me assure you that this is a pressure pot that does nothing to relieve any nervousness a future groom may feel about “settling down”.  And don’t even mention the whole “two month’s salary” rule, which originated from De Beers marketing materials in the early 20th century, in an effort to increase the sale of diamonds.  If I hadn’t had the option to finance my purchase, and had only spent two months of what I was making at that point in my life, my fiancée’s finger would have instantly turned green from the gold-painted plastic and Cracker Jack residue.  So, in order to keep up appearances, I began my marriage (before it started) by going into debt.  Not smart.  Remember that by joining hands, hearts, and lives in marriage, you also create a joint financial future.

I read a quote that, while quite entertaining, also struck me as spot-on accurate.  In addressing the growing expense of engagement rings (the average cost of a diamond engagement ring is between $3,500 and $4,000), Conor Friedersdorf wrote, “In a way, it’s bizarre that women given engagement rings don’t respond by saying something like, ‘I’d love to marry you.’ (Beat.) ‘And thank you so much for this ring.’ (Eyes welling up.) ‘I cherish the thought behind it, and I’ll keep it forever if you’d like.’ (Happy tears.) ‘On the other hand, we could take it back and use the money to spend several months together in coastal Italy.’”

In an age where the average American family carries approximately $8,000 in debt, it just doesn’t make sense to start your life together under the financial burden of paying for something that is supposed to symbolize your love – especially when you consider that it could take your entire two-year “Honeymoon Phase” or longer to pay it off in full.  Heck, why not just “go green” and get your significant other’s name tattooed around your ring finger?  If a ring is truly a symbol of love, and if that love is reciprocated by the receiver of the ring, then the details of the ring should be irrelevant.  The size of the diamond is not directly proportionate to the depth of the love.  Look, when rings began back in ancient times they were made out of everything from bone to hemp to hair, and often had to be thrown away after about a year due to general wear and tear!

Men, I know the pressure is on. It’s not only pressure to get a big, expensive ring, but even just to pick out a ring that she likes.  Some of you probably fear picking out a ring that she wouldn’t be seen dead in.  Truthfully, if she really loves you, she will either tell you that she loves it or find a way to talk honestly with you about it until a compromise is reached.  It’s a ring.  Don’t sweat it.  You are not having a wedding to give her a ring.  You are having a wedding to give her yourself.

Women, I know the pressure is on for you as well.  Your sister or neighbor or girlfriend got engaged last month, and she has a 2 carat princess cut diamond on a stunning platinum band!  What are you going to do if the man you love gets down on one knee and gives you a plain gold band with no gemstones?  Are you going to turn him down?  He loves you.  Be content with his offering, whatever it is.  I know more than one woman who proudly wore the ring her husband placed on her hand on their wedding day until some undetermined day, years into their marriage, when she picked out a different one herself – with his blessing.  I know others who didn’t care for their ring at first, but who’s love grew so deeply over time that their desire for anything else faded away.  The ring, plain or pricey, could get lost or stolen tomorrow.  He, on the other hand, is a keeper.

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It’s Not About the Wedding – Chapter 2 – It’s Not About Getting Married

•August 26, 2010 • Leave a Comment

This is the 2nd in a series of 16 chapters from a new manuscript I am working on called It’s Not About the Wedding: A Common Sense Guide to Getting it Right the First Time, or Any Time.  I would love to receive any and all positive or negative feedback on this topic, particularly from those of you who are perhaps currently engaged to be married!  Stay tuned for subsequent chapters to follow…

Chapter 2 – It’s Not About Getting Married

This chapter was originally titled, “It’s Not About Marriage”.  A friend pointed out to me that that title was a bit misleading, and asked, “If it’s not about marriage, then what is it about?”  I realized that I needed to make a change.  While the updated title is only slightly different, it makes an important differentiation.  I reached a point in my life, around 21 or 22, where I just decided it was time to get married – before I had anyone to marry.  When the next person I dated said she wanted to get married, it was a foregone conclusion that it would happen.  I foolishly believed that getting married was the answer to whatever problems I was having in life (which, at that time, included depression).  My friend was correct, it is about marriage, union, relationship.  What it is not about is the act of getting married.  That, in and of itself, won’t change anything, except to create more problems if you do it for the wrong reasons.

Married life isn’t necessarily all that different from single life – at least not until children come into the picture.  Sure, there are rings on your fingers, and you’ve managed to squeeze all of both of your things into that smallish apartment, but you need to understand that there are many aspects of your life and relationship that will not change at all between the day before and the day after your wedding.  The fact of the matter is that by the time you get to the wedding, you should already have the relationship you want to maintain and nurture forever.  This is not to say that you have the perfect relationship, or that you won’t grow closer and deeper in love through the years.  However, if your decision to marry someone is based solely on your vision of the future of the relationship, instead of the reality of the relationship you have right now, there are going to be issues.

Marriage is not the solution to a problem. There are little lies that we tell ourselves when we don’t want to face the truth.  One example is the “when” lie.  I totally fell victim to this one, which causes you to miss all kinds of warning signs.  The “when” lie convinces you to gloss over and look beyond issues that are crying out to be addressed by telling yourself, “It will be better when…”  For instance, perhaps you find you and your betrothed arguing a little more than you are comfortable with.  Don’t chalk it up to the stress of planning a wedding and convince yourself that it will be better when you’re married.  The reality is this:  If something is not working now, it probably won’t work when you’re married either.  In a lifetime together, you are going to experience situations that are much, much more stressful than planning a wedding.

If you use the “when” lie once, you will use it a hundred times.  I spent a decade convincing myself that things would change when… we got married… when I got a better job… when we had a house of our own… when I saw my wife holding our child…  How could they not?  While many things did change over that time, many did not, and I finally realized that they never would.

It’s a bit of an odd source, but a good example of another lie we tell ourselves comes from the movie Wedding Crashers.  Claire (Rachel McAdams) is engaged to Zach (Bradley Cooper), who is obviously an absolute jerk who wouldn’t know love if it smacked him in the face.  As she begins to fall for John (Owen Wilson), she clearly begins to doubt her love for Zach, but she simply dismisses this doubt as “just how everyone feels before they get married.”  Don’t allow yourself to believe this lie.  Follow your instincts and take a closer look at what is making you feel this way.  There may be significant underlying issues that are serious enough to consider postponing or even calling off the wedding.

If there are doubts, fears, questions, secrets, or other issues in a pre-marital relationship, they must be openly addressed before the wedding planning begins.  This sounds so simple, but if it doesn’t happen early on, it gets harder and harder to bring up these very important details as the wedding draws closer.  As a close friend (who is now divorced) said to me, “Once the wedding plans start it’s like a runaway train.”

More to come in Chapter 3…

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It’s Not About the Wedding – Chapter 1

•August 24, 2010 • 2 Comments

This is the first in a series of 16 chapters from a new manuscript I am working on called It’s Not About the Wedding: A Common Sense Guide to Getting it Right the First Time, or Any Time.  I would love to receive any and all positive or negative feedback on this topic, particularly from those of you who are perhaps currently engaged to be married!  Stay tuned for subsequent chapters to follow…

Introduction

There is nothing wrong with wanting, or even having the biggest, most beautiful, most elaborate wedding in the world, as long as you can pull it off without losing sight of the reason why it’s happening.  That is the challenge so many couples, and marriages, fail to meet.  The fact of the matter is that no matter how much time, effort, and money you put into creating the perfect wedding, on the day after your wedding, the wedding will be over.  The marriage, however, will have just begun.

Chapter 1 – It’s Not About The Wedding

Behold the wedding.  What a glorious event – The culmination of hours, weeks, and months of work (mostly by the bride), all in an attempt to create that elusive “Fairy Tale Wedding”.  But what is the point, really?  Why do we spend tens of thousands of dollars on this one day with no guaranteed return on our investment?  The real question is this:  What are we investing in?

For many of us, it’s status.  Our friends are having large and elaborate weddings, so why shouldn’t we?  Even the parents of the bride and groom are guilty.  Their friends’ children are having big, expensive weddings and we all want to keep up with the Jones’s, right?  To make matters worse, we see and hear about our favorite celebrities living out every “common” bride’s dreams.  They hold weddings in large, centuries-old castles in Ireland.  They have dresses made exclusively for them by world-famous designers.  They have hundreds of guests packing the house to witness this historic event.

Of course, we all know the sad reality.  Not many of these dreamy weddings actually result in a marriage that lasts.  Some last for all of a few weeks.

So, what can be done before the wedding to help ensure a loving, lasting union after the wedding?   It’s all about focusing on the things that really matter.  More to come in Chapter 2…

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Deep Thoughts from a Shallow Mind – 8/20/10

•August 20, 2010 • 2 Comments

Dolly

If I had a pet llama, I would definitely name her Dolly.
Then I could tell everyone that the Dolly Llama’s at my house.

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Some Friends You Keep.

•August 18, 2010 • 4 Comments

Some friends you keep.  No matter how many miles separate you, or how many months or years pass by without seeing them.  The older I get, the more I appreciate this kind of friend.  When your paths do cross, you pick up right where you left off – re-living the glory days; marveling at how much your kids have grown; laughing about receding hairlines and expanding waistlines.

It’s wonderful to have friends who you see regularly and often.  Neighbors, church friends, family friends – they are all invaluable in life.  However, it’s equally wonderful to have those with whom you somehow remain magically connected over miles and years.

Today, social media apps such as Facebook are changing the landscape of friendships.  I could, in a matter of minutes, send a message to countless high school classmates of mine from 20 years ago.  I have Facebook friends with whom I haven’t spoken in those 20 years, and yet I can tell you how long they’ve been married, how many kids they have, where they work, and in some cases even minutiae such as what they had for dinner last night.

Times change.  My best friends are spread across the United States.  And yet, “best friend” is a label for life.  My best friends will always be my best friends.  If we don’t see each other for five years.  If we forget the names of each others’ kids, whom we’ve only met once or twice.  If we forget to send that birthday card.  It doesn’t matter.  You still look forward to the next time you can share a beer and a laugh together.  Some friends will come and go, but some friends you keep.

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Deep Thoughts from a Shallow Mind – 8/12/10

•August 12, 2010 • 1 Comment


Sometimes, when I put paper into the paper shredder,
I like to scream as if my hand is caught,
just to see who’s paying attention.

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The Days Are Evil – Balancing dreaming of tomorrow with seizing today

•August 10, 2010 • 3 Comments

I believe that God made it physically impossible for anyone under the age of 30 to completely grasp how quickly time passes, and that you truly can’t go back and do it again. “There’s always tomorrow” is a comforting thought when contemplating making changes or “corrections” in our lives.  However, you don’t hear “There’s always yesterday” very often.  Yesterday is gone and it’s “read only”.

I just watched a very cool video (The Boys of Fall) in which Sean Payton, coach of the Superbowl Champion New Orleans Saints, is in his old high school locker room addressing a team of high school players who are about to go out onto the field for the final game of their season.  He tells them, “27 years ago, I sat in this locker room just like you guys are, on a knee, getting ready to play a game.  I walked down the locker room – it still smells the same.  It takes you back real quick, but one of the things that caught me was how fast 27 years goes by.”  He then focuses on the Seniors, who are about to play their final game.  “…you Seniors that are focused on college, you’re focused on your work after high school, what you’re going to do next…  You’re focused on tomorrow, aren’t you?  You’ve got plenty of time for tomorrow.  But these ‘tonights’ are going by fast.  You focus on tonight.”

When we are young, we dream.  We dream of growing up.  We dream of “becoming” something we currently are not.  We are asked again and again, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  Dreaming is good, especially for a child.  At the same time, I wish that as a child I had the same appreciation that I now have for who and where I am right now.  I absolutely want my kids to dream about what they want to be.  But I also want them to be proud and excited about who they are.

My kids are 8, 8, and 9 years old.  They are smart.  They are creative.  They argue.  Their laughter fills me up.  They’re actually young enough that they’re not all that focused on tomorrow.  They’re focused on right now in the sense that “I’m bored” and “there’s nothing to do” are the most commonly heard phrases around the house.  And yet, there are kids, even at their ages, who are forced to “dream of tomorrow” and “appreciate each day” in an entirely different way.

Last night I watched an episode of Extreme Makeover – Home Edition in which a young girl with an incurable disease had raised thousands of dollars for Cancer research, inspiring countless others along the way.  Now, while I’m sure she had some help from an adult or two, she had to be the one who’s vision and voice inspired even those adults to help her get things going.  She was young too – 10 tops.  But her dream for tomorrow is simply to reach it.  Her dream for today is to do something to make the world a better place.

And so, it is sometimes hard to find a balance.  I want my kids to be kids.  I want them to run and play; ride a bike; dive onto a slip-and-slide in the yard; explore the world.  And yet, I want them to understand that even now, at their age, they should dream big not only for the future, but also for what they can accomplish today.  More than just the high score on a computer game.  More than brushing their teeth without having to be told.  If you can dream it, you can do it.

For many, “When you grow up” is synonymous with “When the fun stops and you have to get a job.”  How odd it is that we spend the first 20 years or so of our lives waiting to grow up, only to spend the rest of our lives wanting to go back.

Looking ahead is a necessary evil.  But if you are so focused on a goal set down the road ahead, then you can’t see the potholes right in front of you.  Be thankful for today.  It is a gift.  Don’t just make it through the day.  Make something happen.  Help someone else make it through the day.

Microsoft asked, “What do you want to do today?”  To me, that is just as important as what you want to be when you grow up.

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