My blogging days did not start until after I got married, so I have never really broached the subject of wedding-planning in detail because I didn’t think a two-year retrospective would have been all that interesting. Apparently, Jess does. Without further ado (and because I love an excuse to talk about weddings), I present a two-part mini-series in which I will discuss my perspective on weddings in general and the motivation behind the decisions I made for my own wedding.
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When I was planning my wedding, two other girls in my office were doing the same; our three wedding styles ran the gamut of price, style, and stress level. Since I was the least stressed out, I earned the nickname, “Zen bride.” Now, I am not typically labeled “Zen.” Or laid-back. Or easy-going. I am as tightly wound, structured, and rigid as people come (I am working on it), so I was pleasantly surprised to find myself in a rather c’est la vie mindset about the entire planning process.
The attitude sprang from a conversation I had with an older friend who had been married for about ten years. I was debating whether or not to create guest gift bags to be waiting in hotel rooms, but the cost was significant since almost everyone would be traveling. I made some comment about how I couldn’t justify the cost and effort to create all these gift bags, but I wasn’t sure what people expected when they went to a wedding, so maybe I should just hunker down and make the darn things.
My friend looked me straight in the eye and said, “Listen to me. It is not about the guests. It is not about their expectations. It is about you and JG. You can’t waste your time thinking about the guests because they are there for you. It is not about them.”
This wedding is about us, I repeated in my head. How novel!
The subliminal messages from the bridal magazines that littered my dorm room floor had seeped into my brain, persuading me that weddings require certain behavior, people expect certain things, and once-in-a-lifetime memories have a certain price tag. I had become, as JG later coined, Bride Stupid. I suffered from a paralyzing state of mind that somehow made me think that it was logical to agonize over matching shades of green, debate spending hundreds of dollars and hours of time to create gift bags with lotion in them, and feel monstrous guilt over not paying for bridesmaids’ hairstyles.
That conversation snapped me into being Bride Smart. I didn’t give a second thought about gift bags afterward. I didn’t bother making or buying favors. I left my bridesmaids’ shoe selection up to them. I gave fabric swatches and color preferences to my florist and let it be. As I told my co-workers, I was going to be happy as long as I ended up married by the end of the day, no one got sick or fell over from the June heat, and people liked the food. I didn’t have the brain space to worry about all of those tiny details: no one needed a gift bag, I never liked toting home useless wedding favors, I wasn’t about to tell someone what kind of shoes to buy, and what did I know about flowers? I simply did not care.
“You say it’s all about me and my fiancé, but what if what we want is to match invitations to our cake, hire a horse and buggy, and coordinate the arrival of 500 guests in trolley cars?”
Well, that’s fine. Do what you want to do. Just don’t expect me to have sympathy for you when you’re gnashing your teeth because missing response cards make you guess at a count of trolleys. Try your best to remember that, while your wedding is about you two, it does not give you license to transform into unreasonable customers, family members, or friends. Don’t act like planning a gargantuan wedding is a sentence a judge has laid on you.
Don’t think that I was not stressed out during my wedding. Trust me — I was. No one warned me that the wedding rehearsal day, when our two families collided for the first time, could be the most trying day of the entire process. Between setting up for the wedding reception, going through the ceremony, running interference between troublesome family members, and making our way to the rehearsal dinner, I was not a happy camper. Being the sole question-answerer was such a strain on me that I hardly enjoyed that day at all. I didn’t allow myself to thrill softly, “I’m getting married tomorrow!” Instead, it was all about tablecloths, layout, processional order, and starting on time, so help me. In hindsight, my friends and family could have figured out how to do the tablecloths without me. There was a diagram for the table arrangement. A friend of mine was overseeing the processional order for me, and our pastor made sure that we were on schedule. I chose to clutch at the idea that I was in control rather than stepping back and enjoying the idea that I was getting married the next day.
All of this is not to say that weddings are not important; I’m saying that weddings aren’t that important. They shouldn’t inspire anxiety attacks over shades of tulips or a lack of organza chair covers. Getting married, however, is a hugely important deal, and it should not be confused with all of the trappings of being a bride. It’s a declaration of a life commitment; it is a happy life milestone. Weddings can be sophisticated, personalized, coordinated, designed, and engineered, but at the very base of it, they should be happy.
When I talk to my stressed-out, engaged friends, I try to remind them that a wedding is a big deal, but it is not that important in the grand scheme of things. It should be a happy occasion, but they are not responsible for responding to guests’ expectations because it is not about the guests. The wedding is about you, I tell them, but please be nice about it.
12 comments
This is so cool! Thanks so much for posting it. I will have to post my own thoughts on the issue soon.
You’re welcome! I’m interested see what you think, now that you’re in the trenches.
AMEN.
Ha.
Great thoughts. I also am a “planner” and a typically high stress person, so most people couldn’t believe how mellow I was on my wedding day. A lot of it was a philosophy similar to yours.
I really felt like it made things easier for me, even if it was kind of unnerving.
Very true, especially the “it’s about you and your marriage” and the “be nice about it” parts. I too am a planner with lists and spreadsheets, and I certainly used them for wedding planning, but I didn’t stress much about the details and tried to keep it simple: invite loved ones to a pretty place, marry D, feed loved ones and celebrate. I certainly had my moments (MIL’s guest list comes to mind) but I was far more relaxed than I, or anyone that knew me, expected.
Oh, the guest list. I am rolling my eyes. Some parts of wedding planning are inevitably stressful, but I figure that it doesn’t help to INJECT stress into situations.
Reading all of the planning (and money!) that goes along with weddings makes me thankful that I’m not at that point yet.
And thankyou for helping me fix my typo!
Aw, you’re welcome!
AMEN! I remember a girl at the reception place telling me how easy-going I was, and I replied, “Well, it’s the happiest day of my life no matter what happens, so I might as well enjoy it.”
Hopefully my future-daughters will be the same.
I think it helps to be a low-stress mother-of-the-bride, too. My mom wasn’t too involved with the planning because of distance, so I think I was spared a fair amount of residual stress.
This is so refreshing! I was very laid back when planning my wedding, which was strange because I am a super anal girl. But a wedding is about celebrating the start of a marriage, YOUR marriage…not the marriage of you and the 100+ people you invited.
My photographer called me a few days before my wedding to ask me what kinds of pictures I wanted. He had a list of questions to run through….my response to nearly every one was “I don’t care.” All I wanted was pictures that represented Ted and I on at the beginning of our marriage…and that is exactly what I got.
I really hope that more brides adopt this philosophy! Stop stressing about the wedding itself and start planning for a fantastic marriage!
I completely agree, and that’s why I don’t think blowing a huge amount of money (or worse, going into debt) for a wedding is worth it at all. It’s just one day!
Seriously. Amen. Hallelujah. Preach On.
My wedding day was very relaxed for me. I think my family got a little nervous about me being so calm. And I. Am NOT a relaxed type of person. I guess that was the best part of getting married in another part of the country. I had to fly our four days in advance, so that was my freak out day. What could I do 2500 miles from home?
That would do it, huh? I think another part of being relaxed is just knowing that even if you COULD be in control, you don’t have to be, you know?
I am not engaged yet but I like to think that I will be a “Zen Bride” too - I get that the day is about us, and it’s something small to be enjoyed. Granted, I dont’ have any relatives in Australia other than my parents and siblings, which will keep the guest count down which will keep the stress levels down, but I still hope that I can organise a wedding and not strangle anyone. I don’t want to be stressing and worrying - I want to be enjoying getting married!
It’s bizarre how the whole “wedding culture” can infiltrate what might normally be a rational person. I think it has something to do with the whole spectacle of getting married, the pressure of being the center of attention, and the need for some sort of traumatic experience to prove that the wedding is a big deal. But that’s just a guess. Good luck when you get there!
I love your wedding philosophy — very similar to my own! When I started planning my wedding, I had a checklist, binder with tabbed dividers for all the vendors we’d need to arrange, spreadsheets for flowers, guest lists, budget, etc. My mom saw all this and said, “You’re going to have the most organized wedding ever.” I just looked at her and replied, “Mom, there’s no other way to do it.” No way was I going to be a stressed out bride on my wedding day. I was going to have everything planned and organized and delegated so that all I had to do on the Big Day was relax, take it all in, and savor every moment. And it worked out absolutely perfectly.
That’s right! Yet another example of how organization causes relaxation. In the case of some disaster, though, I would have hoped that I wouldn’t have flipped out on someone. The friend I had enlisted to oversee the logistics of the actual wedding day told me that even if the building was on fire, she would FIX IT. And that was fine with me.
I think this is great advice. NOT THAT CRAZY LAUREL WOULD KNOW, but it does seem that it’s easy to get caught up in all the little stuff.
Although, for out of town guests, I really like the idea of a couple of pre-stamped postcards from the city you’re in! You can get in under $1 per guest and they might actually use it (unlike the boxes of chocolate and popcorn that I usually get that end up crushed in my suitcase on the way home).
That would be a cool gift for guests! I will log that away in my “out of town bride” file.
this should be required reading for all brides! your wedding sounds perfect
Thanks, Janet. I am tickled to have your wedding-planning approval!
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