It's all about compromise

I love weddings, which  is nothing new.  I've been hooked upon every form of wedding-related media since as long as I can remember.  I used to long for sick days and vacations from school so I could watch A Wedding Story on TLC.  I would scan every page of every bridal magazine I could get my hands on, even though most of the pages are the exact same, month to month.  Pretty much anything that had "bride" or "wedding" in the title was on my radar instantaneously.

As a consequence, some of my ideas about weddings in general were firmly developed before I even had a boyfriend, let alone a fiance.  I guess all my years of wedding obsessions have helped me to become a bit stubborn decisive about what I think a wedding should include.  But then, something weird happened... it turns out I'm only 50% of the key players involved in the wedding.  Bizarre.

 Image via Love Happy Bunny / Artwork by Jim Benton

Even though Mr. Snow Cone has fewer wedding-research hours under his belt, he, too, has opinions on weddings.  I just kind of assumed that he'd be along for the ride, interested in being told what to wear, where to stand, and what to say.  The end.  I guess they were right when they said that if you assume, you make an ass out of u and me.

See, here's what happened.  One of my firmly held opinions about weddings is that the bride and the groom exchange presents on the morning of the wedding day.  Usually the bridal attendants deliver the gift, resulting in an emotional moment where the bridesmaids end up fanning the bride's face in order to prevent her make-up from running.  I always kind of figured that these gifts would be pretty substantial, since you only get the opportunity to exchange wedding presents once... a nice piece of jewelry, a coveted new electronic, and so on.  

Mr. Snow Cone, on the other hand, is far more practical.  The real deal is that we're both still fresh out of college.  I'm doing my best to accrue as much student loan debt as possible, while we're starting the long road of saving up for a house, or a car, or, dare I even say it, kids.  In the nearer future, we also have to fork over some serious moolah for our wedding rings and the honeymoon.  Practically speaking, blowing a couple hundred dollars on each other just for cuteness's sake is kind of asking a lot... and Mr. Snow Cone felt quite strongly about that.  I'll admit, I was majorly hesitant to accept this train of thought.  I kind of felt like this:

Image via Treasure Hunt by Gail Hyatt
 

I wanted to have cute pictures of me being surprised and emotional when I got my wedding day gift.  I wanted to stress about getting Mr. Snow Cone the absolute perfect thing to commemorate our wedding day.  I wanted to have something relatively permanent that would always remind me of that specific day.  But Mr. Snow Cone held firm about the reality of the situation, and he also shrewdly pointed out that our wedding bands would be permanent reminders of the wedding day.  Stupid fiancé and his stupid maturity with his stupid good points.  
 

As much as I wanted the Kodak moment of getting a gift, I also wanted to have a smidge of money to start our married lives.  I came around, and just like that, Mr. Snow Cone and I had decided that we weren't exchanging wedding day gifts.  I'll admit that for the months immediately following this decision, I was still a wee bit bummed.  However, now that we're getting closer to W-day and my bank account is feeling the burn of some other wedding-related expenses, I begrudgingly note exactly how right Mr. Snow Cone was, from a financial standpoint.  

How did your groom's vote change one of your wedding assumptions?