Wedding-planning Perspective

There's way too much insanity involved in planning a wedding. Or at least in websites devoted to planning a wedding. It seems that for every sane person I encounter on theknot.com, there are a hundred who are completely insane. (This seems to vary by board--the local Twin Cities board and DIY boards seem pretty chill overall, but don't even bother with Snarky Brides. Those women don't even know what "snark" means...hint, it's different from "b*tch"). If you have never encountered that website and have no idea what I'm talking about, count your blessings and move on.

And of course I've gotten sucked into reading several wedding style blogs, with their gorgeous pictures of designer dresses and outdoor receptions with twinkly lights and perfectly coordinated linens and thousands of dollars of flowers. Or the vintage weddings where the bride painstakingly scoured antique stores for the past 12 years to find the perfect vintage accessories that coordinate with the vintage dress she had altered to fit her size 0 self (not to mention the placecards that have 1940s typewriter buttons attached...not 1930s or 1950s models, mind you.) And then there's the DIY weddings, where the bride and her 15 closest friends started a sweatshop to assemble the world's largest collection of paper products, favors, centerpieces, name cards, table runners, vases, drinking straws, flip-flop baskets, and any other number of things that it wouldn't even occur to me to need for a wedding. And she happens to have friends/family who are professional bakers/florists/hairdressers/ministers/bartenders so the entire wedding costs $7.93. And kudos to all those brides for making it work. And I say "brides" because rarely is a second partner or groom mentioned other than in passing--certainly no second person had any substantial role in the planning of this event.

And yet I still occasionally go in spurts of thinking maybe it's not insane. Maybe I want the perfect flowers and the fancy invitations and perfectly-chosen favors and need the colors on the Save-the-Date postcard to exactly match the bridesmaids' dresses. And then I remember that the flowers only last a day, the invitations go on the fridge and then in the trash, the favors either get eaten or go in the trash, and no one is going to hold up that postcard to one of my sisters' dresses on our wedding day (because it too, will be in the trash by that point). And what everyone is going to remember from that day is the fun they had spending time with us and with other friends and family. And hopefully they will remember the love that Carrie and I share, which is, after all, the reason that this wedding is happening in the first place.

I think planning a wedding truly together has involved some unique challenges, but I wouldn't have it any other way--it's how Carrie and I do everything. Pretty much the only thing we haven't worked together on is picking bridal gowns--we're planning that to be a surprise for each other the day of the wedding. But having two people who care pretty equally about flowers, cake, readings, etc. means that a lot more collaboration and compromise are involved. And of course there are two mothers of the bride, so there's even more opinions on everything! But fortunately all four of our parents have been lovely and helpful and very supportive of us.

Anyway, I'm currently on a spurt of "we should spend how much on flowers?" and "can we just have M&Ms for favors?" but I'm sure I'll eventually swing back to the opposite end of the spectrum. But I hope that no matter what, I don't ever lose sight of why we're getting married in the first place because that's more important than any of the details!