Josh and I are nearly half-way through our engagement. The list of things I have to accomplish never diminishes. When I steal time with him, with family, or with friends away from planning, I feel a little guilty. Like I should somehow spend 5 months thinking about a single day non-stop. The truth is, most of my “planning” is actually surfing the internet, having a hard time making up my mind, changing my area of research on a whim, and doing my best to keep from making a final decision about anything. Then, periodically I glance at a calendar, do a mental calculation of the time remaining, and fall into a puddle of tears. Thank God for friends who don’t mind mopping up a little salt-water.
Thank God also for friends who come bearing cookies, offers of help, and reminders that when the big day arrives, what matters is that we’re getting married. That everything else can fall to pieces, and as long as we vow to love and cherish each other for the rest of our lives, the wedding will be a success.
This is clearly something that every married person has been told on their own journey towards “I do.” I know this, because every married person who asks about stress follows their query with the same assurance. It’s like a mantra, and I have a sneaking suspicion it isn’t entirely true. Honestly, if the reception hall were to catch fire and we all had to evacuate before making it through the buffet line, I’d be grateful for the safety of my friends and family, and I’d be terribly happy to have my husband, but I would feel like the party itself was a bit of a failure.
I’m in need of a constant reminder that a wedding only marks the beginning of a new adventure–one with so many ups and downs. Is it okay if that realization doesn’t sink in until later?
Totally ok. Chris and I too were only engaged for five months. We planned our Texas wedding while living in Oregon and over the Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday season. Honestly, it was one of the most stressful times of my life. My memories of our engagement are mostly exhausting. The wedding didn’t go perfectly (the cakes were hideous and not at all what we ordered, someone forgot to mic Chris for the outdoor ceremony meaning no one heard our vows and I didn’t give our photographer a list of “must have” shots so we are missing some I really wish we had.) But in the end, it was lovely. Not perfect, but lovely. We look back on that day with many more fond memories than disappointments. I don’t have any words of wisdom to make this time easier, just words of “I’ve been there. I understand.” Hang in there, dear friend.
We forgot to ask anyone to turn on the video camera at church, and somehow our slideshow never made it on to the projectors. The wedding was wonderful, but it didn’t make me forget about things I worked on that didn’t go as planned…Anybody who says the wedding day isn’t long-run important probably didn’t have anything go wrong with their own! As with everything real and significant, there’s a balance to be found between focus on details and the bigger picture.
“is it okay…”
yup.
So many brides have told me that they don’t remember their wedding day. Well, I remember mine. It’s the six months leading up to it that I’ve blanked out. People talk about something that happened in that time period, and I’ll be like, was I there? Should I remember this? Was it spring 2008? Oh, that’s why.
Wedding planning is starts and stops and trying to figure out what details you care about and what can just be whatever the heck works and trying to keep family at ease and and and… and in the end, what happens, happens. There were a lot of conflicts surrounding mine thanks to the combination of family and close friends who were Catholics, Protestants, and no-longer-Christian. My hairdo blew apart the moment I stepped outside, so I don’t look quite as awesome as I’d have liked to look in pictures. But I spent the day so, so happy, and so did Lou, and it’s full of great memories for both of us. We both came away from it thinking it was the best day of our lives.
The advice given me, that I credit for much of my lack of stress the day of: a friend told me to finish everything you can by the day before and delegate day-of responsibilities, so that on the wedding day itself all you’ve got to do is go through the wedding and enjoy yourself. Family and friends and nice church ladies were all quite willing to help out. Three hundred and fifty people at our wedding, and I don’t recall worrying about much of anything. I was too busy laughing and crying and taking pictures and getting married. It was awesome. I can’t recommend it enough.
And there’s time to figure out all the philosophical questions later. 🙂
Thanks, Jenna and Janise!
Encouragement from you two means a lot 🙂
You’re wedding is not nearly as important as your marriage will be 🙂 Besides, wedding planning is what pinterest was made for. Good luck for your big day!
Both sides are correct. A party marred by, say, late catering is regrettable, and a bad event will be remembered as such (so do put some effort into making it a good day ;-). But “don’t judge a book by its cover” is the same as “don’t remember a marriage by its wedding”.
Just remembered something – dunno if you are the personality type to be able to do this, but if you delegate to the extent that you don’t even know the fine detail of some aspect of the wedding (e.g. centerpieces) then it can be easier to like a result when you don’t have specific expectations to compare it to.