Love Is...

Love is fun. Love is being unapologetically you and not giving a hoot about it when you’re with him. With him, you are unafraid to make a fool of yourself. Love is inside jokes and random movie quotes that are only funny or relevant to the two of you. It’s having those belly-hurting, bent over laughs with each other, holding back the tears and gasping for air. It’s eating ice-cream cones in the car at the town boat ramp in the pouring down rain just because it’s entertaining to watch the frenzy of people coming in off the water. On a Friday evening, it’s sharing a coke and peanuts by the lake, watching the sun creep down behind the tree line and the sky fade to black. You exchange stories from your hectic weeks and smile at each other, relishing in the fact that the weekend is finally here. 

Love is comfort. You cherish the predictable routines of being with the same person in the same house day after day. Love is greeting each other at the end of every work or school day with a kiss and snug embrace as if you haven’t seen each other for weeks, ignoring that outdoor-working man smell. Love is not worrying about how prickly your legs are from not shaving for the past five days. It’s having no question about whether or not he’ll be attracted to you 20 to 30 years down the road. Stretch marks, crow’s feet (what you like to call smile wrinkles), and thunder thighs don’t stand a chance against your love. Love is watching re-runs of Family Feud and Fixer Upper together night after night because you both know that everything else on T.V. sucks and it’s something that you both like. On Saturday mornings, love is having a hot cup of coffee together, him knowing not to talk too much before you’ve been fully caffeinated.

What may seem like mundane rituals to some is as comforting as slipping into your old pajama pants. They may be pilling and about to fall apart at the stitches from years of washing, but they fit just right and keep you warm.

Love is sacrifice. Love is him selling his shiny, charcoal gray Toyota Tacoma for a modest car. This is a big deal, too because he’s a “truck guy”. He sells his boat next. Now with a little more in his savings and the new absence of a truck payment, he can afford a mediocre mobile home in the country on 2.5 acres to live with you, his devoted, soon to be wife. Who, by the way, is a full time student and has two years left to finish school. Two more years of living off of a single income. Two more years until you get to fulfill your dream of becoming a teacher. Two more years until you start earning just enough income to maintain that lower middle class status, but you will do it because you love teaching. And he will make

sacrifices because he loves you. You will fall into his arms at the end of the day with marker on your hands, exhaustion on your face, but joy in your heart.

Love is compassion. Love is hesitantly allowing him to put a framed, signed picture of Arnold Palmer right above the mantle in the den of your new home. His eyes gleam when he holds it out in front of him. You examine it. It is a vintage photograph of a sharp-dressed old man posing in front of a slick red Cadillac. You know virtually nothing about this man except that he’s a good golfer and there’s a half tea – half lemonade drink named after him. You immediately aren’t fond of the idea of hanging this gigantic picture, but you try to not let it show too much. Eventually, your eyes linger to the bottom right hand corner of the picture and you notice the black sharpie marker print: “To Oleta. Best Wishes. Arnold Palmer.”

To Oleta, his grandmother. To Oleta, the woman you’re fiancé admires so greatly. To Oleta, the rock, the family problem-solver. To Oleta, the woman who always brought everyone closer around the holidays. To Oleta, the benign woman you will never get to meet because she is watching you both from heaven. Day by day, you slowly grow to love this picture. You grow to love it so much that you base all of your mantle décor and furnishings in the room around this one photograph. Splashes of red here and there to match the car, punches of army green to match the picture’s matting. Before you know it, you have a Pinterest-worthy den that you want all guests see. You especially want everyone to gape at the beloved Arnold Palmer picture hanging above your mantle.

Love is patience. Love is him staying up late waiting for you to finish your school work. You feel guilty that he stays awake for you because you know he has

work the morning, but you know coaxing him to go to bed won’t sway him. So he waits on the couch listening to the soft hum of the television and fighting to keep his eyes from drooping shut. It seems that hours pass. He isn’t going to bed without you. You can forget that. He’s certain you’re almost done.

Love is taking a leap of faith. Love is deciding to get married before you graduate from college. “Don’t do it”, they say. “Just wait until you get that diploma”. But why would you wait when you know in your heart that this is how it’s meant to be? You know that God will provide for you and that’s all that really matters. Love is ignoring any naysayers and standing loyally by his side, hand in hand, through thick and thin. That’s what love is.

Wearing a Veil & Other Mystifying Wedding Traditions Explained!

I’m sure that by now you are familiar with many age-old wedding traditions that brides tend to abide by like wearing an engagement ring, having a white gown, wearing a veil, and having bridesmaids. Why, though, do we still practice these traditions? And how did these customs originate? Some of the answers will surely surprise you.

We all know what happens when a man proposes. He gets down on one knee, professes his love, and let’s not forget he puts a big, fat, shiny rock on the lucky lady’s ring finger. According to the Diamond Information Center, 73 percent of American brides receive a diamond ring. Truth be told, the diamond engagement ring doesn’t go back much further than the 1920s. Although the tradition of exchanging rings at weddings dates back to the 12th century, there’s no dispute that a diamond company called DeBeers singlehandedly invented the market for the diamond engagement ring. In 1948, they came up with this catchy slogan : A Diamond is Forever.

Long story short, this monopoly of a company started guilt-tripping men into buying expensive jewelry for their soon-to-be wives. If you were a decent man, you had to get your lady a diamond. That’s a pretty clever advertising tactic, huh?

A long time ago, brides did not necessarily wear a white gown on their wedding day. Instead, they wore the best dress that they owned at the time. We can thank Queen Victoria for the modern white wedding dress. After she wore a white dress on her wedding in 1840, it became the norm. Many people also believe that white is the color of purity, so that’s why brides wear white wedding dresses. However, in biblical times blue was the color that represented purity. That’s probably how we got the “something blue” part in the saying: something old, something new, something borrowed something blue.

One of the most important accessories a bride wears on her wedding day is a veil, although some modern brides are opting for tiaras, flower crowns, and other head pieces instead. Brides have been wearing veils since biblical times, but depending on the bride’s religion, veils have represented several different things. Veils date back to the ancient Romans who thought wearing one would frighten spirits away. During this period, veils were bright colors like red or orange. In Judeo-Christian cultures, the bridal veil is a symbol of purity. Veils were introduced at Jewish weddings in the belief that heads should be covered. Furthermore, in arranged marriages, it was sometimes feared that the groom might back out, so he didn’t get to see the bride until the end of the ceremony. Just imagine not being able to see your wife before you marry her!