Planning a wedding is not the most difficult task in the world for someone wanting to do it without a wedding planner. However, I did learn a handful of things in the process – more about life and less about the actual wedding.
I learned to lean into my husband, at the time my fiancé, more than ever. I learned to trust God with things unseen and to keep a steady patience within me. And I learned that when God orchestrates a marriage, He is literally in every single stage of the planning process if you let Him in and pray for His ways to be done. I’ll tell you why.
Under Construction
When I was in college, I interned for a wedding magazine based in New York and gathered so much insight from vendors and wedding planners. I told myself I’d plan my own wedding someday that would be simple, but beautiful. Fast forward about five years later, and Omar and I are up on the altar praying together, while “What A Beautiful Name It Is” by Hillsong is playing in the background, one of my favorite moments of our wedding. Omar’s prayer still echoes in my heart.
That’s how it was during the planning; even as I leaned into my husband on our wedding day up at the altar, I leaned into him even more during the planning process. There were days I stressed out, some external matters that made me curl and want to give up, but he was always there, gathering my hands and praying to God.
Without Omar, our wedding wouldn’t have been possible; he trusted the venue I was most excited about without it even being built yet. We visited on the whim, and the owners happened to be there to show us around. It looked like the skeleton of Noah’s ark, but we felt something deep down in our bones; this was it. I could almost envision Omar and I out on the green sprawl, overlooking the trees, saying our vows with the wind in our hair. We wrote our names down with a leap of faith. In that moment, I learned the beauty of trusting God, even when something isn’t fully built yet.
“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” —Hebrews 11:1
God In Every Step
Everything else that followed – the catering, the cake, the wedding dress, the bridal party gifts, the party favors, endless hours at Office Depot – happened with diligence and patience. Every day, Omar and I prayed that God’s will be done. Those prayers for the wedding planning to run smoothly, I realize now, made everything rather seamless. God connected us to vendors that were Christian without us even knowing beforehand. Our wedding day coordinator happened to be retiring, and on our wedding day, while dancing, she came up to us and said how she adored us and that this was her best wedding. We were her very last, something we also didn’t know until that very moment on our dance floor. Here, I learned that by having patience and trusting God, He will make your wedding not only special for you but for others.
God was in every single step. Omar and I are firm believers that God is our ultimate planner, and without Him, nothing would be as it was. This is what I learned about God; that He is the most beautiful, powerful, significant, integral and magnificent planner of all.
Just weeks before our wedding, we got an email from one of the owners of our wedding venue saying how a vendor wanted to do something nice for a bride and groom and how she recommended us. It ended up being a beautiful display of fireworks up in the sky to end the night. Omar and I felt like children, as grateful and excited as we were. We knew it was God’s way of celebrating our marriage, and it brought us to tears. It was God’s gift to us.
Omar and I were just doers of what God had already planned. Without my loving husband, who also tied ribbons, glued programs, caught my grammar mistakes and made me laugh in the process, our wedding wouldn’t be what it was. Above all, without our God, who held our hands the whole way through, our wedding wouldn’t have been possible. He’s the one who brought Omar and I together. He’s the one we sought to glorify, and we did.
What I learned overall, is not much about the actual wedding planning details, but about surrendering the wedding planning to the Father. Will I give Him full control, or keep some of it to myself? Omar and I gave it all to Him daily, and that’s why we truly believe our wedding day couldn’t have been more perfect.
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