There is something about hitting the 30-day mark before your wedding that changes everything.

For more than a year, October 10 has been this date sitting somewhere in the future. We knew it was coming, obviously, but there was always another month, another week, another opportunity to say, “We’ll deal with that later.”

Well, “later” has officially arrived.

And apparently, 30 days out is when all the things you ordered, planned, forgot about, worried about and thought you had under control decide to show up at the same time.

Some literally showed up at our front door.

Our wedding favors started arriving this week, including custom fans we were really excited about. They came out beautiful. The printing looked exactly how we hoped.

Then we opened one.

Beautiful.

Then we tried to close it.

Not so beautiful.

The fans don’t close properly once they’ve been opened, which means something we thought we could simply check off the list became another email conversation with a vendor trying to figure out a solution.

That has become one of the biggest lessons of this final stretch: “delivered” does not necessarily mean “done.”

Sometimes the package arriving is only the beginning.

Some Dudes Marry Dudes

Our custom shot glasses also arrived this week, and thankfully, those came out exactly how we wanted.

They say: “Some dudes marry dudes.”

Simple. Funny. Very us.

The company even included a free gift with our order.

A bride-and-groom koozie set.

We just stared at it and laughed.

There is something almost perfect about ordering wedding favors that literally announce that two men are getting married and still receiving the automatic bride-and-groom gift.

It wasn’t offensive. It wasn’t some huge wedding-planning crisis.

It was just one of those tiny moments that reminds you how deeply the bride-and-groom assumption is built into the wedding industry.

As two grooms, you learn to laugh at some of it.

You correct what needs correcting, customize what needs customizing, and keep moving.

Sometimes representation is serious.

And sometimes representation is looking at two koozies and thinking, “Y’all really missed every clue, huh?”

When “Final” Still Isn’t Final

The rest of the week followed the same theme.

My wedding shoes arrived in the wrong color, which meant going back to searching when I thought that decision was finished.

We finally got our red-carpet backdrop and courtroom banners ordered after waiting longer than we wanted for the final designs.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I officially ordered my wedding ring.

That one felt different.

So much of wedding planning is logistics: contracts, measurements, quantities, deliveries and deadlines.

But then you make a decision like ordering the ring you are actually going to wear as someone’s husband, and suddenly all the spreadsheets disappear for a second.

You remember what all of this is actually for.

Then Came Rehearsal

Sunday was our second ceremony rehearsal.

I wish I could tell you everyone arrived completely prepared, scripts memorized and ready to execute our eight-Act ceremony flawlessly.

That would be a lie.

There were questions.

There were stops.

There were people figuring out where they were supposed to stand and what happened next.

And yes, there was a part of me thinking, “I have been telling y’all to read these scripts.” 😂

I like being prepared. I like knowing what happens next. And one of the hardest parts of creating something this detailed has been accepting that I cannot control how everyone else prepares for it.

That can be frustrating.

But something happened during this rehearsal that mattered more than perfection.

For the first time, I could see it.

The ceremony Jeff and I had talked about for months, written on paper, timed to music and replayed a thousand times in our heads was suddenly happening in front of us.

Not perfectly.

Not completely.

But physically.

People were moving into position. Entrances started making sense. The structure started flowing.

The Ascension of the Court was becoming real.

Progress Over Perfection

And maybe that is where we are with the entire wedding right now.

The fans aren’t perfect.

The shoes weren’t right.

Somebody sent two grooms a bride koozie.

The rehearsal still needs work.

There are things left to order, fix, confirm and probably worry about at two in the morning.

But perfection was never really the goal.

Creating something that feels like us was.

Thirty days out, we are learning that watching a vision become reality does not mean watching everything happen exactly according to plan.

Sometimes it means solving the problem in front of you, laughing at the ridiculous parts, letting go of what you cannot control and noticing the moments when something you imagined finally starts taking shape.

And this week, underneath all the chaos, we finally saw it.

October 10 isn’t coming anymore.

It’s almost here.

Countdown to J Squared: Apparently, we don’t know how to plan a normal wedding

Photographer: Kivus and Camera