You may or may not have come across the concept of wedding reports. On the forum I frequent it is fairly common for the bride, having planned her day to the T, to return to the forum after the event and write an article, usually in several posts and stretching to several pages, embedded with her favourite images from her wedding day and planning, explaining exactly what she planned, how she planned it and how everything turned out. They vary in length, picture content and wordiness, as befits the different characters who write them.
I enjoy reading them (although I do tend to form opinions about the women writing them!) and look forward to more appearing on the site. I will do one myself after our wedding.
I like a good love story, but most of the reports have let me down a little on that front. It wasn’t until I read ProudMrsBoreham’s account of her wedding ceremony in her wedding report that I realised what was wrong with all of the others: they never concluded the love story.
The story always starts as boy meets girl, describes the proposal and then moves on to the wedding planning. I always intended to keep my planning bit short, mostly because I’ve already done a planning thread, this blog, and stuck my nose in all over the place on the forum, facebook and anywhere else it fits. The climax is the big day, obviously well worth plenty of description, with pictures of things from throughout the planning. They get married and then it’s all over. But where is the romantic climax? The bit which makes you weep because you’re so touched by their happily ever after.
This beautiful description is from ProudMrsBoreham’s report:
As we were pronounced Husband and Wife I remember the applause ringing in my ears, as I held Hubs face in my hands his lips touched mine and the electricity raced through my body. Every moment of stress in the run up to the wedding and any heartache I had felt in any of my life just melted away. I was made complete in that one instant.
It is the only thing of it’s kind I have found. People have touched me with stories about babies and parents/grandparents who have died shortly after the wedding, or fathers who have managed to walk their daughters down the aisle despite severe illness. But these are beautiful things associated with the wedding, not the beautiful moments of the wedding.
Some brides have said they they cried a bit, but we’re left in the dark about what. Some say that members of their family cried (but perhaps the bride herself was not so phased).
And basically, I’m just a bit worried that some of them have forgotten what it’s all about.
Not everybody wants to share these moments with a load of strangers on the web, I understand that, but I have now been using this forum for a year, and I have read one report which satisfies this need. Or is it about audience selectivity? Perhaps the women on the forum who read these reports (other than me) are only interesting in vulturing in on the planning details so that they can make their wedding just as awesome. The personal bits – well, you can’t copy those, can you?
In church weddings, I understand it’s not the same either. It’s more formal, you don’t have your own vows or anything, so it’s not quite as personal… but the wonderful moment ProudMrsBoreham described is not exclusive to a civil ceremony and personalised wedding vows.
The mystery remains. And my worry remains that the wedding excitement has grown so big that it has eclipsed the mariage excitement. I’m well aware of this phenomenon, and several very practical women are always on guard in the forum to remind others of this and keep them focussed.
It’s just that I would have hoped
In the end, the great finale,
The moment of truth,
The wedding report would not have forgotten,
And focussed on flowers,
But without forgoing the frivolous part,
Focussed first of all on the feeling,
Of that firm and forever, everlasting love.