JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

I was young and naive. I didn’t know what I wanted. If I could, I’d go back and do things differently. I’d change the choices I made.

I wasn’t a girl who dreamed for years about getting married. I didn’t march Barbie and Ken down the aisle or join two toy animals in holy matrimony. I hadn’t imagined a Cinderella story, white horses and a coach. I’d never even dreamed about my dress.

Looking back at my wedding, I don’t know why I did what I did.
Why, for example, I chose that color of pink. And the flowers weren’t what I wanted. Getting married in New England in winter on a student budget limited our options. If there was one thing I wanted, it was a wreath of little rosebuds beneath my veil, but I wore alstromeira instead. Even the dresses became a complicated story, made by a seamstress who measured my bridesmaids and me creatively…Going back in time, maybe I’d ditch the church, fancy dresses and flowers, and get married in a living room, or better yet, out on a lawn, or barefoot on a beach beneath warm summer sun!

What I’d change the most though would be me. I remember how I hurt people in the process. How I tortured my poor bridemaids who were trying to surprise me with a shower. How I had a hard time seeing beyond myself in certain moments of stress. I wish I could go back and be me with more maturity.

But I wouldn’t change the groom. He’s the one thing I’d keep above all else. While I wasn’t sure whether I wanted a wedding, what I did want was to be married to Ted.

And, come to think of it, mistakes I’ve made, my own ugly moments, have only helped make our marriage. God’s taken our uneven ends and woven us together through them. We’ve grown deeper in love. Even in our mistakes and messes.

Looking back at my wedding, more than the colors, dresses or flowers, I see people who loved us. People who put up with the young naive me and my attitudes. They loved me enough to try to implement whatever it was I wanted, even though I didn’t really know what that was. My dress (still dirty and in need of cleaning!) and my flowers (dried and crumbling) are packed up in boxes. I hardly see them any more. But many of the people are still a part of our lives, all these years later. Love has lasted.

Today, I’ll take out our album to show our daughters. How we agonized over the preparations – and the photography, the pictures that did – and didn’t get taken! Yet even now, when I flip through the photos, I still think about the ones I wish we had gotten…

But if I could see my wedding day through the lens of eternity, it’d all look a lot differently to me… And I wouldn’t change a thing.