Lucky in love

My lucky day

I hear people comment all the time about how lucky they are to have found their spouse.  We are lucky because they posses qualities that we find attractive.  They are good listeners, they make us laugh, or maybe they have a really great butt!  We have a list of things that led to us falling in love with them.  We are lucky.  Have you ever thought about how lucky you are because you had the choice to say "I do"?

Today I read one woman's story about her arranged marriage (keep reading for the link to her story).  I have been following the writer of this blog for a while but had yet to come across this part of her past.  I admit, when I first realized what the story was about I thought it was going to be a comparison...not the real thing.  Surely she did not really have an arranged marriage.  That is something from a movie, or a book, not real life.  I obviously need to expand my knowledge of the world, because I learned that this is much more common that I would have ever thought and I was anxious to learn more about her experience. 

How lucky am I that I got to marry the man I fell in love with?  I emailed him, then we talked on the phone.  Eventually a date was planned, which was followed with many more dates.  I fell in love with him and then we got engaged.  We both wanted to get married and the wedding would not have happened if either one of us had said no.  Our families and friends were happy for us and supported our decision.  If any of them had expressed doubts we may not have gotten married because their opinions are important to us.

Troy spent weeks planning his proposal and was so excited about it he couldn't narrow it down to just one idea.  He was so enthusiastic about asking me to marry him that he actually proposed twice that night.  I said yes (both times) because I wanted to, and not because I felt pressure from anyone else.  This was my fairy tale coming true!  We even rode on a Cinderella carriage and took a gondola ride under the stars. 

We planned the wedding.  We wrote our own wedding vows.  We decided who would be in our wedding, and who would (or would not) get an invitation.  We left our wedding reception with balloons trailing our car and drove down the highway waving at the cars that passed us.  We went to Walmart on our wedding night and made our first purchase with our "congratulations" money: junk food!  We pigged out on peanut butter filled chocolates and talked about our exciting day. 

I often say that I am a lucky girl, but today it means a little more.  I fell in love with the man my heart chose.  I got engaged because I wanted to marry the man I loved.  We had the wedding that we planned together.  Our wedding night was filled with more celebrating.

I consider myself lucky because I got to make the big decision to say "I do" with the person I chose.  To me, this is a blessing.  I am sure there are many women in the world who consider it a blessing to have an arranged marriage.  It's amazing how our beliefs, desires, and view of "luck" are so much based on the culture in which we are raised. 

As a hopeless romantic I definitely suggest you read Cinderita's story.  How does a woman on a quest for love deal with the marriage her parents arranged for her?  The story is divided into 6 parts so you can read a section a day if you don't have the time to read it all at once.  This is a love story, but not in the way you expect.  This is a story of a woman who loves her family so much she risks losing her own chance at love.  Read Cinderita's story here.