Friday, February 15, 2013

My Wedding Planning Experience

A friend mentioned to me that she hoped I'd blog a little about my experience planning my wedding for this summer, so I thought I'd do just that and share some of the details.

First, let it be known that I am not design-minded or decor-minded. I was never one of those girls who cut out pictures from magazines or saved pictures in a "wedding" folder on my computer or used Pinterest. (For anything.) I also didn't go to a lot of weddings, due to a combination of not having a lot of friends, the few I had living far away or not getting married at all, and rather disliking parties.

But I absolutely want a wedding for myself, for various reasons that I won't discuss now. Maybe in another blog. Not necessarily a fancy wedding, but I want one.

Here's the thing: Seeing as how I am not design-minded or decor-minded and have not been present or observant at very many weddings, all the little trappings that go into a wedding just kind of leave me dumbfounded. To me, how something looks decoratively has so little to do with what's going on at the actual event that I frequently don't even notice. (I could not tell you the decorations or look or theme of any of the weddings I have attended in the past, except for the two I was actually in, and then only because I helped to set them up.)

I picked a set of wedding colors, but to be very honest, I'm still not really sure what one does with wedding colors, aside from the fact that the bridesmaids' dresses match them. (Another fact I learned from the weddings I was in and the outfits I pulled together for them.) After I chose them, I discovered that your colors are supposed to match the time of year in which you have the wedding, and I rolled my eyes and said, "Forget that. I picked some colors. What more do you want of me, etiquette, huh?"

Flowers are apparently important. I guess people have flowers at weddings. If they'll enhance the experience for others, I'm happy to have them. I just don't understand them or notice them.

Besides flowers, other decorations probably should happen at some point. I am delegating that entirely to a couple of my friends, because I haven't the faintest idea what would an appropriate sort or amount of decorations. Ooh, those probably go with my wedding colors, huh? Yes! Another use for them!

Even things like picking out wedding invitations is difficult for me, because it constantly comes down to these questions: Are they pretty? Do I like them? And my constant answer: I don't know, and I don't know.

Fortunately for me, the design part is what other people around me seem to be most excited about, so I've been able to say, "You! You like stuff and ideas for prettifying things. Will you prettify some things for me?" and they say, "You'll let me help?" and I say, "YES PLEASE." Because if all of this was up to me to plan, we'd get married in a blank, mostly empty room and play board games with everybody for awhile afterward and snack on chips and soda and maybe some cake. I would be just fine but everybody else would be sad, or at the very least confused, and I probably shouldn't make people travel from several states away just to play board games with me and eat chips.

So I rely on my friends around me to make my wedding look nice. I'll make the executive decisions when they ask, but I'm trying to conserve my wedding energy for these two most important aspects of the day:

1. The music. Instead of a DJ or a band, we're just doing iPod playlist, and I will have that thing figured out down to the last note of the night.
2. Most importantly, figuring out how to get this to work so we can do it at the reception. Because if it works, then no matter what happens the rest of the day, I will win at weddings. (Strong language in that clip.)

7 comments:

  1. Are you kidding? I would TOTALLY just sit around and play board games at your wedding! It's totally you. You should just put board games as the centerpieces on the table and let people play all night :D

    And yes, popping (or indeed anything else with) balloons is a major win :D

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    1. ...Actually, now that you say that, that's kind of an awesome idea. I might just do that. I hadn't thought about using them as centerpieces, but that'd be amazing and super fun.

      People wouldn't actually be sad about playing board games. But people would be sad if there were no flowers or decorations. Heh. I wouldn't even notice.

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    2. Our reception theme was "game night" and board games was to be or center pieces... But people forgot the games.lol However thus was good because we found out we had too many people for our plan and only had time to eat and dance...barely enough time for either of those actually. But we did have 1 game so that was good enough for us. All that to say We personally think that its an Excellent idea!

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    3. Haha! I did end up playing games at your wedding - Erika, Smith, Lisa, and Tim McMeen and I all played Cthulhu Munchkin until the dancing started. I'll just have to make extra sure nobody forgets the games :)

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  2. And you know Ross and I would definitely travel from several states away just to play board games with you and eat chips. :)

    If I could go back and do our wedding all over again it would definitely be what we wanted rather than what the general public would do at a wedding!

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    1. I am definitely keeping it pretty minimal and us-centric. And I don't *mind* it looking nice or anything... I just don't want to make any of those decisions :)

      Also, fun fact, you don't even need to travel from several states away. We're actually getting married in Ohio, where his family is. Heh. So it's only like 3 hours or so from you guys! Save the date stuff was going to be in the mail this week, but it's taking longer at the printers than expected, so hopefully that'll be out to you guys beginning of next week instead.

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  3. What matters in wedding planning is following what you want. It doesn’t matter if the theme color matches the season or you feed your guests with soda and chips. Your guests would be happy as long as they see you happy on your wedding day. Anyway, congratulations!

    Regards,
    Zachary Payne

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