What I Hated About Being a Bride

Sometimes I just think up these really attention-getting titles and hope to draw you in to a small piece of my heart and the lessons I have learned in my life. 

Statistics: 

• A little less than 45% of all marriages end in divorce
• The average cost of a wedding is $26,720
• The average couple divorces after 8 years of marriage 
• A divorce happens in America every 36 seconds. 

Jon proposed to me in August. I was looking forward to all of the bride-ish things. Showers, parties, parties, parties, friends, cake, etc. However, I was just slightly uncomfortable the whole time. Don't get me wrong, I had so much fun being celebrated by close friends and family! 

But, shower after shower, I just felt an itch of weird. What was it about this that was just uncomfortable? 

The wedding drew nearer, and I began to hear the words "what do you want for this?" "what do you want to do about this?" "You're the bride," "It's what the bride wants" "Do what Elise wants" "It's her special day" "she can do whatever she wants." I found that the most often used phrase during the wedding season was "I don't care." Because I truly didn't understand. 

At what point in time did a woman's (not a man's??) wedding day become the day where she could become the most selfish that she has ever been...and it is encouraged?

I have realized that there is something incredibly selfish and twisted and broken about the wedding culture as it stands. The center is self (which to people who don't know Jesus, is expected), the goal is happiness, and for that ONE day to be flawless. If we as a culture had more to show for it, then maybe I would encourage it. But 45 out of 100 couples divorced? Surely we have missed the mark. 

So, in my observations, this is what I hated about being a Bride. 

I hated the phrase "what does the bride want." It was all about me. Although it temporarily felt good, it was really hard to continue to set mine AND Jon's affections on the prize--CHRIST--while being told all the time that it's "what the bride wants" with very rare mention of the purpose of a marriage. 

(Fun fact--on my actual wedding day, I told my dad to make me take out the trash so I could remember my place. He laughed and made me take out the recycling too.) 

I hated the newlywed stereotypes. I was always put into a box of "you're honeymooning" or "this will end." It made me feel weird to even be myself around Jon during the time before our wedding. I hated the stereotype of the "perfect" wedding. One that started at 5 or 6..reception at 7..dancing/drinking through the night.. 
There is nothing wrong with this wedding. At all. But my unconventional wedding got many many odd looks and because of the time, place, food served, etc. 

But lastly, and most importantly, I hated where the focus has brought us. If we really strip it away--really. All the jazz and money and beauty...and we come back to the reason, he wedding of Christ and his church, I think we would find more purpose to our weddings, and plan them accordingly. 

Revelation 17 speaks about the Lamb marrying his bride, the church: 

"Let us rejoice and be glad

    and give him glory!

For the wedding of the Lamb has come,

    and his bride has made herself ready.

8 

Fine linen, bright and clean,

    was given her to wear.”

And Paul writes about it in Ephesians when he says this: 

"Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.[a]28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. 33 However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband."

I know that you have read this passage over and over, but what beauty does Christ show in simply loving his beloved?

Christ loves and desires and serves and respects his bride...us. The Church. The picture is love and respect. Not selfishness and self-centeredness. Not a day of attention and self-seeking. 

I wanted my wedding day to reflect what I wanted my wedding to be about: holiness, intentionality, raw love, worship, celebration, endurance. 

Although the role of "bride" as it is associated in this age wasn't my favorite, 

being Jon's bride was magical. 

Through the past weeks, he has loved me in new ways, cared for me in new ways, showed me my sin in new ways, provided for me in new ways... I will forever love being his bride. 

I loved my wedding day, and I loved the season. But it was really hard to remember the goal and the prize and the reason. 

I guess I just want to challenge whoever is reading this to keep the focus. My humble plea and feelings have been shaped and sculpted through my own experience of the wedding process. Enjoy it all, friend. Celebrate, laugh, cry, experience it all deeply. Embrace dating and engagement...

but embrace what it LEADS to.. 

“Within this Christian vision of marriage, here's what it means to fall in love. It is to look at another person and get a glimpse of what God is creating, and to say, "I see who God is making you, and it excites me! I want to be part of that. I want to partner with you and God in the journey you are taking to his throne. And when we get there, I will look at your magnificence and say, 'I always knew you could be like this. I got glimpses of it on earth, but now look at you!” 

-Tim Keller, Meaning of Marriage

Images by Mallory Jo Photography