Freedom's just another word ... 1.0

"Things'’ll change. You wait. You'll be telling married jokes in a few years. Heh, heh, heh."” I was on the road with a couple consultants this week, and that was the good-natured refrain.

Things have already changed. It's not easy to put my finger on them though.

After Laurelyn said yes, I noticed something solid and certain come over her. "...And there is no way we'’re going deep in debt with this wedding!"” she said to friends over dinner, stabbing the air with a finger. Ah, sweeter words are rarely spoken, but the vigor of the statement surprised me. I recognized a new freedom to assert herself. She'’s not timid. Far from it. But she seemed so much more at ease that I couldn'’t help but notice.

I'm convinced that marriage gives us latitude. A bad day, or week, or longer matters less now. There'’s always tomorrow. While TWIL and I thought we'’d be together forever, life without marriage made me careful, respectful. I felt that because we did not have to stay together, we consciously paid attention to the best we had to offer. We behaved as though we wanted to stay together. But now that we're engaged, we're freer.

With freedom comes responsibility. We don'’t have to ignore those annoying habits. We can point them out, pick at them, repeat them as a joke for friends and family over dinners. We can mock them when it's just us guys (or gals). Everybody Loves Raymond made a lot of people laugh with nothing more for material than "husbands and wives don'’t get along."” Apparently, good marriages can work like Ray and Debra's. But jeez, it looks ugly. I don't imagine that loving your spouse means lying about how sweet, thin, and funny she is. But dang, if I trust her with my heart, shouldn't I hope and believe she won't jam her thumb in my left ventricle on purpose? I mean, if you use your freedom to exercise power over somebody, you've missed the point.

Marriage frees us to be ourselves. It unleashes our truest traits. Including, often, petty cruelty. Me? I'm free, sure, but I'm working it. I'm still consciously being respectful, because some of me is unworthy of her. TWIL thinks I'’m better than the man she'd hoped for. I'm not boasting; I'm quoting. Talk about responsibility.

There's a place for us 1.0

In the past two years TWIL and I have been to two weddings held in a manner I think of as Middle Eastern. The bride and groom rent a house, invite their friends and family, sing and dance and drink and just - you know - hang, and then marry on Saturday before turning the place over to a family from New York City. "Middle eastern" in length and leisure; day after day of good times. We became fast friends with a couple we met at Dave and Amy's wedding on Cape Cod. And we're determined to find a place.

But we've been looking since mid-July. First, and you know who you are, I want to see you outside. You red-wine spilling, furniture breaking, toilet-stopping, indoor cigar-butting, towel-bloodying, lawn-driving, fill-in-the-room vomiting renters' of summer houses who had your perfect nuptuials on the Cape or in southern Maine, I want a piece of you. We have emailed or phone a hundred houses whose owners told us that someone elses' wedding ruined it for us. There's the guy in a tux who got drunk, wandered down the beach and flopped down on the sofa for boozey rest. He was in the house next door. "Nobody lets people do that anymore," is the way homeowners end this screed. "It's too bad. It's a beautiful place for a wedding."

Of course, there are the liars. "We're booked during July and August. Best wishes to you! :)" But when we write back that June or September are possible, that we'll work with them on dates, they write back that they don't allow weddings. "It's complicated, we don't live nearby. We had a bad experience.... So few homeowners allow weddings anymore. A shame, too. It's beautiful."

One sweet semi-retired guy in Kennebunk Beach was willing to rent the place. He was openminded. And helpful. But 75 people was all he could see the property bear. Which meant also renting the country club for a day. You don't need to be Ben Bernanke to see how deficit spending would balloon to threaten future economic growth. For the record, I wouldn't rent my oceanfront property to a wedding. You don't have to be coy with us. But we think a 85-90 people might attend. So, we Google on.

I suppose we could have lied. "Really, it's a very small wedding...." And then just when you think it's all over but the dancing, someone's date say, you, find a set of lawn darts ("Jarts," where I come from), starts a game that leads to a pitched contest, but with too many Chardonnays or maybe it's a little stroke, the ten-inch yard missle goes through the ocean-facing window and stabs my aunt in the shoulder and she bleeds all over the powder blue sofa. When the EMTs show up to extract window glass from uncles and business associates, they say it looks like about 150 people milling around on the lawn. My aunt's fine - given enough physical therapy, she'll get full range of motion back - and you get over the shame - after all, it's an Unbelievable Story. But now you've ruined it for the last few couples who might have wed there. But we didn't lie. It's not us. And, you know, it's a beautiful place for a wedding.

The Wedding Registry Alternative

Bring cash, or else.

Yard sale and looking forward

On Saturday, TWIL and I held a yard sale with the idea that we were clearing the cellar and raising money for the wedding. We slept poorly and got up early.

I got rid of a set of mixing bowls - the first this avid cook bought after he left the monastery (that's another story). I offered up a set of silverware that I bought when I moved into this house alone. And she gave up her blender and a collection of good framed prints. It's the stuff of two households. "Well, when you leave me...," I joked, "you're going to need those," all the while comforting myself that the bowls were still there. There were times when I salivated to live alone again. But in fact I feared that she'd find me out. She'd be right to leave. I'm not as good as she thinks I am. That's never changed.

What I can tell you is that we parted with most of the stuff as a burden being lifted. People were happy to hear they were supporting our wedding. As one shopper said, "Well this is a nice change. Usually I'm picking through the wedding gifts because..., well, you don't want to hear that!" The furniture that we couldn't sell by 1 p.m., we labeled "Free." Edi and Candace, the kind of friends you'd wish for but wouldn't find, helped us carry two carloads of orphaned objects to the Salvation Army. When we four finished lunch, the furniture was gone.

Five years ago, TWIL called me from Washington as I headed home from the shuttered office building where I worked in Boston's financial district. She could see the smoke rising from the Pentagon. The cell phone networks were overwhelmed for hours before I could talk with her again. We were just glad to know the other was there and safe. So little seemed solid that day and every day that followed. Everything except her.