I was never a girl who dreamed about what her wedding day would

In the words of Rebecca Romijn, “I was never a girl who dreamed about what her wedding day would be like, but I've always dreamed about decorating my baby's nursery,” we encounter a wisdom that turns the gaze of the heart from spectacle to substance. The wedding day, though often idolized as the pinnacle of romance, is here revealed as less important than the quiet, sacred labor of nurturing new life. For while a wedding is but a single day of vows, the nursery is the beginning of years of devotion, care, and the shaping of a soul.

Her words unveil the difference between fantasy and calling. Many are taught to dream of veils, gowns, and ceremonies—but Romijn reveals her heart was not captivated by these fleeting images. Instead, she longed for the enduring work of motherhood, symbolized in the tender act of decorating a space for her child. The nursery is more than walls and furniture—it is sanctuary, the first kingdom of a newborn, a place where safety and love are stitched into the very fabric of the room.

History recalls Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, who, when asked to display her jewels, pointed instead to her children and declared, “These are my treasures.” Like Romijn, she did not measure joy in the fleeting splendor of ceremonies, but in the living inheritance of love and legacy. Weddings may dazzle the eyes of strangers, but nurseries cradle the future of nations.

Her quote also reminds us of the humility of true love. To dream only of the wedding is to dream of oneself at the center of celebration; but to dream of the nursery is to dream of another, one not yet born, who will depend entirely on love for survival. It is a shift from desiring to be adorned to desiring to give, from receiving attention to offering care. In this shift, we see the higher calling of love—sacrifice, protection, and creation.

So let this teaching endure: value not the fleeting glamour of the ceremony, but the eternal labor of love that follows it. A wedding may unite two lives, but the raising of children builds the generations. As Romijn reminds us, the truest dreams are not of dresses and aisles, but of cradles and lullabies—where love is not only celebrated, but lived, day after day, in the quiet heroism of a parent’s care.