Hey friends,

I announced a while back that I was working on a drawing course. I’m often asked about how I create my illustrations, so I wanted to gather all my tips and techniques into a single place.

Well, the course is almost done, and I will be releasing it in a couple of weeks. Here’s a screenshot of one of the lessons:

If you’re a writer or creator that wants to use drawings to enhance your work, then this course is for you. Or if you simply have an interest in learning how to draw, this course is also for you. The curriculum will be beginner-friendly, easy to follow, and quick to apply.

To be notified of when it goes live, click the button below to join the waitlist. I can’t wait to share it with you.

Keep me updated on the drawing course

Now, on to today’s post.

My wife and I got married on August 12th, 2018, which means that our 5-year wedding anniversary is coming up this week. The plan is to treat ourselves to a date night here in Korea, where we’ll probably end up reminiscing about how awesome our wedding day was.

But here’s the thing. Prior to August 12th, 2018, I used to think that having a wedding was a pretty irrational thing to do. After all, the common thing you hear from married couples is that weddings are unnecessarily expensive, introduce all kinds of weird family dynamics, and are generally stressful to put together.

Well, after having my own, it turns out that I was completely wrong. I published this post shortly after my wedding to break down why, and I love revisiting it around this time.

When you’re ready, let’s dive right in:

​Why Having a Wedding Makes Sense​

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The main thing I want to highlight today is today’s post, so instead of the usual stuff I include in the newsletter, I’ll be putting the opening section of the story below. If you enjoy it, feel free to share it with your friends, family, or audience.

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Have a great rest of your week!

-Lawrence

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​Why Having a Wedding Makes Sense​

On August 12th, 2018, I married my beautiful wife in the city of Vancouver, British Columbia.

That sentence sounds carefree, wonderful, and full of flowery imagery, but there were a lot of emotional things happening before, on, and after that date.

Here’s a summary of what was going on before the 12th:

Then came the flurry of the day itself:

Which led to some interesting insights:

To two weeks later:

And then fast forward six months to today:

So… uh… what happened here?

My perspective on having a wedding shifted from “Why the hell are we doing this absolutely irrational thing; no one should do this” to “Wow, that was an absolutely important thing for us to do; everyone should do it” almost instantaneously, and this view hasn’t faded away since.

This kind of super flip rarely happens even after exposure to the other side, particularly when the views are this diametrically opposed. It’s akin to a MAGA-donning Trump supporter deciding to vote for Hillary Clinton because he went to one of her rallies and was absolutely moved by the energy of the space. It’s as if a lifelong climate change-denier watched “An Inconvenient Truth” and became a fervent believer by the time the end credits rolled.

You see, I was a lifelong wedding-denier prior to August 12th, 2018. Sure, I loved going to my friends’ weddings to celebrate their union and be a witness to their special day (while enjoying delicious food and… *ahem*… plentiful beverages…), but when it came to having my own, I just didn’t see the utility in it. In fact, there was no reason to believe that it’d be worth it to begin with, as many of my married friends were usually just “glad that the wedding was over with,” and never really spoke of that day again.

Weddings seemed like an antiquated rite of passage, implanted into the mainstream consciousness by greedy corporate interests. Through our need for social approval, this manmade ritual became the ultimate status symbol, being conducted by couples across the world to satisfy the expectations of parents, friends, and society in general.

But, here I am today, writing a post about why having a wedding makes sense. Actually, not only does it make sense, I think it’s one of the most valuable and illuminating experiences you can possibly have with your partner.

Yes, it’s safe to say that I am now a wedding-believer, which is something I never thought I’d hear myself say.

When it comes to dramatic shifts of this nature, I like to reflect on why it happened so I can have a better understanding of the architecture of my cognitive blind spots. In this case, there was something that I was clearly missing from my worldview that was made apparent only after I personally experienced it. Where else do these blind spots exist in my thinking, and what if I don’t have the luxury of personal experience to act as a guide for other issues I have strong opinions about?

This question is something to store in the back of the mind as we go through my shift from wedding-denier to wedding-believer.

To start, let’s first diagram the separate views on weddings, and then delve into each one to get a sense of how the transition took place:

Hm, that was simpler than I thought. Okay, let’s delve into the first box.

Why I Thought Having a Wedding Was Very Stupid

This was the default setting my mind operated on for the vast majority of my life. As I said earlier, I really enjoyed attending my loved ones’ weddings, but the thought of setting up an elaborate wedding for my own situation seemed completely irrational. There are many, many articles and pieces out there that urge people to forgo this ritual, but here are the three main reasons why I believed that having a wedding was an incredibly irrational thing to do.

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