That is, except for me losing my voice. That's right, me – verbose, wordy, chatty me – lost my voice. Oh, the irony.
The Tuesday before the wedding the Hub and I woke up with terrible colds. We never get sick at the same time, in fact, I'm convinced we have completely different immune systems. When I had the flu a few years ago with a temperature of 104 degrees, he never even sneezed. So I know the colds were pure stress-induced. We both recovered, but mine took my voice (like Ursula in The Little Mermaid). I guess it was the stress and the fact that we had social events every day leading up to the wedding. With so many people in town, I was talking up a storm on what were comprised vocal chords. I'm also prone to losing my voice when ill – apparently it doesn't happen to some people?
To say I was upset about it was an understatement. People roll in from all over the world and I can barely speak. On Friday I had to leave the drinks reception we had for our out-of-towners at 9 p.m. because I physically couldn't talk and I thought some extra rest was my one hope for being able to say my vows the next day.
It was the only time all week I got really upset. I had a little cry about the whole thing to my cousin (and bridesmaid) who took me home from the reception as she was staying with us. She was brilliant. She told me that everyone was there for me and didn't care what I sounded like. But I wanted to speak to my guests, I said. She told me I was a perfectionist and it didn't matter. Everyone would still love me anyway.
And she was right, it didn't matter. If you had told me a few months ago I'd have laryngitis at my wedding I would have cried in misery. I would have said I didn't want to have the wedding. I would have been incredibly angry.
So thank goodness I didn't know! Because it was still wonderful. I said my vows and even gave a short speech (which made everyone think I was so very brave). And although it was a little hard to make conversation with everyone especially when the music was loud, I still had a great time. I spent most of the night on the dance floor – if you can't talk, dance. And so while the Hub chatted away to our guests, I danced with them. And no one cared what I sounded like anyway – when you're the bride it's all about how you look!
Perfectionist that I am, this was a good lesson. You can plan for everything but the powers that be will always remind you that you're not in control. And wonderful is actually possible, even without perfection.
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