The Wedding Bible
The proudest moment of my life thus far, after sustaining a brain injury, is planning my second wedding where I got to marry my best friend, Adam Augustus Renzi. It was the loveliest wedding I've ever attended, as most brides would say about their own ceremonies. I felt more beautiful than I ever have before, and this day unfolded with a serene sense of flow and ease.
We married where we met in Lake George, NY on Labor Day Weekend 2017 aboard a steamboat called the Adirondac. Because it was a smaller venue, this intimate affair allowed us to invite only our closest friends and family. This meant I was surrounded by the people I loved most in the world.
Before the car crash, I was a professional event planner who worked in NYC, and I considered my first wedding in September 2007 to be my life's greatest work at that time. I never expected to be planning another wedding ten years later, I am learning God sometimes has a different plan in store for me.
Since this was my second wedding, it allowed me to compare notes. I do not recall much about my first wedding. The one thing people told me went wrong, was that I was nearly an hour late to my own ceremony. This would have been disastrous during the second service if the boat departed the dock without the bride. I knew I would not be able to pay attention to the time, so we took our wedding portraits before we boarded, this insured I was not alone and could not be late.
I now have two of what I call “The Wedding Bible”, which are planning binders filled with every detail imaginable. The dinner menu, guest list, photo shot list, seating arrangements, contracts, and the exhaustive timeline that continued to morph on a weekly -- sometimes daily -- basis.
Most brides develop a strategy to help them stay organized. This bride with a brain injury dusted off her previous professional skills and combined them with her new cognitive strategies. Because of the memory challenges that I live with today, the second time required months of painstaking effort and I worked closely with an event designer who helped me carefully document each step of the journey. Another angel who made this moment extraordinary was my cognitive coach. I am unable to recall how hard we worked but with their careful organizational support, I was able to relinquish control and let go of my iPhone that day -- which is like an appendage of my body because it is an important memory tool -- to be fully present with my husband and our guests.
I cannot recall who, but someone shared a helpful memory trick that I have since passed along to other brides: I assigned one guest (my sister-in-law Carla) the special responsibility of winking at me, which would be my cue to take a mental snapshot of that moment. The simple technique helped this bride slow down an event that usually rushes past.
My husband and I regularly watch our wedding video and each time we do, we get to see how our ceremony impacted others, like watching our ringbearer completely awestruck by the Labor Day fireworks. What satisfied me most is how calm I felt during this magical process. Even during a disastrous moment when I planned to surprise my husband by singing him a song, but I forgot the words. Fortunately, he remembered them and was able to help me sing the song before our audience of guests.
Looking back, I feel like the day went off without a hitch and reflected the best version of myself. Years of brain injury rehabilitation have confirmed for me that the best things in life can happen whenever I use my strategies and feel brave enough to ask others for help in making my dreams come true.
