If this sounds like I disagree with your experience or somehow judge your for making different decisions regarding your wedding — that couldn’t be further from the truth. We are given a very personal gift to live, and no two roads are meant to be the same.

My experience was exactly the opposite. We had lived together for several years before she(!) proposed to me, and although the process was probably better than most, it was still a stressful time that I’d prefer not to repeat.

I wouldn’t have missed a single part of any of it for the world.

The public profession of our love was the point of the affair. The chance for my mom to bask in the glow of a day she helped create. The chance for old and new friends to intermingle with relatives from all around the globe. The chance to put up life-size cardboard cutouts of ourselves so that we could fill a a photo album of pictures with people we don’t remember taking — along with the slightly creepy one of us standing with us.

I hate to dance, didn’t get a bite of cake, and honestly can’t remember what we had for lunch, but am grateful for the public celebration that told the world we were in love and wanted everyone to know-not as a show or a boast, but simply a commitment made to all to love, honor and cherish.

(There was scuba-diving a week later though!)