Well, I took the plunge. Today Bucket and I got a marriage license and visited a wedding chapel, which we then booked. We are officially getting married on July 5 at 3:30 in the afternoon. Our celebration will be very small, immediate family only, so I’m hoping they can all make it in spite of it being a holiday weekend.

There are so many details to work out!!

Planning a wedding makes me nervous. I am getting ready to reserve the site for our wedding, and I’m having a hard time making the commitment. Not to the groom, but to the location, the ceremony, the whole “wedding” thing. I’ve done my poor man’s version of the fairy tale day once, and so has Bucket. I’m honestly not looking forward to all the planning and money that will go into doing it again.

That said, I don’t believe this marriage should go uncelebrated. I am very, very excited about entering into a marriage with Bucket. So how do you skip the trappings of the wedding without making it seem like the marriage is no big deal? I’ll tell you how. You run away and get married on a beach. Which was our original plan. But then the kids started telling us about how important it is to them to be a part of it. And honestly, I get that. This is more than a marriage between the two of us, it is the merger of two families. They should be a part of it.

I don’t believe going to the JOP downtown would make me married. For me, marriage is a religious thing, and the legal part is secondary. You see, there are so many factors that make me so confused as to what I really want to do.

Bucket’s brother thinks we should go to Vegas with them and get married while we’re there. Truthfully, that doesn’t sound bad to me, but once again there is the kid issue. I thought I was okay with just having a small wedding, but now that it’s come down to putting it together, I just don’t know that I want to go through all that again. Any suggestions?