Wedding Planning Sucks, Don't Let Anyone Tell You Otherwise
I think supposedly the actual wedding day is cool, but I cannot say from experience. I trust that those who told me their wedding day was magical and great were being truthful.
However , it just occurred to me that no one ever warned me how much planning a wedding will consume, disrupt and stress up your life.
Either my friends who got married in the past are way better at managing stress and high volume of tasks than me or they were holding some of it in. I'm going to go with the latter.
I commend you past and future brides for the amount of work you go through and how you gracefully respond to others constant questions about "how is wedding planning going?"
You girls are angels.
But it was never my style to be graceful. I have no filter and no shame, so I am told.
So just so EVERYONE knows , if you haven't done it yourselves or are uniformed WEDDING PLANNING SUCKS!
It is busy, crazy, overwhelming and immensely disappointing. Especially if you are like most people living in a materialistic country like the United States where our culture says you have to have the "Perfect Wedding Day". Newsflash: it won't be perfect.
You will soon find out that the weddings society tells you you must have are impossible for anyone except for the incredibly well-off. If you go through any mainstream company or place that does weddings all the time, good luck at spending less than $20,000 on ONE DAY.
Our culture is ridiculous and the prices on the 15 Billion dollar wedding industry are worse.
I'm not saying a budget wedding isn't possible. You can get married for under $10,000 or even $6,000. However, you will have to give up on many dreams.
Like how many people do you want at your wedding ?
100? Not for under $10,000 you don't. Not unless you get married in someone's backyard.
Do you want food at your wedding?
Not for less than $1000 you don't and that's probably making it yourself.
How about a venue?
Unless you can have your wedding virtually, online or in your mind, you are going to spend around $1200 for a cheap venue.
Now you have the dress, his tux, decorations, flowers (oh don't forget about those $1000 flowers), chairs, tables, table covers ($8 each is a steal! X 16 tables -$128) , decorations , and photography will be about $1300-2500.
Then there's DJ, then there's drinks, and Bartending because most places require a bartender with a liquor license to serve the drinks. Some places require you to have a security guard too.
Why do I need all these ridiculous things in order to get married?
Because society and tradition say so. Red tape says so. America says so!
You can go against society and tradition, but it takes a brave soul. To give up on the wedding image of society is to give up, likely, on your dream.
From the time you were a little girl you were fed images of dream weddings from TV, magazines , story books and other people. Those were all $50,000+ weddings- good luck!
So if you aren't able to give up on the things a traditional wedding has, and I know I'm not, you will be forced to have a "budget-wedding". A task which is much like fitting a big square into a smaller circle.
PREPARE for STRESS!
Now there is also the last and key ingredient I forgot to mention. While you are stressing out planning this wedding you would think your only solace is the friends and family around you to help you push through.
It's not that simple. There will be divisions.
There will be the friends and family who have great ideas, truly want to help, and who are willing to do some of the work for you. These people are angels sent from heaven itself and shall be clung to, then later thanked profusely.
Then there are the not as difficult, but unreliable ones. The ones who have good ideas and say "I'll help", but then fail to recognize that a wedding is planned over a period of time, yes, but that doesn't give you all 6 months to call the caterer or talk to that manager of the venue. These things need to be done within a couple weeks of being delegated, otherwise I could have done them myself. And yes that is what you most likely will end up doing, the majority of the planning yourself. Because even if people are gracious enough to help and responsible, in the end no one knows your vision like you do.
Lastly, the worst kind is the friend or family member who is probably well meaning, but has no clue how to properly give advice and support. This is usually the parent who so understands better than you how much a wedding should cost, or how many people should come, or which family members have to be there (even though you haven't seen them in years and last time you did they were drunk and rude to everyone).
This is the person or people who will make you hate weddings forever, or at least whenever you are around them.
On the flipside they will also make you more anxious to get married because you will be so excited for the day when they are further ostracized from you and less invovled in any decisions you ever make. Harsh, but absolutely true.
There is very little you can do about this person. Sadly, because they probably come from a generation (basically any generation other than your own) where people didn't discuss their feelings ever, they will be incapable of handling your honesty no matter how polite.
So with grace you have to politely say "thank you, what wonderful advice you have ("the better to smother you with" is what you will be imagining their response is).
Or you could be like me and tell them the truth. Don't be like me. That resulted in a screaming match. Much yelling ensued from both parties because I had the audacity to honestly say to my person "oh by the way we might have our venue somewhere else because we found another place that is cheaper."
Duh duh dunnnnn!!
Never ever share your wedding plans with these people. Their aim is to help, but somehow they achieve this aim by control, anger, stress or nitpicking. Just be vague, polite and short in speech and avoid talking "wedding" with them at all cost!
Weddings bring out the worst in some people and the best in others.
Luckily for me the wedding planning brings out the best in my fiancé .
He is great at planning, very calm and level headed. He is efficient, intelligent and has great ideas. I can trust and respect his ideas. Most of all he is here for me and loves me no matter how Bride-Zilla I get.
(Sidenote: did anyone ever stop to think about that term? Maybe Godzilla wasn't just an evil monster, but rather a helpless creature who was acting in self defense because she was lost in a giant city with people screaming all around her and trying to control her wedding!!! Rawrrrrr!)
Uh anyway, my fiancé, my friends and family who are not trying to control my life are the only ones keeping me sane. I am lucky that amongst all the chaos there are some people who are truly helping without trying to make me go with their idea or becoming defensive when it doesn't work for us.
The high expectations in society and thus ourselves, the ridiculous prices on everything streamlined for weddings and the worst attitudes in some people make wedding planning suck!!!!
However, I am glad that at the end of it all I will be married to a man who is clearly always there for me. When an occasion that brings out the worst in my family has the opposite effect on your fiancé , that's when you know you chose the right person. Although honestly I knew he was the right person 2 1/2 years ago, but it's nice to have extra confirmation along the way.
So there you have it. For every girl or boy out there who thought "I can't wait to plan my wedding ! Yay! Propose sooner "insert your partners name" ."
Think twice about what you are getting into. Get into it, but do it with understanding that you will at times hate your friends and family and hate the wedding altogether. You will ask yourself at least 10 times , why am I going through all this trouble when I could be married tomorrow at the court house for next to nothing? And you will have to let go of and change some of your dreams.
But, in the end you will know that you have the best possible person as your forever spouse, and that is totally worth it.
I don't know if the wedding is a necessary process, and I guess I'll find out when it happens if I'm glad I went through this, but I know being married to him will be worth it. That's what counts.
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