When my now husband arrived from Ghana as my fiancé, we had 90 days to get married or he would have to leave the country. Yep, we are a true 90 Day Fiancé-type story. Well actually, our engagement started months before his arrival, but we had a deadline. And fortunately for us, we were ready the moment we met to say "I do," so the quickness of our nuptials didn't scare us or have us second-guessing ourselves. It did however, not give us time to plan or have certain traditional pre-wedding celebrations, like bachelor and bachelorette parties and a wedding shower. Do I feel a pang of sadness about missing out on this typical rite of passage before getting married? Not at all.
I had never really dreamed of my bachelorette party. I always loved (and still love) a good dance party with my girls, but the importance of that "last single night" really held no weight with me. I've danced in New York City clubs until the early hours, been to burlesque bars, and even fell asleep in a taxi at dawn after a long night while celebrating other friends' bachelorette parties. But when it comes to my own kind of celebrating, I'm more of a go-to-sleep-early-with-a-good-book-or-Netflix kinda gal. I guess I could have invited my friends over for some rom-coms and seltzer, but that didn't seem like a necessary idea considering life and friendships go on after marriage, and I would still have plenty of nights with my girls.
And honestly, a lot of my best friends are scattered all around the globe. From California to Fiji, it would have been really hard (and a lot to ask) to try to get everyone to fly to one place to make it work. Not to mention the cost. And for my husband who had just moved far away from every friend he knew, a bachelor party wasn't really an option for him, either. And we were both totally fine with that. Getting married and becoming a family was our biggest priority, and everything else - all those smaller details - just didn't seem necessary to us. Why put that pressure on ourselves and our loved ones?
We had no wedding either, just a tiny exchange of vows in an extra tiny chapel. I threw a bouquet to my mom and cut store-bought cake in the back of my dad's car. And it was perfect. We did it all pretty unconventionally and in our own way, which is a lot like our love.
And now that I'm married, I look forward to having so many other nights out with my girls. I'm always down for more dance parties - I just might need to go home by 9 p.m.
