Alex and I are getting ready to celebrate our 10th
wedding anniversary in a few months.
Pretty much since getting married, we have talked about renewing our
vows on this anniversary. Alex doesn’t
think he had enough input in the original celebration, so I am releasing the
reigns to let him have creative control over our renewal. That’s not to say that I don’t have some
ideas of my own.
I definitely had a very specific goal in mind when planning
our wedding. I was a feminist, and this
shone through the decisions that went into various aspects of our wedding. To start with, I refused to wear a veil. My understanding of veiling was very limited
10 years ago. I took at face value other
feminists’ critiques of various conservative traditions. I bought into the notion that veiling meant I
was submissive to my husband, and as a feminist, that just wasn’t going to fly.
Now, technically, marital submission is indeed an aspect of
veiling in Christianity, but, especially within Catholicism, for a woman to wear
a veil means more than just that she accepts the place in the world that God
gave her. By veiling, a woman honors
herself as a temple of God. We veil what is sacred, and women are sacred. I can get on board with that reasoning!
Catholic
women traditionally cover their hair when in the presence of Our Lord in the
Eucharist. Not only did Alex and I get
married in a Catholic church, but directly on the altar of the chapel, right in
front of the tabernacle! Yet I refused
to veil. A lot has changed since
then. I have regularly covered my hair
to some degree while at church for two years now. Renewing our vows at church means I have to
find an appropriate way to cover that won’t clash with my outfit.
Ahh, yes – my outfit.
Not only did I refuse to wear a veil 10 years ago, I also refused to
wear white. I took offense at the
thought that I was expected to be a virgin, and to advertise this fact, while
my husband’s premarital virtue was a non-issue.
But not only that, I simply did not look good in white. Perhaps part of that was psychological – I
didn’t want to look good in white, so I didn’t think that I did. In the end, I found an ethereal ankle-length
spaghetti strapped dress in gorgeous bright red!
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| Did I mention my wedding dress also revealed my tattoo? :) |
If a bride’s goal on her wedding day is to feel like a
princess, then my beautiful red dress did just that. I can’t imagine feeling as special, feminine,
attractive, in any other dress. Another
bonus to wearing a non-white dress was that I took pride in being able to wear
it at other times in my life. I thought
it was such a waste to purchase an article of clothing that would never be worn
again. For our first anniversary, Alex
booked us a fancy dinner cruise, and we dressed up in our wedding attire, so I
got my wish! After that, we simply posed
for a photo op each year, so that I could have an excuse to put on my wedding
dress, both to show that I still fit into it, and just to feel beautiful.
I hoped to bring the first 10 years of our marriage to a
close wearing the same dress that was there in the beginning, if for no other
reason than because I can. Yet as I
think about it now, I’m not sure how I can pull off this dress with a
veil? And it’s not just a veil that I’d
need to find to match the dress. I also
lean more conservatively on the modesty scale now. My exposed shoulders and upper back feel a
bit risqué for who I am today. So I have some work to do in this department.
The only other thing I’m holding onto as far as control over
our renewal is the budget… and Alex is fighting me every step of the way on
that! I'm sure we can work something
out to our mutual satisfaction soon. Stay tuned! :)
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