You are currently browsing the wedding conversations category.
Jaime and I recently had our first blowup fight. As in, I was left standing on the street at 1 AM without my phone, wallet, keys, or a jacket. You are probably guessing the fight was about the wedding road trip route, a bachelor party, or our wedding colors.
Oh no. We had a knock-down and drag-out fight about…
TAX POLICY.
And it wasn’t even about how getting married can sometimes actually cost you more than being single. Nope. It went something like this:
Jaime: I support paying taxes, but the wealthy shouldn’t have to pay a higher rate than everyone else. It’s a disincentive to work hard and make more money. A flat tax makes more sense.
Chris: I disagree. We have a progressive tax rate because the wealthy have more income available - a flat tax leaves the poor with a lot less money. They spend a higher percentage of their income just covering everyday living expenses.
Jaime: If I want more money, I work harder. Maybe some people should consider that. Plus, you hate rich people.
Chris: I don’t think the rich are magical beings who are better than everyone else. Some have worked hard and earned every penny, but others have gotten lots of advantages or simply inherited their money. Plus, you hate poor people, even though you’re not exactly rich yourself.
Jaime: Well, I won’t be poor forever, because I’m smart and I work hard. Someday I’ll be rich, and when that happens I don’t want to pay a crazy tax rate. And I don’t hate poor people.
Chris: Yeah, well 80% of Americans think they’re going to be millionaires and I’ve got news for them - less than 10% of them will ever be rich.
As you can tell, we have some different views about the world. My beliefs align closely with Bulgarian socialists, while Jaime and Warren G. Harding (old white guy at right) would have gotten along nicely.
The good news is that we quickly realized this doesn’t matter because neither of us has the power to change tax policy. However, it’s clear we’re going to get in some dumb fights while we’re married, likely covering topics such as…
- the best relief pitcher in the AL,
- puppies vs. puppies, and
- whether “Manwich” is an allowable word in Scrabble.
I can’t wait to see the types of arguments the road trip inspires.
The road to marriage has included a few side trips trip down Single Days memory lane. Over the past month, Chris and I have been recapping some of our favorite stories of our days in the trenches. I love that it doesn’t bother either of us when the other shares stories about people we’ve been with in the past. That being said, I’ve asked Chris to keep the Swedish supermodel stories to himself. A girl’s gotta maintain her self-esteem.
I was digging through my email archives recently in an effort to clean out my hard drive when I stumbled upon an IM conversation with my old college neighbor. During my senior year of college, I lived in a 90210-like environment, complete with a manager named Bunny who used to do coke (the drug, not the drink) on the air vent outside of my apartment.
Anyhow, neighbor (we’ll call him Ryan) and I had been innocuously flirting for a week when we finally found each other online one afternoon. We were both on our university’s beta chat platform and were excited to try it out. I love instant messaging almost as much as I love texting. Both afford people the perfect forum to screw up their lives in the short amount of time it takes to type and hit return.
Ryan: I was really drunk on Friday. I say things I probably shouldn’t when I’m drunk. (This is always a bad way to start a conversation with someone of the opposite sex because it screams, “I am about to take back everything I said that may have remotely made you think I was interested in you.”)
Me: Friday? I don’t think I saw you on Friday. (Of course, this is a great counter. It basically says to the guy…”hey, you’ve already been forgotten!”)
Ryan: Didn’t we meet up at E Street on Friday?
Me: Oh yes, you’re right. So what would you have said on Friday had I remembered hanging out with you?
Ryan: I guess you are going to have to get me drunk sometime and find out. (Translation: “I am emotionally stunted and can’t form honest and complete sentences while sober.”)
Me: That’s retarded. (Very P.C., Jaime, using the word “retarded.” Nice. I wasn’t too smart during my college years.)
Ryan: You’re retarded. (Hooray! We’ve graduated to the second grade.)
Me: So, what are you trying to say?
Ryan: So, I think you’re cool and you write and you’re funny. (Let’s all be glad that HE isn’t a writer.)
Me: So, you want to date me? Ha. (I don’t know what I was thinking at the time but as I re-read this I think… what a cocky b#@#$!)
Ryan: Cripes, moving pretty fast over there. (Why use “cripes” when you can use “blimey” or “egads”?!?)
Ryan: And “date” in the above sentence meant go out to dinner, hang out, and maybe make out a little, not have a serious or something serious-like. (Translation: “I really want to take you out to dinner and then make out with you without having to think about the consequences. Sound like fun?”)
Me: I feel like we’re playing poker right now. (And you’re the one that’s losing, girlfriend.)
Ryan: So, insight on me… if I say “maybe I want to go running on Saturday” that means I’m going for a six-mile run.” (Right. Now THAT makes sense)
Me: Well, perhaps we should have casual dinner.
Ryan: Sounds good. I’d say “it’s a date” but that’s a poor choice of words.
Wow… with exciting guys like that in my past, it’s such a shame I ended up with boring old Chris. 
I was cleaning up my desk when I discovered a stapled set of papers that included Chris and my “words to describe our perfect wedding.” Yes, we are that couple- the ones who sit around thinking up geeky games as a way to solve life’s major dilemmas. As I recall, I even made Chris close his eyes as he shared his list of words. There may have even been candlelight and Kenny G. involved.
Completely emasculating Chris aside, I will share with you our list of “perfect wedding” words:
Open-ended. Unique. Independent. Grown-up. Bonding. Homey. Epic. Fun. Exotic. Posh. Relaxed. Memorable. Camaraderie. Bonding (again?) Generous. Modular (that was Chris, obviously). Fulfilled. Generous. Relaxed (again). Impressive. Comfortable.
I’m not sure if we’ve satisfied these requirements with our Wedding Road Trip, but for fun, let’s give it a shot in a little story I like to call, Once Upon a Time… There Was a Wedding.
Once Upon a Time… there was a unique wedding road trip planned by Chris and his not-so-independently wealthy fiancée, Jaime. But it wasn’t just a road trip, no… it was an epic adventure. On May 3oth they got into the car that was generously donated by a glorious American company (that is reading this blog right now and thinking, these kids need a free car to use for six weeks!) and drove to their first exotic location, Elmira, Oregon. Chris and Jaime felt so grown-up as they relaxed in front of the fire in the homey of Jaime’s uncle as they talked about the bonding act of marriage.
After traveling around the United States and listening to stories of marriage and divorce, Chris and Jaime’s sense of camaraderie waned ever-so-slightly. They wondered… would marriage be fun? Or would they just end up as a shell of a couple, like Posh and Becks? Saddened, they returned home, where they bought a modular home, just so they could use that word in a sentence. The future? Open-ended.
If you were to describe the perfect wedding, what words would you use?
The other day, Jaime said she was getting cold feet about the idea of getting married. This surprised me and was a bit of an ego blow – who wouldn’t want to marry me? At first, I wondered if she just said “yes” when I proposed because of that big shiny rock I offered her or because it was too impolite to say no.
But as we talked further, I realized… it’s not the institution of marriage itself that’s intimidating… rather, it’s all the things that you’re expected to do once you’re hitched—namely, buy a house and have kids. In fact, there’s almost a vague expectation that you’re getting married just to do those things, since everything else that used to be verboten for single people (sex, living together, going to bed at 10 PM on Saturday night) is now commonplace.
If you really stop and think about it, buying a house and having kids are far more expensive and irreversible decisions than getting married. I proposed to Jaime because I was finally ready to give house and child-ownership a try…
At some point.
In theory.
Maybe.
If she wants them.
But those will be even bigger hurdles than the wedding itself… and I know how long it took me to propose, even when I knew it was the right thing.
So for you married or formerly-married people out there, how challenging was the jump into buying a house and/or having kids? Did those decisions strengthen your relationship or torpedo it? And how long did you wait after getting married to give them a try?
After last night’s Mortified show, I found myself chatting about infidelity with one of the other performers. “Kyle” is the kind of guy that everyone’s mama warned them about and the type of character that inspires many a CW bad boy. He’s also exceptionally smart and entertaining, so I’ll forgive his predatory nature.
Kyle told me a little story about a woman that he met a year ago at SXSW. The woman was apparently married, but that didn’t stop her from sidling up to Kyle at the bar. A few hours later, he found himself back at her house. Dying to know why she’d chosen him as her first extra-marital, extra-curricular activity, he asked why she was cheating on her husband with him. The woman looked down at her hands. “I’m not going to leave my husband for you,” she said sadly, as if she was about to break his poor little heart. Kyle, of course, tried not to laugh in her face.
The conversation left me with a lot to think about. When you get married, you make a vow to stay faithful until “death do you part.” It would seem to follow that breaking that vow would be a more serious decision than choosing to spontaneously hooking up with some hot guy at a bar. In some ways, the woman’s decision reminded me of that really ridiculous reality show, Temptation Island. Except no one won.
Well, except maybe Kyle.
Ladies and gents… get your pencils and pens ready. I am adding a new question to our list of road trip questions… how do you remain faithful after marriage when the world is one big temptation island?
Twitter
Facebook
YouTube
