How to Getting Married: The Real Journey from "Maybe" to "I Do"
Marriage. It's one of those life events that somehow manages to be both deeply personal and wildly public at the same time. I've watched countless friends navigate this path, been in more wedding parties than I can count, and yes, walked down that aisle myself. What strikes me most isn't the fairy tale endings or the Pinterest-perfect ceremonies – it's the messy, beautiful, sometimes terrifying reality of two people deciding to legally and emotionally bind their lives together.
Let me tell you something that took me years to understand: getting married isn't really about the wedding. I know, I know – that sounds obvious when you say it out loud. But when you're in the thick of it, when your mother is asking about centerpieces and your partner's cousin wants to know if they can bring their new boyfriend of three weeks, it's easy to lose sight of what you're actually doing.
The Foundation Nobody Talks About
Before you even think about rings or venues, there's this whole underground layer of preparation that happens – or should happen. It's like building a house. Everyone gets excited about paint colors and kitchen backsplashes, but if your foundation is cracked, none of that matters.
I remember sitting in my apartment at 2 AM one night, about six months before my wedding, having what I can only describe as a pre-marital existential crisis. Not about my partner – I was sure about them. But about whether I actually understood what I was signing up for. Marriage isn't just sharing a Netflix password and arguing about whose turn it is to take out the trash (though there's plenty of that). It's creating a legal entity, a financial partnership, a potential co-parenting team, and ideally, a lifelong emotional support system.
The conversations you need to have before marriage are uncomfortable. Money – not just who pays for dinner, but real money talk. Debt, savings goals, spending habits, financial fears inherited from your families. Kids – not just yes or no, but when, how many, what if you can't have them, what if one of you changes your mind. Career ambitions, where you want to live, how you'll handle aging parents, religious differences, political views. These aren't first date conversations, but they absolutely need to happen before you're standing at an altar.
Legal Realities and Paperwork Adventures
Here's where things get decidedly unromantic. Getting married in most places requires actual paperwork – shocking, I know. The marriage license process varies wildly depending on where you live, and I mean wildly. Some states make you wait three days after getting your license before you can actually get married (looking at you, Texas), while others let you do it same day. Some require blood tests – yes, blood tests, like it's 1955 – while others just need your driver's license and a credit card.
The first time I went to get a marriage license, I felt like I was at the DMV, except with higher stakes. Fluorescent lights, uncomfortable plastic chairs, forms asking questions I hadn't thought about. Do you want to change your name? Seems simple until you're standing there realizing this decision affects your professional identity, your passport, your entire paper trail of existence.
And then there's the officiant situation. Depending on your state, this could be a judge, a religious leader, a friend who got ordained online (the number of people I know who've done this for friends' weddings is astronomical), or in some places, you can self-officiate. Colorado actually lets you marry yourself to your partner – no officiant needed. Meanwhile, in other states, your online-ordained friend might not be legally recognized.
The Money Thing
Let's talk about the elephant in the room wearing a $3,000 dress. Weddings are expensive. Stupidly expensive. The wedding industry will try to convince you that you need chair covers (you don't), that your guests will judge you if you don't have an open bar (they might, but who cares), and that anything less than a five-course meal is basically admitting you don't really love each other.
I've been to weddings that cost more than my annual salary and weddings that happened in someone's backyard with a potluck reception. Want to know a secret? The expensive ones weren't necessarily better. In fact, some of the most memorable weddings I've attended were the ones where the couple clearly said "screw it" to convention and did what made them happy.
But here's what nobody tells you about wedding budgets: they're not really about the wedding. They're about navigating your first major financial decision as a couple, dealing with family expectations, and figuring out your values. When your mother-in-law-to-be insists on inviting 75 of her closest friends and your partner thinks that's fine but you're paying for it – that's not really about the guest list. That's about boundaries, communication, and learning to present a united front.
Cultural Expectations and Family Drama
Every family has its own mythology about weddings. Maybe your grandmother got married in a specific church and now there's pressure for you to do the same. Maybe your partner's family has traditions that seem bizarre to you – unity candles, jumping the broom, breaking glasses, tea ceremonies. These aren't just quaint customs; they're loaded with meaning and expectation.
I watched a friend navigate a Hindu-Jewish wedding that required two ceremonies, multiple outfit changes, and dietary restrictions that would make a restaurant chef weep. Another friend's Southern Baptist family nearly had a collective heart attack when she announced her outdoor, non-religious ceremony. The negotiations that happen around cultural and religious differences in weddings are really negotiations about your future life together.
And then there's the guest list drama. Oh, the guest list. It starts innocently enough – just close family and friends. Then your mom mentions your dad's business partner who "really should be invited," and your partner remembers that childhood friend they haven't talked to in five years but "it would be weird not to invite them," and suddenly you're looking at venues that hold 200 people and wondering how this happened.
The Actual Getting Married Part
When the day finally arrives – whether it's in a cathedral with 300 guests or at City Hall with two witnesses – something shifts. All the stress about centerpieces and seating charts fades into background noise. You're standing there, looking at this person you've chosen, making promises that are simultaneously ancient and deeply personal.
The vows are where it gets real. You can go traditional – love, honor, cherish, in sickness and health. Or you can write your own, which I highly recommend if you enjoy crying in public. Either way, you're making legal and emotional promises in front of witnesses. It's powerful stuff, even if you're not particularly traditional or romantic.
What surprised me most about my own wedding day was how fast it went. Months of planning for a day that blurs by in what feels like minutes. Everyone tells you this, but you don't believe it until you're sitting at your reception, still in your wedding clothes, wondering where the last six hours went.
After the Party
Here's the part nobody really prepares you for – the day after the wedding. You wake up married, which feels simultaneously exactly the same and completely different. If you're lucky, you're heading off on a honeymoon. If you're like most people I know, you're going back to work on Monday and trying to figure out what to do with 47 vases and a top tier of wedding cake.
The transition from engaged to married is weird. People expect you to feel different, to have gained some mystical married person wisdom overnight. In reality, you're the same person, just with a new ring and possibly a different last name. The real changes happen slowly, as you navigate this new legal and social status.
Being married affects everything from your taxes to your health insurance to how people perceive you in professional settings. It's bizarre how a single legal document can change so much, but it does. Suddenly you're each other's next of kin, default beneficiaries, medical decision makers. The weight of that hits you at unexpected moments.
The Bigger Picture
Getting married in the 21st century is a choice in a way it hasn't been historically. You don't need to be married to live together, have kids, or build a life with someone. So why do it? For some, it's tradition or religion. For others, it's the legal protections and benefits. For many, it's a public declaration of commitment, a line in the sand that says "this is my person."
What I've learned from my own marriage and watching others is that the wedding is just the opening ceremony. The real work – and joy – comes in the days and years that follow. It's in learning to fight fairly, to support each other's growth even when it's scary, to choose each other again and again even when it would be easier not to.
Getting married is simultaneously one of the most common human experiences and one of the most personal. Eight billion people on this planet, and yet your decision to marry this specific person at this specific time is entirely unique. That's pretty wild when you think about it.
So if you're thinking about getting married, do the work. Have the hard conversations. Figure out the legal requirements in your area. Set a budget that won't destroy your financial future. Navigate the family dynamics with as much grace as you can muster. But also remember that at the end of the day, it's about you and your partner making a choice to face the world together. Everything else – the flowers, the music, the perfect dress – is just decoration on that fundamental decision.
Marriage isn't a fairy tale ending; it's a beginning. It's choosing to start a joint narrative with another person, with all the plot twists, character development, and unexpected chapters that entails. Some days it's a romance novel, some days it's a comedy, occasionally it's a thriller when you're assembling IKEA furniture together. But it's your story, and that's what makes it worth telling.
Authoritative Sources:
Cherlin, Andrew J. The Marriage-Go-Round: The State of Marriage and the Family in America Today. Vintage Books, 2010.
Coontz, Stephanie. Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage. Penguin Books, 2006.
Gottman, John, and Nan Silver. The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. Harmony Books, 2015.
National Center for Health Statistics. "Marriage and Divorce." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/marriage-divorce.htm.
United States Census Bureau. "Families and Living Arrangements." U.S. Department of Commerce, www.census.gov/topics/families.html.