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.)