Update!

I just wanted to let my readers know what has been going on recently. I have not posted anything at all in over two weeks, and the reason is that my wedding day finally arrived! The few days before the wedding were extremely busy, which unfortunately left me with no time to write. And since the 21st, my wonderful husband and I have been enjoying our honeymoon.

So, I just wanted to give a quick update to those of you who follow my blog. I am definitely not leaving you! I’m just taking a little break to settle myself into married life, and I will be back with more posts in just another week or so.

Thank you, as always, for reading what I write. I so sincerely appreciate it!

 

 

 

The Wedding Rush

This week has been crazy. It’s nine days until the wedding, and I still have tons of things to sort out! Plus, I know that it’s only going to get crazier the closer it gets. But you know what? I’m still loving it.

The interesting thing about weddings is that there are so many details to think about; way more details than I ever would have thought there could be. Literally every tiny thing has to be planned out and thought of, from who is going to bring what to the wedding site, to what accessories your flower girls are going to wear. No stone can do unturned, and all of that planning sure does take a lot of time!

Another thing that’s pretty crazy to think about is the fact that you do all of this planning, possibly for a year or more, and it all comes down to one day. And even on that day, you spend a ton of time preparing for the rest of the day. Between hair, makeup, nails, getting dressed up in one heck of a dress, and pictures, you’ve already spent several hours on your special day still preparing for it! And then finally, you reach the moment that you’ve been waiting so long for, and you’re married. After that, you get to enjoy your celebratory day that you’ve spent so long planning for, for four to five hours. And before you know it, it’s over and life goes on.

This concept is something that I’ve been aware of since I started planning this wedding. Yet, no matter how prepared I thought I was for it to finally be here, I don’t think I ever will be prepared for my wedding to be over. Just. Like. That.

And so, as the days go by and I get closer and closer to the wedding, I also know that I’m getting closer and closer to the wedding being over. That is why I think that the best thing to do as a very soon-to-be bride, is to enjoy every moment of the planning. I once heard that the anticipation leading up to events is actually more exciting than the actual event! So if that’s true, then I definitely want to enjoy every moment leading up to it.

Of course, as much as I am enjoying the process of wedding prep, I know that the thing I’m most excited about at this point is what happens afterward. Most of the time now when I think about how close it is, I think things like, “nine days until my last name is Westropp,” or “nine days until Cory lives with me forever.” When we first started planning, however, I used to think things like, “six months until I walk down that aisle,” or “six months until we do our first dance.” I think that this change from anticipating the wedding to anticipating the marriage is a good one for me, because it gives me something to look forward to after the hype of the wedding day is finally over. Yes, I can’t wait to have my day and for Cory and I to celebrate our love with all of our friends and family. But more than that, I can’t wait to be his wife and be with him forever.

So bring on the wedding rush! Let it come, let us enjoy our moments, and let it be over. Because believe me, I have so much more to look forward to even after it’s just a memory.

 

Weddings

It is two weeks and three days until my wedding now. I have been planning it for the past nine months, during which time any mention of the words “wedding,” “bride,” “groom,” “marriage,” or pretty much any other word related to weddings or marriage has caused me to feel a buzz of excitement. Any time I glimpse a picture of a bride or a wedding, whether on TV or in a magazine, I feel unable to stop myself from fixating on it. It’s as if I have a 24/7 wedding radar that alerts me whenever the topic arises.

I guess that that’s pretty normal behavior for a soon-to-be bride. Perhaps it’s normal behavior for any girl who dreams of getting married one day. But for me, the wedding buzz has been such a constant companion and the wedding planning such a constant job, that I’ve at times wondered what I will do when it’s all over and I’m no longer a bride, but a wife. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely cannot wait to be Mrs. Westropp! It’s just that planning for this day has been a huge part of my life for such a long time that I’m sure it will be surreal when it finally happens, and then strange when it’s over. All of this pondering about the near future has made me realize the importance of putting your wedding in perspective.

The fact is that your wedding day is basically just a big party. Yes, you will only have one wedding day (hopefully), and yes, it is your special day. But at the end of it, you will be left with a few things: your memories, your guests, and your new spouse. I think that the most important thing to keep in mind when planning a wedding is how to make sure that these three things are happy at the end of the day.

I’ve been told many times that the actual wedding day will fly by in a blur. Many people try to combat this by hiring expensive photographers and videographers to record every moment of it. The problem with this, I think, is that realistically you are probably not going to sit around and watch your wedding video more than a few times in the rest of your life. And even though your photos are probably going to be looked at much more often, you hopefully aren’t going to find that your wedding day was meaningless just because your photos aren’t super expensively professional. I’m not saying it’s bad to hire a videographer or a photographer; I’m just saying that it’s not the most important thing about your wedding. I’ve asked several of my good friends who are excellent photographers to do my wedding for me, and I have absolutely no worries that this choice will negatively impact my wedding. That’s because even if the photos aren’t great (which I’m sure they will be!), I’ll have what really matters, which is my marriage.

For me, this also means that I want to try to take it slow on my wedding day and enjoy every moment instead of stressing out about every detail. I would rather have a few things (or even a lot of things) go wrong and enjoy the day anyway than stress out to make it perfect and be too busy to appreciate it. My memories of this day aren’t going to be filled with me running around trying to manage everything; they’re going to be of me enjoying my first day as Cory’s wife.

As for your guests, well, I think it’s a nice idea to try to make them happy. If they were willing to come to your wedding to celebrate you and support you, then surely you can show them some gratitude for that. In my case, it means giving up little things I want to make it more enjoyable for them. For example, I may have wanted to hire an expensive caterer to provide a small amount of fancy food, but instead I decided to put in more work on my part in order to provide more food for the money that I have to spend. That means I will have to do more making, picking up, transporting, and setting up of everything, but it also means that my guests will have enough to eat. Compromising on the small detail of where the food came from is well worth it to have happier, more comfortable guests.

Brides and grooms also need to be flexible for their parents and special guests, and do the best they can to make them happy. Perhaps this means doing a few more traditional things instead of the unique twists you had originally envisioned. Maybe it means inviting everybody on your parents’ guest wish lists, even though their families are huge and you really wanted a small wedding. Whatever the case may be, planning a wedding requires compromises, and you have to be willing to make them to keep the people you love as happy as possible. That being said, you also shouldn’t kill yourself over people being unhappy with some of the details—somebody will always complain about something, because for some reason when it comes to weddings, everybody has an opinion. So do your best to make the people you love happy, but don’t freak out if you can’t pull it off perfectly. It really is about the marriage, not the wedding, and in the end everybody will be happy for you and your new husband or wife.

And of course, last but not least is your new spouse. Practically this whole blog is about what to do with your spouse once you’re married and how to make your marriage work, so there’s not much more to say here. But I will reiterate that it is important to keep your wedding in perspective and remember that your new husband or wife is the reason you are doing it. Your wedding day is more about the big picture of your new marriage than it is about the actual day. It will be over before you know it, and then you have forever to be married. That is what really matters, and that is what you should care about more than any of the details of the celebration.

For me, planning my wedding has been a ton of fun and extremely exciting. I have not once experience annoyance or stress about having to plan it—I’ve loved every minute of it! And I don’t think that there is anything wrong with wanting certain things on your wedding day or having a vision of how you want things to be. I certainly don’t think there is anything wrong with enjoying your special day! But I do think that there is something wrong with being stubborn, immovable, or snotty as a bride (or as a groom). If you are getting married because you want to be married, than the details should not make or break you. So go ahead and plan things the way you would like them, staying flexible and courteous to the needs of others, and enjoy your one and only wedding day. Then, when it’s over, don’t forget to enjoy your marriage much, much more.