MONTH #3: January 17 - February 17, 2008, Continued...

Recap
Our third month of marriage was pretty much the most social month we've ever had as a couple!
We hosted a Superbowl Party, a Game Night with Tim's family, a Katie-visit weekend, hung out with new people, went on a road trip to Iowa and even a random night out in Milwaukee with Katie following our Louis C.K. show!

Marriage Epiphany
In the great marriage debate, some of the popular arguments coming from the nay-sayers are:
"It's only a piece of paper" or
"What's going to change once there are rings on our fingers?"
And believe me, I see the point behind these arguments. In the months I was getting antsy to get that ring on my finger, I would think of those arguments to not fret so much about it.
But, now I see, marriage IS so much more than that.
Tim and I owned our condo together for over a year before we got married, so while we were bound by that already, we are still so much more bound now!
First, before 11/17/07 Tim & I could "break up." That's it - divide our things, sell the condo. But now we would have to get Divorced. Just the sound of it sounds SO much more intense. Heck, we need lawyers just to do it!! You don't need that when you break up!
Second, while before November 17, Tim was "like family" to mine and I to his...but, we weren't family. We have official family titles now - son and daughter-in-law, brother and sister-in-law! That certainly changes the perspective from my brother saying "my sister's boyfriend" - which gives a level of disconnect.
Thirdly, the whole "why do we need rings to prove our love?" argument is dramatic. But in a way, it's true! Before we were engaged, I could live life without anyone knowing of Tim, unless I talked about him. Even if we're out together, there's no telltale sign to distinguish between it being our first date versus our 200th! But now, my name has changed and everywhere we go, people see the rings on our fingers. We are now and forever known as married!
Lastly, and this is really the largest chunk of my epiphany, is the investment our friends and family and, heck, even our vendors made in our wedding! Besides the assumed "obligation" our close friends and family may have felt they had to be at our wedding, it's pretty safe to say that everyone who attended our wedding believed in our relationship to at least some degree. Even for our friends and family who didn't know both of us, they still believed in whichever one of us they knew - that we were making a huge commitment and that our love was now official. Our wedding day was one of the biggest and most important days of our lives, if not THE biggest! Because come what may - children, new homes, new trips, new memories - will all be a result of our wedding day.
But getting back to the "investment." Even on the smaller scale, when I think about everything that had to come together for our wedding - all the different hands in the pot, if you will, it really makes me realize that our wedding was truly an investment!!!
-We spent 2 hours with Father Chuck a few months before the wedding so he could get to know us and our story, and he spent God only knows ; ) how much time, thought and consideration into that great homily he gave!
-The church choir, cantor and string quartet performed the gorgeous wedding music, providing the setting and soundtrack for the pinnacle of our wedding day
-The photographers spent 12 hours following us around, posing us and capturing the special, funny and beautiful moments of our wedding day and the artistic hours they will spend designing our wedding album will tell that story
-The DJ's entertained our guests, continued to tell our story with the songs they played and made the last hours of our wedding day as memorable as the first!
-My hair was styled ever so meticulously and my make-up applied to transition me from my last moments of Monica Simon to my first day as Mrs. Monica O'Neill, as beautiful as I could ever be.
-The cake, flowers and reception hall were all prepared with a wedding in mind - that they were integral pieces necessary to make our wedding complete.
And that's not even the half of it!!!
Our families spent great amounts of time and money hosting parties and showers for us and helping with many aspects of our wedding planning.
Our bridal party spent time and money to plan and attend our bachelor/bachelorette trips on top of the guys getting their tuxes fitted and ordered and the gals doing the same for their dresses plus their hair!
While the bridesmaid dresses will most likely hang in the back of a closet for years to come, as long as Tim & I remain a happy couple and have a healthy marriage, when Katie, my sister, Lorie, Chelsea, Tina & Michelle and even the girls - Paige, Taylor and Isabella, catch a glimpse of that dress stuffed in the back corner of that closet from time to time, they'll at least know it stood for something.
And for now and forever, Tim & I and our families will look at our wedding pictures, seeing my fancy thousand-dollar Oleg Cassini gown, my hair and make-up that took over 2hrs to complete, the bridesmaid dresses I made my friends wear, the tuxes Tim wore and made his friends wear, the children in our wedding party who only stayed that age for what seemed like a blink of an eye, the flowers the florist at Alpha flowers worked hard to assemble, the cheesecake the baker in West Allis assembled and delivered oh-so carefully, the Domes in the background of our magnificent wedding portraits, and the Radisson reception hall that was set up exactly as requested...and remember that Saturday November 17, 2007 was a joyous, romantic, sentimental day and one hell of a party!!!
And someday, when our children look at our wedding pictures...we will still say the same thing...and I'm betting we'll still feel that way.