“we should have PARTIES for ALL our leaps of faith!"

the above headline is shamelessly stolen from a post on this blog which was pointed out to me by the wonderful blog Offbeat Bride.

Summer, the original poster was lamenting how she felt she had to feel guilty about wanting to have a beautiful wedding with all the bells and whistles. All the negativity and admonitions not to “Go Bridezilla” had her hiding her excitement at marrying the man she was so obviously head over heels in love with. How sad.

If you read the entire post you can see that Summer sums up exactly why we celebrate weddings with the people we love around us: Marriage is the ultimate leap of faith.

Sometimes I think that the media has so flooded our conscience with the stunning, the spectacular, the amazing wedding vision that much of our culture has lost sight of why we have wedding celebrations in the first place. Today brides are pressured to choose between hosting a spectacle or turning their back on everything ‘weddingish’ and going indie. That is making the entire process about the appearance, not the reason behind it.

Ultimately a wedding is a chance to celebrate your leap of faith; a time for your family and friend to gather around you and support your choice. In some small way your guests are pledging to help you both stand strong in your leap and to cheer your courage. Now if that isn’t a reason to get excited about throwing a party, I don’t know what is.