Lisa Marie, right, volunteering for the Lost Dog and Cat Rescue Foundation.

Today I’m feeling particularly inspired by the holiday spirit. This season feels like an appropriate time to talk about the aspect of our wedding that focuses on giving back to others, and I don’t just mean our guests.

First, a bit of personal background. I’m an only child, and I’ve been spoiled rotten my entire life. I have enough self-awareness to know that my selfishness is a character flaw I need to work on. But until a couple years ago, I never felt inspired to focus on anything other than my immediate surroundings. As Andrew and I became used to living together and were comfortable developing our own hobbies, he joined car clubs, developed workout groups, and bought a PlayStation 3 with lots of games. He seemed content having these hobbies, and I was kind of lost. My life in college was all about my sorority, and now I was in DC without my college friends. So when I received a flyer for the Lost Dog and Cat Rescue Foundation practically begging for folks to help handle animals at adoption events, I figured I’d see if this seemed like a fit.

The religious element of the wedding is well under way, so it was off to more bridal shops with my support staff in tow to see if there was anything else out there. I found a great dress at the Running of the Brides event at Filene’s Basement. But after making the trip to the bridal shops with my future mother-in-law, I fell in love with two other dresses, showing me that there were so many other dresses out there that I could also fall in love with.

With my mom and maid-of-honor, Stefanie, I visited two shops near my condo in Alexandria. Stef has known me for essentially our entire lives, and we’re way past the point of niceties when trying on clothes together, especially for an event of this magnitude. For instance, at the first store, I tried on one dress that had a pickup skirt and cinched bodice. When I came out of the dressing room, my mother was analyzing the dress, and Stef took one look at me and said, “You look like a window treatment.” Needless to say, I didn’t have to worry about a lack of honesty from her. Between the two stores, I tried on about 20 dresses, and I (thankfully) didn’t have the same sort of connection to any of them as I did to the first one and to the two from the bridal shop we visited a few weeks ago.

After weighing the positives and negatives of using the perfect pastor as our officiant versus marrying in the church I grew up in, I decided that the meaningful location just couldn’t compare to having an officiant who truly embodied the religion we were marrying into. So, to the dismay of my mother, I contacted Father Chuck and let him know that we’d like to set up our ceremony at his parish.

After much back and forth on the date (he’s a very popular priest at a very popular church, so finding a date that worked with the church and my very popular reception venue was not an easy task), we settled on July 3. I wasn’t thrilled that it was a Friday, but it’s a national holiday because July 4 falls on a Saturday. So it should still feel like a Saturday wedding, plus all of our vendors would be less expensive on a weekday! As we went back and forth on the date, Father Chuck let me know that finding a date was the hardest part of the planning process—I hope he was correct!

After 13 years of Catholic school (yup, even my kindergarten class was Catholic), I didn’t ever consider not having a Catholic wedding ceremony. Thankfully—though not purposely—I fell in love with a fellow Catholic, so deciding to follow the Catholic rites of matrimony was an easy decision for both of us. The problem is that neither of us is a particularly active Catholic, so where exactly do we start?

I grew up in the DC suburbs and spent the first nine years of my education at St. Ann School and Church in Arlington. During those formative years, I went to church twice a week, studied religion every day, and like most children with their religion, never really thought about the process as anything other than the status quo. But as I grew into a preteen and those rebellious urges began percolating in my brain, I met Father Chuck. For those who’ve seen the movie Keeping the Faith, Father Chuck is comparable to Ed Norton’s character, only better. He takes the intangible elements of religion and makes them understandable through his personal anecdotes and real-life examples. Basically, he made religion “cool.”

When my mother was pregnant with me in the ’80s, I arrived three weeks late and came out weighing more than ten pounds. So from the beginning (literally), I’ve been a little bit lazy and have never been a petite girl. For the most part, it’s never really bothered me that I was a little bigger than average. Sure, we all have our moments where we wish that the trendy swimsuit looked better on us. But in general, I’ve accepted my natural curves and chubby cheeks. That is, until I embarked on wedding-dress shopping.

There’s nothing more infuriating than trying on a wedding dress that hangs like perfection on the hanger but won’t slip over your hips. I realized that for me to be truly happy with my appearance on my wedding day, I needed to start exercising and dieting—neither of which are natural habits. Like most other women in America, I’ve dieted before, but my weight constantly fluctuates depending on my stress level.

Lisa Marie with (from left) her bridesmaid Erin, her mom, her future mother-in-law, and her bridesmaid Jessie.

When I was younger and pictured trying on my wedding dress, I didn’t envision stripping down in a department store and buying a dress that cost less than some of my everyday shoes. Regardless of whether there was already a wedding dress in my closet, I knew I wanted to see what all the other dress designers had to offer.

So when my future mother-in-law scheduled a trip to DC from Rhode Island for a long weekend, we decided we were going to hit the shops and see as many dresses as possible. I wasn’t exploring other options just to go through the motions or to play dress-up with more gowns—I kept questioning if I could love the dress I had without having seen anything else on the market. So after greetings with hugs and kisses at the airport Friday night, we were off to get some rest for the marathon shopping trip ahead.

Lisa Marie with bridesmaids Ali, Dez, and Liz.

No matter how many attendants you decide to have stand by you during the most important day of your life, you’re inevitably going to hurt someone’s feelings by not including them. My fiancé, Andrew, is handling the awkwardness by not making any decision on his groomsmen until 2009. And if I know my Andrew, he’ll probably wait until about two weeks before the wedding to make a final decision. But I wanted to include my bridesmaids in the early planning process, such as checking out venues, sampling caterers, and of course, trying on as many dresses as possible.

I wanted my bridal party to represent not only the different stages of my life but the different stages of my relationship with Andrew. We’ve been together five years now, so there’s plenty of people who’ve seen us through the first kiss, the first apartment, the first pet, and all the rest of the firsts we’ve experienced together. The choice for maid of honor came pretty easily—I’ve been friends with Stefanie since I was 18 months old. Her mother was my daycare provider, and we spent our entire lives growing up together. Even though she was in New York City for most of Andrew’s and my relationship, she’s probably the one person not related to me who has truly been involved in every important life stage I’ve experienced.