weekend intensity

my parents came into town this weekend.  it was the first time mike and i have seen them since we got engaged.  i was extremely excited for them to be in town.  we had some great places picked out for meals, a tour of the brooklyn brewery planned, and lots of time to share our ideas about what we wanted for our wedding.  people (and books, and blogs) had told me that sometimes wedding planning conversations between couples and parents got intense, but i thought my parents were going to be super cool about it.  i thought my not wanting to get married in a church was going to be the biggest point of contention, but i felt strongly about it so i wasn't that worried.  maybe i should have been ready for the intense conversation, but i definitely wasn't.
i wasn't prepared for the fact that they really wanted me to get married in connecticut.  i knew my mom would have ideas about who i should invite, but i didn't realize she'd ask what portion of our 150 maximum was available for her to invite.  some of the intensity was diffused by two of my friends stopping by, but i knew we had to just have the conversation.  voices were raised a little, i cried, the "husbands" tried to calm down the "wives." (i guess quotation marks aren't necessary for my parents, since they actually are married, but you get what i'm trying to do here). when all was said and done, my parents seemed ok with the fact that we want to get married in new york.  they liked some venues better than others, but at least acted comfortable with all of them, and they did give us some important things to think about.
coming away from the weekend, i'm pretty exhausted, but i appreciate the fact that my parents just want our wedding day to be amazing.  they might not understand some of the ideas that mike and i have, but they are supportive and beyond generous.  there will always be this part of me that wants my parents to approve of all of my decisions--like i'm still a little kid--but i know that the fact that the conversations saturday night were not totally comfortable meant that mike and i were staying true to the kind of wedding we envision for ourselves.
i have to say...i am excited for our wedding, but i am also looking forward to the day being here and mike and i just getting to be husband and wife.