Wedding Planning

But It’s MY Day, Or Is It?

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning

Watching one of those train-wreck reality shows the other night where yet another whiny bride-to-be screams after her disagreeing groom “It’s MY DAY!” Todd shakes his head and asks, “What’s all this My Day stuff, isn’t it Our Day?”

I love that man.

Yes, more than anything it is Our day. I’ve never had the all-about-me desire that many brides seem to have (in fact, to tell the whole truth, being the center of attention for that long is a little scary!). But it’s not just us–it’s also for our guests.

And here’s where the real tightrope-walking comes in:

While it’s true that we want to do things our way and not be forced to go along with a practice or “tradition” just because everyone else does or certain people expect it, we also want our guests to enjoy themselves and, basically, be great hosts.

I know there will be the inevitable scrunched nose at some of our choices, but for every 2 steps we take off the beaten path, it’s probably a good idea to put out a familiar mile marker to our guests looking for the straight and narrow.

And something tells me I might need reminding of this magnanimous point of view when I get one too many scrunched noses or “what are the rest of us going to eat” responses but, really, if we didn’t care about our guests, we would have bothered inviting them, right?

Pretty Book and Flower Icon

Do you keep your guests in mind as you make wedding decisions
or do you see them just a captive audience?

Planning Through Advertsity

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning
Stormy sky with a flash of lightning cutting across it

image via stock.xchng | photography by hummel_12

While many people ascribe to the hills-and-valleys notion of life, I prefer to think of life as a swinging pendulum. Most of them time we’re swinging through the center with those outlying side-to-side swings taking their turn (though not always politely).

Around this time last year I don’t think anyone in my circle made it through spring without some sort of crisis. Family troubles, work troubles, money troubles, illness, car, computer and every other trouble under the sun. This year hasn’t been quite as rough, but there were some definite brier patches out there.

It’s bad enough on the usual day-to-day when the stress-level amps up, but add in wedding planning and that stress level easily goes to 11.

Let’s look at a few worst-case-scenarios and see what our options are.

Loss of a Job

One the one hand, if you were to lose your job mid-plan it might sound like a god-send in that you now have SO much more time for that list of DIY projects you’ve been meaning to get to. On the other hand, if you’re the one paying for the wedding and you’re counting on that steady income as part of your saving plan, your budget just took a major hit.

The first thing you do, of course, is to start looking for a new job and pronto! Maybe you can leverage your wedding passion into a job with a wedding pro and, in the process, make a connection that will benefit you down the road.

Might as well find that silver lining, right?

Illness (or worse) of a Loved One

In some cultures, mourning is serious business. The death of a family member can prohibit celebrations for a year after the event, which can mean postponing the wedding a year or more.

Whether for that reason or just to make sure your nearest and dearest are with you on your wedding day, some people push up their wedding plans the moment a parent or grandparent’s health starts to fail. And I can certainly understand it.  If, for whatever reason, that isn’t possible or plausible, it’s tough to keep planning a happy occasion in the face of potential tragedy, but even in the face of that, your marriage deserves a happy start, so keep planning as you can.

Situations like this are when you’re very lucky to have wedding insurance! Last time I checked you can purchase it at any point in the process, so if there’s a known situation that could mean postponing your wedding for a while, get the insurance at the first sign of trouble and you might be able to recoup the deposits, etc. for the vendors that aren’t able to accommodate the necessary changes. (It might sound mercenary, but it’ll be one less thing to worry about in the middle of everything else.)

It’s the End of Your World as You Know It

Sometimes, though, something happens that rocks your world to the core and you just wonder how you’re going to pull off this wedding.

Sometimes you don’t. At least not right now.

Last year I faced one of those make or break situations at work. It was beyond what I’d ever experienced before and after a particularly surprising and unsettling alteraction I spent the entire day trying to get a grip and failing miserably. The weekend was shot; I had to cancel some commitments because I just couldn’t face leaving the house. The next week was spent in a state of nervousness that is best described by the irregular heart beat I experienced every time I thought about the situation for too long.

And then all of my websites went down thanks to a hacker. Like I needed that?!

Like anyone needs that.

After a couple of numb weeks and a lot of hard discussions, things have leveled out (thank goodness). But it was close for a while, and I just couldn’t think about the wedding for a solid month or two. How can you when the world has gone completely pear-shaped? So I put everything on hold, left the stack of work where it was, knowing that it would be there when I came back to it.

As usual, the pendulum swung back to the middle and, thankfully, stayed there for quite some time. Eventually I found my groove again and thinking about the wedding became fun again instead of daunting. Like the song says ‘If you’re going through hell, keep on going’–sometimes that’s all you can do!

Have you faced any adversity during your planning process?
How did you handle it? 

Traditional, Digital or Fusion?

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning

Organizing some of the bridal-show take-aways had me thinking about how much wedding planning has changed over the last 20 years.

2 decades ago–maybe even only 1–most of the planning was done on paper in one of those massive binders or spiral-bound books that you can still find in bookstores. Online involvement was spotty at best, and we definitely didn’t have tools like Pinterest!

These days, the temptation to go 100% digital with the planning is strong. It’s eco-friendly, easily portable if you can access the files via your phone, laptop or tablet, and with so much inspiration online it just. makes. sense.

And yet.

If you go to bridal shows, if you pick up magazines, what do you do?

Are you fully digital or 100% traditional?

A Digital Bride keeps everything on her iPhone or Droid. There’s an app (or 3!) for that. If she picked up a business card or flyer at a show: click and it’s on her phone. If it’s in a magazine it’s online somewhere, and she’s blowing up Pinterest with inspiration.

Meanwhile, the Traditional Bride has subscriptions to every bridal magazine being published and keeps her tear-sheets in individual binders or a complex filing system. Her moleskine is color-coordinated and her Filofax has a separate tab just for wedding plans. Online might be where she finds her vendors, but all the details are in hard copy.

Do either describe you?

Or are you like me, and a little bit of both, a Fusion Bride.

I have my Pinterest boards, but I also have my binder full of business cards, price sheets and tear sheets. I’ve got various wedding site to-do lists and a column for wedding tasks in my Planner Pad. And even though I’ve got spreadsheets galore in the cloud a la Google Docs, I have paper versions of a lot of it because scratching around with a pencil is just so much more comforting.

So, are you traditional, digital or fashionably fusion-tastic?

Step AWAY From the Planner!

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning

Stack of wedding planning binder, sketchbook and magazines
Trust me, it’s okay.

Sometimes we need a break, even from the joy and happy happy fun times that wedding planning can be. Sometimes it’s overwhelming and, sometimes, life just takes over and you’ve gotta hit that pause button.

I have yet to get any closer to choosing a location–the linchpin of my planning, I think–and I’ve still got to put the finishing touches on the menu suggestions for one place to finish their quote to us. Silly me, I though I’d have that done 2 weeks ago!

Even though I’d hoped to get some work done on various projects this weekend, all I was capable of doing was the mindless task of cleaning up my home office. Good news: I can see the floor AND my desk! That hasn’t happened in quite some time, I can assure you.

Something about the monotony of putting things back into their place is comforting. The exertion of moving boxes and sweeping floors almost enough to clear your mind of whatever’s taking up too much space.

Almost.

One wedding thing I managed, though, was to condense two wedding binders into one and file away some business cards and postcards that had begun to pile up. It was a small thing, and I still have the bag from the TAWP show to go through and file, but it’s something that made a noticeable difference in the remaining clutter.

I almost feel like I can dive back in, again.

Almost…

Pretty Book and Flower Icon

 

What do you do when you need a break from planning?

Who Says You Can’t Go Home?

Third Time Wife, Wedding Planning
The Chapel at Honey Lake Plantation

The Chapel at Honey Lake Plantation (and our back-up ceremony spot in case of rain) | personal photo

No, we’re not considering the Jennifer Nettles/Jon Bon Jovi collab for our wedding song (though that might be a fun lark, and certainly not the most inappropriate song choice ever).

During our recent venue-hunt, I had a most surprising feeling overcome me: I almost missed being a member of a church.

I mean, really, if you’ve got a “home church” and it’s got a fellowship hall, you’re all-but made in the shade as far as venue is concerned.

Unless…

While going through my first divorce, a well-meaning friend informed me during one of my “I’ve failed” pity parties that I was young, I’d fall in love again, I just couldn’t get married in our church.

Say what?!

Our pastor at the time was old school. Very old school. And he took the once married always married idea quite to heart. It wasn’t like I’d be banished from the congregation should I remarry, he just wouldn’t be performing the ceremony as, to him and his take on the scriptures, that would be condoning adultery, essentially.

If that’s shocking to you: welcome to this particular brand of independent fundamental Baptist in the Bible Belt of The South.

But it’s not just down here that second weddings aren’t as favored in certain houses of worship.

Mr. Trips’ former wife wanted a full Catholic ceremony but, since she was previously divorced, said ceremony could not be held in a Catholic church. Instead, they did the full mass, communion, etc. in a Methodist church.

Of course, by the time I was contemplating a second marriage, that pastor had retired and our newer, younger, pastor felt differently: God can forgive murder but not divorce? The second wedding was a quiet, private ceremony at the courthouse, but it was nice to know I had the option to get married in my own church that time had I really wanted to.

These days neither of the Road Trips are into organized religion and have absolutely zero desire to be married in any church or with any religious trappings. We’re planning a strictly secular ceremony and are quite happy that in Florida there are plenty of Notaries who are happy to perform ceremonies for those who, like us, prefer that sort of thing.

If you are religious, however, it’s a good idea to check with your pastor, priest or other religious leader to see what your options are before you get your heart set on walking down your usual Sunday aisle.

Did a previous marriage interfere with your initial remarriage plans?