I'm sitting at my desk at work and made significant progress on my to-do list today, so I Googled "Bride Problems." Well, that yielded search results that I just wasn't ready for.
I'm getting married this year and I keep having
these things come up that feel like problems. Hotel blocks are a
nightmare, I'm fretting about engagement pictures, and I postpone my bride diet every single day. I got a well-timed reminder today that these are not problems.
We hear about child brides in far off parts of the world but it's so hard to stomach that we look away. I watched Ann Curry interview Stephanie Sinclair about photographing (and weeping while photographing) girls as young as 6 years old being married off to middle aged men.
http://www.nbcnews.com/video/ann-curry-reports/53633770#53633770
I feel like Ann Curry and Stephanie Sinclair just slapped me right in my own face for letting such trivial wedding details occupy space in my brain and in my heart. I'm bent out of shape because the Omni is out of rooms over our wedding weekend while 29,000 girls per day are saying goodbye to a life they never knew. They will not go to school or go to college. They will not email their girlfriends on Fridays as 23 year olds counting the minutes til they get to see each other at their favorite bar. They will not carefully select the man or woman of their dreams to spend the rest of their life with.
I can't change what's happening to girls in Ethiopia, India, South Sudan and so many other places. I can, however, change my attitude about my own wedding. I am fortunate beyond measure to be marrying a man I waited 27 years to meet and that will remain the theme for this season of our lives as we plan our wedding.
