I work in a social service agency that employs over a hundred people. We come from all different backgrounds. The agency employs professional staff as well as support staff. We have good benefits and most of us enjoy our work. I have been there for several years so I have developed good friendships along the way. We work in units of about twenty people. Even though I am not close to everyone in my unit I know basic information about their lives. One of the women in our unit is helping her daughter plan her wedding.
One day we both arrived early for a staff meeting. As we were waiting for the meeting to start I asked her how the wedding plans were developing. She said that her daughter was struggling with a wedding theme. I thought this was an odd thing to struggle with. I thought a wedding theme would be that you were getting married. I mentioned this to the co-worker. She told me that several of her daughter’s friends had theme weddings and she wanted one also. Her daughter was going to school in the eastern part of the nation, so I decided that this kind of wedding planning must be something that is done in that part of the country.
The concept of a wedding theme was interesting to me so I asked my co-worker what kinds of things were being considered. She said that her daughter loves history so she was thinking of having a Victorian wedding. She and her attendants as well as the groom and his attendants would wear clothing from that period. The decorations and the food at the reception would also be from that time period. The groom works in computer design, so he was not interested in stressing the historical wedding theme, he wanted a futuristic theme for the day. She said that this was causing a conflict for the couple and that they were running short on time for ordering what type of dresses the women would wear. By this time the rest of our unit had joined the meeting so the subject was dropped.
That evening I was sharing this information with my daughter. She recently got engaged, but is going to finish her masters’ degree prior to getting married. She said that she had read about having a wedding theme in one of the bridal magazines she bought. She agreed with me that planning that type of wedding would involve added stress. She is planning on having the exchanging of vows be the theme for her wedding.