Brooke & Grant's Young Love Wedding (And Brave Bride's poster child of the month!)

As promised in my last post, today's wedding is one that I'm featuring simply because I'm a fan of the bride and her blog, Playing Grown Up. (Fun fact: I stumbled upon her site back when I Googled "Grown Up Blog". At the time, I knew I was going to call my personal blog "How To Be A Grown-Up", and I wanted to see if anyone else had a similarly titled spot in the blogosphere. That's when I stumbled upon today's bride Brooke, her adorably sweet, fun, and wise little blog, as well as her darling etsy shop, which has some great homemade wedding goodies.)

Because the wedding world feels awfully judgmental at times, today's wedding is my poster child for the following message: A wedding is not about making a statement. (Um...even though I'm making a statement by posting this type of wedding today. Ahem.) ANYWAYZ...a wedding is about celebrating a major transition, a big love, and the start of an incredible journey. It's a party, people. And it's about keeping your opinions about style, the age of the marrying couple (today's couple were criticized for this issue), budget, and etiquette to yourself...because your only role in someone's wedding is to witness the incredible miracle happening in the lives of two good people. So in the name of non-judgment, I hope you'll join me in giving today's wedding a round of applause, simply because they are a great couple who deserves happiness. Mmm, k? :)

When Grant and I told people we were engaged we got one of two reactions. If people knew us well, they were so happy for us and not at all surprised - we had been dating since we were 15 and 16. On the other hand, people we didn't know that well always had the same reaction: "You're not old enough to get married!"

 We got engaged during my freshmen year of college and were married the summer after my first year and Grant's second year of college. So, in those critical people's defense, we were very, very young! Grant and I had been dating for four years when we got engaged, so with us, there were no doubts. However, we soon noticed that other people (usually older people we didn't even know) had such cynical, negative views of marriage. It really was very disheartening. Even the man at the post office when we went to mail out out invitations said, "Don't do it. You're too young." Whoa! Can you believe how cynical? Poor guy.

But that's part of being a brave bride. Doing what you know is right and perfect for you and your love no matter what others might say. We just tried to encourage those people who obviously had some negative views of marriage for some reason. And now that we're married, we can show how great marriage can be by real live example!

Now that we've been married for five years, we always encourage other young couples, but we also try to present them with all the practical stuff as well (health insurance, budgeting, families, etc.) We want other couples to have all the blessing and happiness we've had since we've been married!

Getting married that young, I had no choice but to be a brave bride! I think because none of my friends had gotten married yet, I had no preconceived notions about how anything at my wedding was supposed to be. So, I tried to plan and do everything with as much fun in mind as possible. We just wanted our wedding to be a big fun party with all our friends and family. (I even had my bachelorette party at one of those places where you can jump on all those blow-up slides. So fun!) From the big ole' polka dotted cake to the fun jazz band, we didn't worry about what anybody would think - we just knew everyone would have fun!

I really have no regrets about the wedding, but my advice to brides is always to have fun and don't take the day too seriously. I don't mean that in the way it sounds - I mean, it really is the most important decision of your life and should be taken very seriously. But what I mean is - if the flowers are out of whack, or the ribbons clash, or even if the cake slides off layer by layer onto the floor (God forbid!) you will get to go home being the new wife of your love - and that's what all this bride hullabaloo is all about!