• Originally published October 20, 2009 at 5:15 p.m., updated October 21, 2009 at 11:55 a.m.

BY APRILL BRANDON

In the chaos that is wedding planning, it's easy to forget why you and your fiance are driving yourselves crazy with centerpieces and seating charts.

It's because you love each other, right?

Right?

RIGHT?

Of course you do (even though that may be hard to remember the fourth time you are redoing the seating chart because Aunt LINDA doesn't GET ALONG with Uncle HARRY and your BRIDESMAID is on the outs with YOUR MAID OF HONOR because she's quote "a man-stealing harlot").

After four years together, prefaced by a friendship, I feel my fiance (who for our purposes here I'll call "Sugarpants") and I have a solid foundation. We love and respect each other and, more importantly, both agree that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was the greatest TV show of all time.

At this point in our relationship, not only do we know each other inside and out, but we have accepted all each other's little quirks.

He knows that I'm a grumpy zombie in the morning and should only be addressed after two Red Bulls or after 11 a.m., whichever one comes first.

I know that the toilet seat lid will be up 99 times out of 100, but that he'll be immensely proud about that one time he remembered to put it down.

He knows when I yell a drawn-out "BABE!" with an upward, almost hysterical inflection, it means there is a bug in the house and he must kill it. Immediately. Then flush it down the toilet so its ghost can't crawl out of the trash can and attack me.

I know when I refer to him as Sugarpants in a newspaper column, he won't be angry but will use it as an opportunity to play video games in the living room for 14 hours straight as a means of revenge.

But it's not just the little things. With our wedding only four months away, we've also talked about major life issues. We've discussed children (he wants two, I want four, so we settled on three...or two and a pet monkey). We've discussed finances (we're broke and hope one day not to be). We've discussed life philosophies (God is great, beer is good, people are crazy). And we've even discussed where we want to eventually settle down (he wants Seattle, I want the East Coast, so we'll probably end up in Duluth).

However, for any couple getting ready to walk down the aisle, lingering in the back of our minds is always that hideous but necessary question.

Will we make it as a couple?

It's a good question. It's a terrifying question. And it's one that we can't definitively answer.

So why would we do it? Why get married at all?

For one, I'm pretty psyched about the tax breaks myself. Oh, and then there is that whole pesky thing about him being the love of my life and all that junk.

But a marriage takes two and so I asked ol' Sugarpants why he wanted to marry me.

His response?

"You don't kill me in the morning when I bug you before 11 a.m."

One stink-eye look later, he told me this:

"You make me a better person when I am around you. You make me laugh. When I picture myself old and wrinkled, you are there beside me complaining about how the kids never visit anymore."

With an answer like that, turns out none of the other questions matter.

Aprill Brandon is a reporter for the Advocate. Her stupid kids may never visit when she's old, but at least her pet monkey will.

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