So, I realize it has been over two months since my wedding
and I have not written anything about it, but there have been so many amazingly
helpful and supportive friends and family who made my day a reality that I was
afraid to blog and say that there was anything I didn’t like.
So first, let me hand out roses. (You know the rose and
thorn game, a rose for the good things and a thorn for the bad?)
Okay anyways.
Right from the day of our engagement, my mother, her sister my future sister
and mother and law, best friend and other friends were already giving me
wedding advice. They were so caring and helpful along the way. I appreciated
this so so much!
The life lesson
I learned from the planning experience however was that if you ask for
someone’s opinion, and you don’t take it, prepare for the possibility of them
being offended and or hurt.
My advice to future brides, is to do what you want within your
budget. The budget is super important.
While we are at this point in the conversation, let
me say that for every person who
says they wish Pinterest existed when they were planning their wedding, let me
tell you that Pinterest broke my heart a couple of times along the way. Sure,
there are some awesome, cute and clever diy ideas for weddings, or links to
awesome wedding décor, BUT in my experience, diy projects do not always turn
out as perfectly as they are represented in a picture from Pinterest.
I have
noticed a trend in boards titled “Pinterest recipes that work, or that taste
good!” These have been created for a reason.
Also, the financial aspect of Pinterest is that you could easily find and endless supply of diy ideas that are supposed to save you money but they can also easily bust your
budget. So you have to be careful. I fell in love with the idea of sequened
table cloths for every table only to learn that they cost over $40 bucks per
table and they had to be shipped from out of state from most places I found
online. (Hence going with only the sweetheart table having a sequence table
cloth.)
If you do fall in love with an idea for your big day that you found on Pinterest, be sure to test it out early enough to find an alternative if you can't create it the way you like.
We loved the idea of submerging sticks in water inside tall glass vases as a part of our center pieces. We were going with a rustic theme. Then we remembered that wood floats. I know, I know. We should have known. See, I told you pictures are deceiving. Then, it was only upon closer inspection of the lovely enlarged photo from Pinterest that I discovered those fake large plastic diamonds were glued to the sticks to weigh them down and hold them under the water. More work, and more money. Here is an example. The picture I found was quite a bit cuter, however, in my after wedding desire to delete my secret wedding board, I deleted all of my ideas hoping to never have to look at them again.
At first wedding planning was fun. Then it became annoying and stressful. I am pretty sure my hubby and I experienced for better or for worse before we exchanged our vows. I found myself trying to please everyone in my planning, leaving my fiance and I completely stressed and sick of planning. We just wanted it to be over with already so we could return to our normal lives. Have any other brides felt this way? It would be great to know I wasn't the only one.
We booked the DJ through my Dad. It was someone he had worked with and knew. Our initial meetings went well enough, but when the wedding drew near, I was more concerned about the timeline than he was. My advice with communicating with the DJ? Make an exact timeline of everything you want to do at the reception. Include names for each event with names of any participants. For example, our DJ didn't use our bridal party's last names and it sounded really stupid. Just saying. Eat as quickly as you can so you can walk around and say Hi to everyone so you can get the dance music going. Our DJ played slow songs for far too long and people started leaving while we were making our rounds saying hi to everyone. I felt like I was cracking a whip at my DJ and telling him when to do what all night long. I shouldn't have had to do that. It was exhausting and I felt like I couldn't enjoy myself. I even called him the week of to go over everything and I emailed him an order of when I wanted things to occur.
There are so many details and crazy stories I could tell you about that happened behind the scenes during our wedding day, but in order to not make one post insanely too long, I will post things a little at a time. But in the mean time, here is our wedding video put together by our wonderful brother in law and photographer, Mike Rich! Click the word "Video" below. Thanks for reading. More on the big day to come soon.
