Yesterday, I think I hit a wall when it comes to the wedding. There are so many things that are great about this experience, but I’m going to be perfectly honest: planning a wedding kind of sucks. Add in the fact that I’m trying to pay my bills, have a great relationship with my fiance, keep up with a regular workout schedule and maybe shower once or twice a month and I’m left feeling drained emotionally, physically and bridally. (I know that last one isn’t actually a word. Don’t worry.)
So in the spur of the moment, I asked a question on the Facebook page. I just wanted to know if I was the only one who felt like this whole wedding thing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be… and a bunch of comments later, I found out something that I had never known: we are all scared and confused about what to do for our wedding. ALL OF US.
With that in mind, I wanted to share some of my fears, excitements and frustration about this whole process because if I thought that I was alone, maybe you do, too. But I promise that you’re not.
1. Everyone wants to talk about the wedding. Friends, family and total strangers all want to know what your color scheme is. And how dress shopping is going. All of a sudden, everyone cares about this one thing and forgets about everything else going on in your life. Don’t take it personally and don’t get offended. And if you really don’t want to talk about it, don’t. There’s no law that says your wedding has to be public domain, and you have a right to your privacy if that’s what’s right for you.
2. No one asks about your marriage plans. I think people just get caught up in the glamour of a wedding day, and it distracts them from the big picture: you have a wedding BECAUSE you’re getting married, not the other way around. And why is it that so many people think it’s weird to want to go to premarital counseling? I didn’t learn how to tie my shoes without being taught (and then practicing a LOT!), and I feel like marriage is a bit more important. Shouldn’t it at least get the same courtesy as my shoelaces?
3. There are times where you will seriously consider an elopement. This was pretty much the basis of my Facebook post, and before the engagement and wedding planning, I always thought that brides were just exaggerating. They’re not. The pressure of that wedding day is starting to feel more and more like a reality show, complete with makeup artists and hairstylists creating a “better you” and cameras follow like paparazzi. My big fear is that I’m totally going to get stage fright when I’m up there. It’s going to be so sad if I miss the moment because I’m too concerned that I look like an idiot.
4. The groom isn’t expected to care about the wedding. I feel like every woman I know has told me how lucky I am that Cam is ambivalent, which I resent a little. Isn’t it his day, too? I mean, I’m not marrying myself up there. He’s kind of involved. Oh, and what if I spend all this time planning and he ends up totally bored/unhappy? It doesn’t seem like he’s all that excited himself. This double standard never really gets easier (and to the brides who have a groom that’s into planning, I have only one thing to say: you are SO lucky) and you’re just going to have to get used to it.
5. You will feel like your wedding isn’t your wedding. The plus side of this is that you have a lot of eyes and ears on the to-do list. But those eyes and ears usually come paired up with a mouth and opinions. While it’s great to have input from other areas, it can be a bit overwhelming. You’re going to find yourself thinking things like, “Why does everyone care about what I’m wearing? Am I seriously going to disappoint people because I didn’t wear a traditional dress?” Make sure to stand up for yourself and don’t be afraid to ask people to step back.
6. You can DIY your way into a wedding that fits your wallet and wants. It is possible to have an affordable wedding, no matter how much people say it can’t be done. Did you know that the average wedding now costs over $27,000? I’m not sure about you, but if I had an extra $27,000 just lying around, I would probably use it as a down payment on a house. I know that I haven’t spent much time talking about our wedding, but one of the most stressful parts of planning is setting – and sticking to – a budget, and we’re spending less than half the average on ours.
7. The average bride spends 200 hours planning her wedding. And it’s okay if you don’t. I found an article on Yahoo where it said that planning a wedding should, according to wedding consultants, take approximately 200 hours. I can’t begin to imagine the event that will come out of that time, but if I had my way, instead of spending 200 hours planning for a single day, I’d rather take some of that time (how about 25%, okay?) and plan for each and every day that comes after.
8. People come out of the woodwork to give you unsolicited advice. You should ignore most of it. No one means to be a jerk to you, and they don’t mean to undermine your decisions, but it happens. A lot. When someone offers you advice, listen and politely thank them – whether they’re right or wrong isn’t the question. It’s whether things are right or wrong for you and your wedding.
9. It’s normal to worry that everything is just going to suck, and it’ll all be your fault. So many aspects of your wedding will feels like this really private, personal and intimate moment. Except you’re surrounded by 150 friends and family. It’s like they’re all watching you at this vulnerable moment, a moment that’s supposed to be all about this new union but instead is more like circus sideshow. Remember why you’re doing all this work (and who you’re ending up with after it all calms down), take a deep breath and let it go. I have written this before, but it can never be said too many times: things are going to go wrong, and you need to just take it all in stride.
10. There are always people who are willing to help, just because they love you. Weddings make people crazy, but there will be someone there to keep you from going off your rocker. For me, that person is my stepmother. She has so many great ideas and has been more supportive through this than my own fiance, and there is no way that I can fully express how grateful I am to have her on my side for this crazy experience.
What are some things you wish you knew before you started planning your wedding?
Love,
Jaime
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I just started planning my wedding, like a week and a half ago.. and I’m nineteen. So other than what I’ve seen in movies, I have no idea what I’m doing! I know what I want and I have plenty of ideas, but I’m so glad I have my mom helping to plan every step of the way. And this is definitely helpful. I’m definitely going to have to practice number 8!
The funny thing is, my fiance always said he did not care, was ambivalent, etc., and lo and behold, look who has opinions now that I have started asking him! We are doing a very casual event (city hall and a meal) and we have disagreed on invitations (he is way more formal than I, apparently) time of day (I thought an early morning and then champagne brunch followed by a day of massages, etc., sounded fun before our honeymoon) and oh yeah, we have completely different styles when it comes to rings. Luckily, we still love each other and are still getting married. haha.
One trick I learned in terms of getting your groom into wedding planning, sit down together a try to come up with a SMALL priority list. Each of you write down a 1-5 things that are really important and 1-5 things you may not care as much or if at all about. Then you can have fun working on things that your groom is interested in and not bore him with things he may not care as much about. This really helped me in our planning. Good luck brides!
Krystle, that is SUCH a great idea. I’m definitely going to use it very soon to see what, if anything, Cam wants to participate in.
Thank you so, so much!
That is a really great idea. It can be challenging when one detail means more to one person but is disliked by the other. I can vouch that planning a wedding with an involved and picky groom is a good exercise in compromise for sure.
AMAZING idea. I want him to enjoy the day and have things he wants too!
Thank you so much. This is great advice, we have a long engagement and I am a PLANNER! So I am already bugging him and boring him with details that he just doesn’t want to hear! Thank you again!
Lola
Whenever anyone asks me for wedding advice now I tell them just one thing – it’s YOUR day. Plan the day you want and it will be perfect. I’m pretty stubborn though and I stopped listening to everyone’s opinions pretty early because at first I was so unhappy trying to make the day what everyone else wanted. I more or less went into lockdown mode and almost every last detail was a surprise to everyone until the wedding day. This helped preserve my sanity because – and I know I’m going to sound a bit antisocial – I just couldn’t deal with the constant questions. Our day went off without a hitch and I don’t have a single regret about our wedding day, which is all I wanted when we began the planning process. BTW, my now-husband wasn’t super involved in the wedding planning, but honestly I didn’t care. I’m a control freak. He did, however, write out 50% of the thank you notes.
We were married less than a month ago. Here are a few tips:
#1- EYE ON THE PRIZE. Wedding days will always have something that did not go perfectly. As long as you both show up; that is the reason for the day…to unite in marriage.
#2- Give yourself a day to relax before leaving for your honeymoon. You will need the day to rest, read cards, look at pictures and share that quality discussion time with your spouse.
#3- let the groom get involved. Mine had a lot of opinions…and we comprimised. Sometimes blending our ideas, sometimes I let him have his way and sometimes he let me have mine.
#4- People are more difficult to manage than money. Choose your bridal party and guests wisely.
#5- Don’t be afraid to say NO or I am sorry. (example-We just can’t afford to invite the world)
#6- Don’t hold grudges. If someone did not attend, give a gift, whatever the case is…let it go. It is there loss if they did not celebrate with you.
#7- Think of the guests when picking your location(s)… does it have a/c? is the parking safe? is the food decent? are the bathrooms clean and large enough for women to all check their appearance? will you and your bridesmaids fit in the stall when they need to hold your dress while you pee?
#8- Go to bridal shows- you can score big discounts!
#9- Research vendors and use recommendations from weddings you attended. Brides love to hear someone loved a vendor and wants to use them! Flattery!
#10- Find a photographer who will give you copywrite free photos on cd instead of printing them for you. In the end, it saves $$$$. You can choose your own pics to print/make books, gifts, etc. and also edit them yourself (copy the pic and crop it, etc.)
Magan, Your #4 is a valuable piece of advice. Especially when choosing your wedding party.
#7 is great advice. I probably wouldn’t have thought to really take a good look at the restrooms.
#4 is probably some of the best advice I could give too. We’re still about 3 weeks out and I’ve already had some many problems from his sister. Who, by the way, I only asked to be a bridesmaid because he really wanted me too. First, there was an issue with the their dresses being to “immodest” so I compromised to let them all wear their convertible dress tops a different way so she could cover more up. Now I find out that she purposefully ordered the wrong dress! And they discontinued my color so its not like I an reorder or replace her with another bridesmaid. I just don’t know what to do!
I would have told her to get her act together or sit with the audience.
Thank you! This post just relieves me a bit!
WONDERFUL Post. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you thank you thank you for writing all this out. It is so helpful to know I am not the only one feeling these feelings! My fiance says he doesn’t care about anything either… It is his day too I want him to be excited about it. Also I agree it should be about your marriage rather than your wedding! Great post!
Love this post! I was just starting to feel overwhelmed and crazy about planning!
Great advice everyone! For my job I plan HUGE events, but not with my own money and for families. It’s been so hard to plan and do all the DIY myself when I normally have a team of 40 that help me. My family are states away, but slowly I am knocking everything out! Only 33 more days… it’s so scary!
I never post or comment on anything I read online but this was really helpful to read, thank you for that!
Soon after my then boyfriend proposed, I asked him what he wanted for a wedding. He told me he didn’t care and it upset me because as all of us know, we ladies do not want to be planning a wedding to celebrate ‘our love’-alone. Of course I wanted a reason and what I found out changed my opinion of the indifferent fiance. A few things to keep in mind…
-Your guy has most likely been thinking about proposing for several months. Think about it… going to jewelry stores, dealing with pushy salespeople, worrying if you’ll like the ring etc…
-He bought it. Your ring is most likely the most expensive thing he’s bought for anyone other than himself. He may still be paying for it!
- Then, he tried to come up with a way to propose, it may have been elaborate or hidden in a twinkie! I can guarantee his nerves were humming, and he was most likely terrified.
-Keep in mind, he’s wondering if you’ll say yes! When you screamed ‘YES!’, and he put that ring on your finger, that was him making his commitment. He had done his duty!
When my fiance explained that from ring shopping to ‘YES’ was more like a covert operation that lasted several months, I understood. I pretty lucky that my fiance DOES have opinions about the wedding, but he’s not worried about details as I am. Guys go through a process that is akin to a wedding well before we start picking out centerpeices. For them, we are wearing their commitments. I’m not trying to make excuses but keep this in mind the next time you want to throttle your fiance when he seems less than excited about flower arrangments. I hope this gives an insight on guys and wedding planning.
Good point!!
YOU really just saved me from having a major attitude with my fiance about why he’s not as excited . I would have NEVER Looked a it from that angle and what he went through. Thank you truly!!!
Yes, I had a bunch of those for my wedding. I ran full-steam into wedding plans and the wedding got bigger and bigger. More elaborate and more expensive to the point I had anxiety about the whole “occasion.” The more people asked about it, the worst I felt. That kinda ties into your #1, #5, and #8. If I would have been paying more attention to myself and my feelings I would have realized that the anxiety had nothing to do with the wedding, but more why I was getting married. Anyways, that’s some of the things I found out about myself while planning a “conventional” wedding.
Also, if you haven’t found it yet, check out Offbeat Bride for some pretty nifty DIY and unique wedding ideas.
AMEN sister! If I could count the number of days spent stressing or the amount of times I’ve cried about stupid things with wedding planning… Oh my goodness. As much as I’ve heard most of this advice before its so great just to know you aren’t alone with the stressing, worrying, etc. and I just can’t wait for the day to come so that it will all be over and I can’t go back to a normal life with my new husband. I never understood why people said to give yourself time to just be together before having kids. We have been together seven years so my plan was to have kids right after we got married. Now… I understand, you need time to go back to just being together without all of the insanity of planning a wedding before starting another adventure that will also be FULL of wanted/unwanted advice.
Thank you so much for your post.
THANK YOU! I’m 37, have 5 children (two with my first husband, three with Brandt), own a business with Brandt, and we have a home together… and we’re FINALLY finding the time to get married the summer of 2013. We have our date set, lots of stuff rented… and I’m here to tell ya – than just in the past 6 months, I’ve spent much of my time stressing about many of the points you just wrote about.
WHEW!
So thank you – it’s wonderful to know I’m not alone
I’m one of those lucky girls that has a fiancé that is involved in all of the decisions! I also agree that this planning a wedding thing is not all its cracked up to be! I have found that you just can’t make everyone happy and at the end of all it you gotta do what you and your man wanna do. We are 2 months from our date and we have a ton to do still. We started making small weekly lists. It really helps us each get things checked off. Happy planning!
This is such a great thing to post..thank you sooo much! I just got engaged a week ago and we only have about 11 months to plan so I am trying to get ahead of everything, which is hard, and not as exciting as I thought it would be. But I have to worry more about myself then the rest of the people, that was a really good one! But if your fiance is involved with the planning..(which I know is a rarity) but luckily mine is a little bit, so what I did with him is have him do a job each day to help you out. Doesn’t matter if it is small or big, but it will help you out a lot. You can do this even if he doesnt wanna help out the planning! We have been doing this and it helps A TON. Or if you fiance would do it, have your mom, stepmom, whoever will help you. Do it EACH day.
I found your post thanks to pintrest, and I just wanted to say Thank You for writing it. In all the planning and craziness, I was starting to feel like everything was falling apart and it’s nice to have some one say, ‘hey, been there, done that-and I’m still sane!’
I love your advice and totally agree! I was dating my fiancé for 4 years before he decided to pop the question. Needless to say, our families were very excited when it finally happened. EVERYONE has and opinion and they all want to share! My favorite quote this far…
His sweet family member: “Sweety, this is YOUR wedding, do what YOU want and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise”
Me: “Thank you so much! We have always wanted a cruise wedding, we’re really excited about it!”
His sweet family member: “Oh goodness, a cruise is not a wedding! That’s a vacation! DON’T do that!”
I have come to the conclusion it is best to just smile and nod. I can’t let this little instances bother be! Better to look at them with a bit of humor.
I attended a cruise wedding and it was fabulous! The couple does not have a large family so it suited them very well. They had the ceremony before the ship set sail so once 1. people who couldn’t afford the whole cruise could still attend the wedding 2. that by the time the ship set sail they were completely on vacation and enjoying their honeymoon. It was a blast!
My fiance is exactly like yours– he’s so easy-going that he doesn’t really care about what’s there. He’s completely fine with whatever I pick. So I figured out a deterent to get them to actually say something…
When you find the most hideous thing ever, whether it be a pattern, or a color, or a bridesmaid dress, or anything of the sort, tell him you absolutely LOVE it (and act like it too, or he won’t buy it). If he says ‘yeah, thats great’ than you know he has no interest in any of the planning. I do this every once in a while and I get the best reactions; from funny faces to a laughing fit to him flat out saying ‘you’ve got to be kidding me’. No matter who stressful the planning may get, that always lightens my mood. Plus, we get some great memories out of it that we can laugh about for a lifetime.
I just wanted to say, as a stepmom, that it warms my heart to know that you have such a special bond with your stepmother.
This is very helpful and it was a relief to read your view on your wedding.. Mine is still 6 mths away and I’m already stressed with who to invite and my fiance not approving or vise versa to invites and food and he’s not into it he says he doesn’t want to hear about it until its necessary :/ I guess its a guy thing and I’m completely OCD about details in my daily life that I’m scared of me further down the road with this planning .. I just want to get it over with enjoy the day of and get on with it .. Thanks for your post!
-an anxious bride-to-be
Just read the post! Great info here. I’ve been married for almost 4 years now and we did the courthouse thing. We are planning on having a real ceremony on our 5th yr anniversary. Sometimes I think that is a much easier way to do things! It saves you the big expense at the beginning of your marriage that you can put towards other things and gives you time to save up and plenty of planning time! For me personally, the more time I have had to plan the less money I am going to spend. My ceremony at the moment is just over $1000 and its going to be great! Watching for deals and having the ability to “shop around” is great!
This may have been said already, sorry!
I asked my then-fiancé to take care of the honeymoon because I just did not have time because of wedding planning. Maybe this is a traditional role for the groom, but we didn’t know what we’re doing. So, I planned the wedding, along with my mother and asked for his opinion every-now-and-then, and he planned the honeymoon, aside from our agreeing on the destination. And, it was all absolutely wonderful! He did a great job and our wedding & honeymoon was exactly how I imagined it would be!
That’s a great idea, Christy – thank you so much for sharing!
Please promise me that this is all true and my fiancé isn’t the only one who seems to “not care”???
I just can’t work out where that comes from, I mean he asked me right?
It’s so much more stressful than I thought.
Should have done it at a registry!!
I’m glad to hear other post brides and bride-to-be’s are worried about stuffing up their whole wedding. My fiance and I have agreed not to plan our wedding for a few more months. Every time we start brain storming ideas, we count about 10 people who would be put out by it. We know what we want, a small wedding on the beach with our closest family and our best friends. But I’m more worried about paying 10s of thousands of dollars on a party that sucks than entering our marriage – THAT is going to be the easy bit, my partner is an amazing man!
Jeez, priorities huh?
I love all of your advice, and all of the advice of the many commenters!
I am about three weeks into being engaged, and amazingly enough it is ALREADY pure craziness. I have no idea that the moment you announced your engagement everyone around you goes completely bat-shit-crazy.
And ladies, I am not complaining about my wonderful groom-to-be, but let me tell you. There is the spectrum of “groom who only wants to show up to the church” and “groomzilla” and most of you have the former, well… I have the latter! I love that he cares but we are on a pretty strict budget and I am interested in doing a lot of DIY and not going into debt… he sees this as the opportunity to have a ginormous event that blows all previous weddings out of the water. Aggghh!
My point being, there must be a happy medium!!!
And we are doing the pre-cana wedding preparation as well. I think it can’t hurt to sit down and discuss our marriage since that is what this whole darn fuss is about anyways.
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