i'm getting married

in 4 days.




woah.


p.s. yes, i will write a real blog post again. just not tonight.

oh, hi

it's been awhile since i've visited this here blog. i've been caught up in a whirlwind of last-minute wedding planning and it's only getting more last-minute.


here are some of the things that have happened recently, or just things that have been on my mind...

• andrew peterson, dancing in the minefields. yes, brett posted it already and i know there's a lot of overlap in readers, but it deserves another shout out.
• i have been hanging out in 1 peter in my quiet times lately, and 1 peter 2:16 has been on my mind. haven't quite figured out why, or even figured it out... so i'll just keep hanging out there.
• i was baptized on sunday.
• brett and i had engagement pictures taken (yeah, most people get engagement pictures taken right around when they get engaged... we got ours done 2 months before we got married. :) no harm done, right?) you can view them by visiting this website, click "wedding", click "proofing", and use the password "Wendle".
• starbucks started offering free wi-fi.
• i'm coming up on my last week of work. this means two things: 1. i'll have a lot more time to devote to wedding details and packing(!) and 2. we are getting really close to the wedding!
• this is just fun.
  

hopefully my next post will actually have a point and be somewhat significant. until then, i hope this was, at the very least, entertaining. :)


edit: if i had waited just one more day to post, it would have been a full month... i'm not sure how i feel about missing it by one day.

A very honest post.

Some days (if I'm being totally honest--most days) I want to scrap this whole wedding and start over.


Okay, not the whole wedding. I'd like to keep the groom.


I don't know about you, but ever since I learned what a wedding was--so, about six years old--I started planning mine. Granted, it has been an ever-changing sort of "planning"... but it has never been far from my mind. I would see a wedding on TV/in a movie and I would make sure to note what I did or did not like. I would attend a wedding and imagine myself in a pretty white dress. I would help friends plan their weddings and think "I wonder which flowers I would choose..."


So when it came time for me to actually plan a wedding, I thought I was ahead of the game. I knew the flowers, I knew the cake. I was already reading the blogs and the magazines. I'd watched plenty of weddings being planned. I was waiting for me to fall in love with my wedding, the wedding of my six-year-old dreams.


But then, I realized that it wasn't just my wedding. Other people had been planning this wedding! Not only was I getting married to someone who obviously had a say in the plans, but I'm an only daughter! My mother and grandmother had probably been imagining this day longer than I had.


Enter a lot of compromise, give-and-take, and just plain disappointment.


I kept reminding myself that this day is not about me, in any sense of the word. In the littlest sense, this day is about family. Of course my mom and grandma would have dreams about my wedding! Of course I'll compromise with them!


In the biggest sense, this day is about the gospel. It is about Brett and I being joined together in a covenant that is representative of Christ and the church. It is about servanthood, love, humility. It is about tangibly displaying Christ's love to the world. It is not about getting what I want.


And honestly, I think that this is just real life. I think that this is what happens to most of us. Most brides don't choose absolutely every detail--most brides compromise with their family and loved ones. Most brides don't get everything they've ever dreamed of--most brides compromise based on what is practical. Most brides aren't thrilled and in love with every part of their wedding. It's not realistic to think otherwise.


But the wedding blogs and the magazines won't tell you this. They won't tell you that you might not have your six-year-old dream wedding. They won't tell you that after compromising and merging different tastes, styles, and dreams there will be some things you're just... not a fan of. They won't tell you that because it's not as glamorous.


But it is just as beautiful. I am still getting marry Brett on August 21st. I am still getting to stand in front of my friends and family and vow to love him for the rest of my life. I am still going to have the wedding of my dreams because it is going to be my wedding! The wedding in which not only my plans come to life, but my plans and dreams are merged with those of all the people I love; the wedding in which I get to marry Brett and on that day, I probably won't care about any of the other details. :)

Things I Learned Today

(Bridal Shower Edition)


1. No matter how old I get, funfetti will always be my favorite cake flavor.
2. Having the groom come for "present opening" (i.e. opening presents in front of people while everyone stares at you [yes, I know I'm being dramatic... but sometimes it feels this way!]) makes the time slightly less awkward.
3. It is possible to have a bridal shower without any of those cheesy/typical bridal shower games.
4. It is apparently possible to get married to someone without knowing basic things about their life. [e.g. "If he could go anywhere in the world, where would he go?"]
5. Bridal showers, while sometimes awkward, are so totally worth it. Especially when they are with my friends. :)

Explanation: I'm the type of person that gets awkward when there's lots of attention on me, and so an entire party devoted to talking about me, encouraging me, praying for me, giving me presents, opening presents in front of people, being the only one playing a game, etc. always intimidated me. BUT -- not saying today wasn't awkward at times, or that I was totally comfortable with all of the attention -- but, I feel loved. I feel cherished and ushered towards marriage with love and prayer and a body of women who care about me. I totally get why bridal showers exist, and it is so totally worth it to be sent off into marriage with a group of women spending a day lifting you up to the Lord and just loving you. I am so blessed.

some tuesday grace

This afternoon I was driving and I realized that my mind was racing with wedding planning thoughts, I was anxious and didn't even realize it. So I stopped to pray. God was so gracious in that moment to meet me with some truth.

A few days ago I was chatting with a friend who encouraged me by telling me that something that she tried to remember while she was planning her wedding was that God even knew what the font on her invitations was going to be, He knew the details. When she first told me, it was a good reminder--so comforting to hear. And while I was praying today, the Lord brought that back to mind. He has already planned my wedding. He knows where it will be, who will come, what flowers we'll go with, etc. And it will all be to accomplish His purposes. It's not my job to choose the one option that is going to make the gospel apparent or not. He's already done it.

As hard as it is for me to believe, God is sovereign even in the tiny details of wedding planning. And I just need to seek Him in it, and everything will fall into place. Somehow, I'm planning a wedding that has already been planned. And praise God for that!

Finally... pictures of my ring. :)

Make sure to tell Brett what a wonderfully perfect job he did.

wedding & marriage planning.

Chocolate brown dresses + black tuxes = an unhappy bride.

This is the current dilemma in my wedding planning life... and with the amount of hours i have spent thinking about this (more than i'd like to admit!) it has migrated from the "wedding planning only" portion of my brain to a more prominent spot. Ugh.

Last week, it was something else. And next week, i'm sure, it will be something new. I spend hours and hours of my life planning tiny little--some may say petty--details about a wedding. a wedding--the means by which I get married.

I feel like I should be spending hours and hours of my life planning all the details of how I'm going to be married. That seems like a way bigger deal to me. Married?? How the heck do i do that? I don't know how to be a wife!

Ephesians 5:22-34 tells me:

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives submit in everything to their husbands.

The passage continues talking about marriage, using the image of Christ and the Church. Whether the relationship of Christ and the Church is supposed to the example for how marriage should function, or if marriage should point to the relationship between Christ and the Church, (actually, it's probably both) all I know is that it's a pretty tall order.

And I feel like I should be spending wayyyy more time planning for that than I am the wedding. I want to focus my time planning to be married rather than to get married. And maybe the potential color clashing should be a significantly lower priority. :)