can you be a bride without a tiara?

I hate coming up with subjects for blog posts. Why is the subject the first thing you write? I don't know what the subject is until I'm done writing, for the most part. So, just a warning, there may be a lot of blank subject lines in this blog.
Morning. Coffee. It's so hot outside that when I woke up, I was already sweating. Both H. and I slept on top of the covers last night. Or, well, he slept and I watched him. He has a great sleeping face, and makes the most contented noises... he doesn't breathe when sleeping, he sighs. It's very sweet. Anyways, so hot outside that I don't want to leave the house, and I have many excuses not to: homework, transportation, temperature. Yet another inside day for me.
Last night, when I was trying to fall asleep, I had an idea for a book. No, not a book... yes, a book... I had an idea that COULD turn into a book, but I'm scared to start writing a whole book, so I want to start with a short story. I have an idea. I wrote the first few paragraphs in my head as I was falling asleep. I think it could be really good. But I'm not going to write the idea here, because I think y'all will steal it :) No, I'm not writing it here because I think if I let it out in any form other than the story, I won't write the story.
Opened up TM music video I've been working on for the past few months, and remembered that the last time I worked on it, I deleted all the images in the 2nd verse. So now I have work to do on that as well. I've been working on this thing, off and on, since February. Now it's at the point where I just want it to be DONE, you know? But I also don't want it to be a piece of shit. And I've watched it so many times now, I can't tell if it's a piece of shit or not, you know? I've shown it to a bunch of people, no-one's said it's bad, but then again...
H. and I went out with D. and A. last night, and as usual I drank too much, and I think I said some stupid shit. H. assured me I didn't, but I always feel like I do. Like I blurt out inappropriate things. Like my comment about weddings. It wasn't a reflection on D., I didn't mean it that way, it was like she said... for some reason, if it's for a wedding, it costs more. It makes me not want to get married again, but at the same time, I can't get rid of the idea that I'm not "acceptable" as a married woman unless H. and I have a big, ostentatious, overly-expensive wedding. Unless I wear a big dress and a tiara, and he wears a tux, and the bridesmaids all wear shiny dresses, and everyone drunkenly dances to "Can't Touch This" late into the night. Truth is, deep down, I don't really care if we do it or not. H. and I are really happy together, we have a really strong relationship and we communicate well and we're both respectful. There are no "red flags" in our relationship, and I think it's safe to say that were each other's best friend. But I can't get over this idea - in fact, have cried myself to sleep over this idea - that our marriage "doesn't count" because it wasn't a big affair, or because we didn't go through the "proper procedure" to reach the aisle. What do I mean by that? We were never engaged. I was never a fiancee. I went straight from girlfriend to wife, with no time to pick a china pattern. I wore regular clothes to the wedding (no big white dress for me!), didn't get my hair done... the only thing I did differently was to wear a bit more eyeliner than usual. What did it matter? We didn't have a photographer anyways.
I guess it's this idea that the wedding is supposed to make all the dreams come true... that it's supposed to be a reflection of your personality, and a sign of how much you love each other. The bigger the wedding, the more love. Or something. Or is it about being princess for a day? I've never been a princess to begin with. I'm not that kind of girl, you know? I've never been the pretty one in the group, I've never been the one who gets advantages because of the way she looks, I've never been the one guys approach and say "you're hot." No, I'm the one guys come up to and say "tell your friend I think she's beautiful." Yes, this has actually happened. More than once.
What kind of dream is the wedding supposed to make come true, though? I mean, when I run down the list of things I want out of life, "princess for a day" isn't on it. Neither is "family reunion." My list of life goals looks something like this:
* Find a good partner (someone you love, who loves you, who wants the same things out of life as you)
* Find a good job (one that can accomodate the lifestyle you want)
* Buy a house
* Have some kids and raise them to be good people
* Publish a book
* Make a movie

...and that's about it. If I can do (most of) these things in my lifetime, I'll die happy. So far, I've done the first one.
Getting back on topic: if a wedding is supposed to be a sign of how much you love each other (which, for some people, like S. and T., I think it is... they're really putting themselves into it...), and if H. and I didn't put much effort into our wedding, does that mean we don't love each other as much as other couples do? I say no, but I get the impression that other people don't think the same way.
Both my parents have been married twice. My dad is divorced twice, and my mom really SHOULD be divorced twice at this point. My parents, honestly? They should have never gotten married in the first place. I think both of them regret it, and I've grown up feeling like I'm the product of bad decision-making more than a product of love. I mean, they can't even be in the same room together, let alone have a conversation. So I don't put a lot of faith in marriage to begin with. H's parents, on the other hand, have been together almost 40 years, raised 2 kids, built a house from the ground up. They're partners, you know? And they never got married.
I should maybe look at it this way: H. and I had two choices. We could get married, or he could go back to Sweden. If he'd gone back to Sweden, true, we could've stayed together. But I've done that "long distance" thing before, and I knew that, more likely than not, we would have broken up. And I couldn't imagine my life without H. We didn't necessarily want to get married, but we did it so that we could stay together. I can't really think of a bigger expression of love than that.
Yet the doubts (and the voices) still linger... the eyes are silently judging me, saying I'm not a proper bride and, by extension, not a proper WOMAN because H. and I didn't do it up right. Because I didn't wear a tiara, and I don't have any diamonds on my finger. It sounds so silly when I write it out like that, but these thoughts really do go through my head. Why do I care so much what other people think? I shouldn't, but for some reason, I do.