Wedding over Marriage

I stumbled upon a Yahoo article about a couple who had been married 73 years before the man, Pop Pop,  died. Their granddaughters, along with the woman, Cutie, decided to write a book about their love - titled How To Fall in Love for Life. Naturally, I bought the book and naturally, I am hooked. 

While reading the chapter on their marriage I was surprised to read what their wedding entailed. Not only did they wed after only 5 months but their wedding was a traditional, simplistic wedding. One in which Cutie's father planned - one where they only knew about 30 of the 130 guests in attendance. She didn't pick out her dress, nor did she pick out the menu. Obviously they didn't choose the guest list either. 

She points out that today, they wrote the book in 2012, weddings become a huge headache. Often times the details muddle what the day is truly about. It's about two people coming together in love - to become one, to build a life together. 

They got married in 1937, after only knowing one another for 5 months. Yet they lasted 73 years before one of them died. Besides all of the wonderful advice she gives about accepting your partner for who they are and taking time to yourself when you get too angry - she points out that she could have cared less if her napkins matched the groomsmen's socks - because that's not what a wedding is about. 

I wonder how different marriages would be, how different the divorce rate would be, if we went into a wedding with the goal of marriage in mind rather than impressing everyone in attendance with our fancy table settings. 

I wonder when the wedding became all about the woman and never about the man involved. When they decided to sit back and watch as their future wife took over everything. I wonder what it would be like to make every decision together - or at least most of them - just as you would once married. 

How different would a marriage be if planning for the wedding was a practice run for marriage? 

I understand that many people say that those people stuck it out even if they weren't happy - and today we believe in our own happiness 100 percent of the time - and I haven't gotten to the chapter on their hardships, but i'm sure there were many. 

Maybe the difference is that they saw themselves as two children going in to a life together, learning together, and growing together - always with the other's best interest in mind. They made it work - because they were both brand new, they were both just as scared, but they were both just as thrilled. 

And two became one. . .