Don't look at me

Amanda is sometimes weird about people looking at her.  You might think this doesn't make much sense,  and you'd be right. She appeared onstage throughout high school and college and currently stands in front of classrooms full of college students teaching them how to use library databases. However, Amanda was not getting married during any of these other attention-oriented situations, which renders any logic completely void.

In January, eight months before our wedding, the full weight of being the bride was starting to sink in. By custom, my name was automatically listed first on everything from registries to our website. The local classified ads ran their annual special wedding edition, including a panic-inducing checklist with four times as many to-dos for the bride as for the groom (seriously, the groom's checklist includes getting a haircut and clipping his nails). The more research I did to look for things like flowers, decorations, and music, the more I was told, "Don't worry about it-- all eyes will be on the bride!" Don't worry about it? The idea of all eyes being on me was way more worrisome than any concerns I might have had about whether to play the YMCA before or after dessert.

In particular, nothing was more terrifying than imagining what people might be thinking as I walked down the aisle. I could be walking too fast, or making a stupid face, or holding my flowers wrong... the admittedly neurotic possibilities were endless. And then I had a moment of clarity: I could ask the best man to consider showing up in a gorilla costume. I had originally planned on giving the wedding party a great deal of personal choice in terms of their attire, and anything that would take the focus off me seemed like the way to go. Better yet, I could be escorted down the aisle by someone in an astronaut suit!

Special appearance by Astronaut Mike Dexter

What we ended up doing: I did still encourage the wedding party to wear whatever was to their liking, but nobody took me up on the costume idea. Perhaps a gorilla suit in August wasn't the most charitable option to offer.

As for my anxieties about walking down the aisle, I got some very comforting words from a friend of mine in our church choir. We were sitting at rehearsal chatting about wedding plans, and I confessed my fear and frustration at how often I was being assured that I would be the center of attention. She said to me, "Oh, it'll be fine. You're among friends here." Of course, she was right. I am exceedingly grateful that I was able to get married in the church that had become my home for the four years that I lived in the Delhi area. And if anyone had anything judgmental to say about my walk down the aisle, at least they were smart enough not to say it to me.