I’ve got Wedding Fever, and the only cure is more… Weddings?

Chapel bells are ringing, because wedding season is in swing. And everyone and their mother (literally) is getting married.

Scrolling through facebook, I am seeing more and more photos of friends (or acquaintances) in white dresses, matched with men in tuxes or suits.

In August, I only attended one wedding (which happened to be my mother’s, Mazel Tov, Ma!), but I knew about three other couples who also wed just that month.

This past weekend I attended one on the Cape, and just sent back a reply to an invitation for the first week of October. Plus there is one on the first of the new year for my best friend from middle school, and then in May for two college friends, and then TWO next Labor Day weekend (including one I’m bridesmaid-ing for).

I guess wedding season is called wedding season for a reason: it’s crammed full of weddings. But I am finally reaching that age where I actually know people who are committing their love to another. And are doing so frequently. Before this, I had just a (small) handful of married friends, and of those, most were Emerson alumni friends from older classes. Now, girls and boys I’ve known since my days in elementary are wearing special rings and unpacking numerous blenders and place settings.

Now that more of my peers are pairing up, I am starting to feel pressure. It’s not anxiety about physically getting married, as I’ve known for years that I have academic and career goals and will get hitched closer to 30 than 20 (you can relax now, Tom). It’s more that I’m realizing that I’m growing up and feeling like I’m being left behind by remaining single. But are these married couples really achieving something that’s ahead of me?

This is what I want my wedding to look like, only with fewer birds and feathers in my hair.

I know that I’m an independent woman, driven by my personal goals and consistent need at self improvement. I know that I can accomplish great things by myself. But I also know that being in a good relationship is almost as fulfilling as other personal accomplishments. It fills (not necessarily completes) another side of your being, and it is just an indescribable feeling. So these people who are married… are they more whole than I? Are they more fulfilled? Because of this fulfillment, will they then be able to accomplish more personally?

Trust me, I am in no rush to be married (seriously, Tom, not for years). I really do have personal benchmarks to fulfill before I can even entertain a proposal. But still, at the end of the day, when it’s just me in my head, after my reading for classes is done, I do wonder…

---