One year and one week ago, Thomas and I had our fake wedding. I say fake because we were already married, but we had a ceremony nonetheless, and I'm pretty sure that most of the guests weren't aware that we were already married. Anyway, I suppose that a week ago was an anniversary of some sort, though we didn't celebrate it at all.

I just reread my post from last year about the fake wedding. It's true; we were able to laugh about the ridiculousness of the wedding at the time. There are certainly worse things than laughing during your ceremony. There's a lot of stuff left out of that account, though.

Like how the photographer didn't actually take any pictures, but decided to have her husband do it. And how neither the photographer nor her husband were actually any good at taking pictures. (She had done some shots before the wedding (with the kidney-shaped silk bouquet with pale yellow flowers), so I have examples of both of their work.) I had requested some specific photos that were never taken, and she took several that I didn't want, insisting they would look great, but they didn't. I also didn't mention how the flower girl didn't actually do anything at all during the ceremony. As in, anyone attending would have no idea that I had picked a flower girl at all, because there was no indication of anything. The clasp on the pearl necklace I'd picked out broke, so I ended up with a different one. Somehow, my dress never got bustled, so Mom rigged something together at the last minute, just before I went to the ceremony, that ended up working. Even though I was totally clear with the venue about my wedding colors (citrus yellow, green, and orange), all the table linens were dark blue. We only ended up with about 10 photos from all the disposable cameras we left on the tables, because… well, honestly, I don't know why. They all said they had been used up, but when we took them to get developed, they were mostly empty. So I don't know if the cameras were lying about the number of exposures, if they had crappy film in them, or if the people developing them screwed up, but at any rate, that was a huge waste of money. Oh, and we had to cancel our honeymoon.

There were plenty of things leading up to the big day that didn't go the way I wanted. Things like my mother insisting that I wear fancy-looking heels, even though I never, ever, ever wear heels and never, ever have, and I can't stand them, and they hurt my feet. Even though my floor-length A-line dress completely covered my feet and I could have worn anything or nothing on my feet and no one would ever know. Things like my mother insisting on a religious officiant. Things like my in-laws not being able to make it, even though we picked the date specifically because that was the date they said they could make it. Things like my mother dismissing the idea of hiring a band or a DJ, because why on Earth would we need that, and then ending up with no music at all during the reception, and absolutely no entertainment other than food. And don't even get me started on the whole registering thing.

It's a good thing I was not a bridezilla. My wedding would have given anyone who's ever been on A Wedding Story a coronary. I was not a bridezilla, but I do still look back on my fake wedding as a big waste of time and money. We laughed. It worked out ok in the end. But it wasn't worth nearly what was invested in it, at all. Especially considering we were already married anyway. It would have been a lot less money, time, and stress, and at least as much fun, to order a nice cake and have some friends over at home. (Regardless of how crappy everything else went, I must say the wedding cake was probably the best cake I've ever had in my life, and the woman actually made it exactly the way I requested.)

A year ago, I asked, "what more could you ask for?" I think maybe I wrote that to try to cheer myself up. The entire day leading up to the ceremony was a horrible day. The ceremony was better than I expected after that horrible day, but I was still ultimately let down. I remember walking through 30° Blue, smiling because people were congratulating me and such, and seeing that Amber "I promise you the Billfish Tournament won't interfere at all, oh whoops, nevermind, it's at exactly the same time as your wedding" woman smiling back at me. And I remember thinking she had no right to smile at me, and I was almost angry that she actually saw me smiling. I wanted her to feel bad. I had just had a wedding ceremony, and I wanted this woman to feel horrible about it. So clearly I could have asked for more.

While I know that at the end of the day, how this ceremony and reception went is not important, and I'm not exactly proud of wanting Amber to feel like crap, the truth is that after a year, my fake wedding still makes me mad. I know I need to get over it, but there it is. I liked my cake. I liked my dress. I liked the invitations. And I am still madly in love with the groom. The rest sucked.