When I imagined myself getting married, ironically, I pictured that ending scene in “Runaway Bride” when Julia Roberts walks through the grassy field towards Richard Gere. With her hair blowing effortlessly in the wind; the fall foliage vibrant against her ivory gown and her off-the-shoulder dress trailing behind her she finally strides up to her groom with ease and confidence and says, “I do.”
When it came time to don my own ivory gown and tie the knot, I proved to be the real runaway bride, calling off my wedding just 11 days before the ceremony was to take place. In the aftermath of my decision, as I sat sifting through ripped-up RSVPs, wedding favors and registry refunds, I couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps I was missing that “bridal gene.” With this being the second wedding I’ve called off in less than two years, it seems I have my answer … but let me start at the beginning.
A year ago, almost to the date, I had plans to be married abroad at a charming chateau in Europe. My fiancé and I had been together since college and our relationship had already taken on a lifetime of memories. We joked about being “an old, married couple” in our 20s. With a ring on my finger, wedding planning took full force and began to consume both our lives. I had imagined wedding planning to be a movie montage of laughing girlfriends, vibrant bouquets and cake tastings. Instead, I felt overwhelmed and distant from the celebration, as if I was taking a back seat to my own life.
Just six months shy of the wedding, my fiancé and I called off the nuptials and notified 100 guests of our “postponement.” We had chalked up my cold feet and runaway bride behavior to the woes of planning a wedding abroad. Since we weren’t in Europe, or involved in the tastings, venue selections or décor, how could I feel like the wedding was my own? It was a perfectly rational explanation for such irrational behavior, and in the months that followed, I clung to that logic like a life raft.
As I watched my best friends distance themselves and my family retreat into disappointment in the post-wedding fall-out, I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt for having bolted in the opposite direction of marital bliss. Perhaps because of this, a year later, I found myself back on the wedding track and convinced that the second time would be the charm. With plans for a wedding stateside, I knew I would be more involved and integrated into every phase of the celebration.
What I hadn’t accounted for was the mutual realization that my fiancé and I were simply two different people. It was a cold awakening to realize that our problems never rested with wedding details, but rather, stemmed from an incompatibility in how we viewed our futures and what we wanted out of life.
While growing up, I would spend time on top of a red brick ledge that marked the entrance to my parent’s flower garden. High above the vibrant red roses and black and yellow bumblebees, I would sit perched above our quiet, suburban neighborhood with a journal in hand. On these lazy afternoons, I would stare up towards the sky as planes flew overhead, imagining the exotic, faraway destinations they were going to.
Maybe that plane was en route to London? Perhaps that one had just come back from Asia? At that age, the possibilities were endless, and the world was wondrous as I imagined all the places I had yet to explore. Now, at age 26, I am still that little girl dreaming of her next adventure. The vision of my life, or at least the next couple years of it, is a kaleidoscope of volunteering abroad, backpacking the world, submerging myself in various cultures and growing emotionally, spiritually and personally through travel.
With a journalism degree in my back pocket, I have been pouring my heart and efforts into developing my travel writing, growing my travel blog and getting my work published. As I flew off on press trips and travel assignments, the reality of my dreams, and the future my fiancé and I would have, started to dawn on us. While he envisioned something more comparable to “the American Dream” and longed for a backyard, cozy home and a dog, my aspirations pointed toward a future that was less stable and more spontaneous.
It took some time for my heart to catch up to my head and realize I wasn’t running from a wedding; rather, I was running from a future in which I didn’t see myself. I blamed the stress of wedding planning, the miles abroad and the money, but at the end of the day, the reason for our wedding being called off was simple: My fiancé had roots and I had wings. There was no future where we could reconcile that difference.
The label of “runaway bride” is a heavy one to carry, and although the decision to cancel our nuptials was mutual, the spotlight seemed to burn most brightly on me. Perhaps my dreams of travel writing will never come to fruition, or maybe a year from now, I will find myself living abroad. Anything can happen, and while a month ago, it felt as though my future belonged to someone else, now what happens next belongs to me.
I’ve never read anything so applicable to my life! While I have not even been close enough to engagement or marriage, I’ve always been worried I’d be able to find a partner who wanted the same life as me (jet-setting, spontaneous and never living anywhere for too long), so I’ve been content just saying I don’t really ever want to get married, while secretly hoping I find someone who will also want these things. Actually, my boyfriend and I are due to break up soon, since I’m living in London for who knows how long, and his visit to see me will be over at the end of this month, and we’ll be going our separate ways because we don’t really want the same things right now (I want to either stay in London or move to NYC, he doesnt…) So you’re not alone in this! It kinda sucks, but it really is freeing! Wishing us luck that it turns out for the best 🙂
I’m happy the story resonated with you! It’s definitely a touchy subject but I think it’s an important one that it seems many women deal with in different ways today because the standard “go to college, get a job, get married, have kids” formula is constantly being changed to make room for personal ambitions and dreams.
In truth, I think that it’s not impossible to find a relationship and be a traveler-I’ve met families, even parents with newborns on the road during my assignments! At the end of the day, it’s about finding someone wild to run with rather than someone to try and tame you 🙂
Thank you for sharing this Nicki! I’m glad that you were brave enough to know what you want and do something about it. I get where you’re coming from completely, a life of travel is such a strong pull, and the ‘American Dream’doesn’t really fit with the life of adventure we travellers want.
It sounds like you’ve made the right call! 🙂
Thank you Christine 🙂
chewy travels says
Ah, the “American dream.” It is a funny thing, but maybe your dream is a modern version of the American dream. I feel the old dream is fading away, and it belonged to the older generations anyway. Maybe Millenials have a new dream, and that is to have any dream that they can call their own. My first boyfriend was similar and wanted that same old American dream. I don’t think I ever wanted it, and I realized then that any person I consider to date in the future had to be at least flexible about their future. Nice post!
Thank you! Definitely agree that what was once considered the ‘American dream’ and the expected path of life has evolved over the years-especially for women. Virginia Woolf wrote, “Across the broad continent of a woman’s life falls the shadow of a sword.” On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where all is “correct.” But on the other side of that sword, if you’re crazy enough to cross it and choose a life that does not follow convention, everything is unpredictable and spontaneous. Seems more women are crossing over!
chewy travels says
Nice quote! I haven’t read much Virginia Woolf. I agree that it seems more women are crossing over! I’m not sure if your FB feed is like mine, but has been filled up with weddings this past year or more. I think there were about 10 weddings at least in the last 4 months. Does that make you feel relieved in a way that you didn’t go through with it? I’m still struggling with trying to feel less envious, but I’m not sure if it is real envy or just curiosity into what other people’s lives might be like since they seem so different from mine (i.e. more conventional and traditional).
It’s an interesting question and I can relate to the feeling but to be honest I think that marriage and kids are such big steps that it’s futile to compare yourself to what you see on Facebook. Just because one friend is ready to walk down the aisle doesn’t mean you are, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that 🙂
Plus social media is always a bit deceiving since we only share the best moments of our lives, so i try to remind myself to take things like that with a grain of salt. What you see is not always what you get.
Christie @ Heels and Hindsight says
Thanks Nikki for sharing, that’s a tough situation. I used to open the door at night, sit on the back step of my room and stare up at the sky and think of all the people flying that night too, imaging where they were going. Your travel writing is appreciated by many already, keep it coming 🙂
Thank you for the lovely comment, Christie! It truly are the readers that make this worthwhile 🙂
Doug in Texas says
The same can be said for men, too! Sometimes I mourn the loss of possibilities—what could have been—when I was in my twenties. Before returning to Dallas-Fort Worth when I was seven or eight years old, my family moved around to several states for my dad’s government work. Despite that early exposure to crossing state lines into new environments, I grew up without an understanding of how easy it was to cross international borders. It wasn’t ever discussed in my family, and my dad had even served in the Vietnam War on the other side of the globe. At 33, I was a runaway groom, but I ran away to Colombia to meet the woman who would be my bride. (My family thought I was insane.) That’s when my world became larger…and smaller, but outside my dull microcosm. From a different angle, I think the spirit *behind* the traditional American dream has been choked by a society that has lost much of its imagination and sense of adventure…maybe along with a sense of community. I admit I get bored being in one place for too long, but there’s a special feeling of security that’s lost when there isn’t an emotionally-attached “base camp” you can count on. My Colombiana and I own a home in Fort Worth, but aside from the precious outdoor cats we care for, her homeland feels like home to both of us.
What a great story! Thank you for sharing. I agree, that the ‘American Dream’ seems to be at a loss for imagination and whimsy. My boyfriend, who is a documentary filmmaker and artist, was talking to me about this the other day and we agreed that you need to retain your childlike curiousity and whimsy when growing up to sidestep routine and traditional societal expectations. We are actually headed to Colombia this April to Cartagena (a city very near and dear to my heart). Such a beautiful country.
Nikki
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