One day before the wedding, my fiancé laid a neat stack of documents on my kitchen table and said, ‘Add my name to your apartment, or there won’t be a wedding.’ For a second, I thought it had to be some awful, badly timed joke. Then I looked at his face and understood he had not spent the past few months preparing to become my husband. He had been preparing a move. So I let him believe I was willing to listen, smiled just enough to keep him comfortable, and waited for the moment when every plan he had hidden would finally come into the light.

Because by the time the reveal came, he already had his shoes by the door, his towels in the bathroom, his mail stacked in a neat little pile on the entry table, and his scent in the closet beside mine. He had made himself part of the atmosphere. He had become something I would have to rip out, not merely ask to leave.

The wedding planning ramped up fast once we got engaged. We were not extravagant people, but we wanted it to feel special. The venue was a restored industrial loft in Long Island City with exposed brick and tall windows and enough room for a dance floor.

We had chosen late spring because I wanted peonies and the chance of good light for photos. We argued over nothing and everything in the ordinary happy way couples do when they are making a life together—table linens, guest lists, whether we needed a signature cocktail, whether his Uncle Ron could be trusted with an open bar. I loved those months.