Our Wedding: Planning
12 Jun 2012
Eric and I were engaged for almost a year (from July to June), and it was a busy one! Both of us were finishing our PhDs and going on the job market for the first time, and I was also teaching Russian. Adding wedding planning to that list probably sounds crazy, but, actually, wonderfully, we found that it was a blessed relief from the pressures of work. Each weekend we tried to tackle something on our list, and thankfully, we both love list making! We had a complex series of google docs, which were great, since we could both access them all the time. But I have to tell you what made wedding planning really work for us. It is so high up there in the echelons of the best advice I have ever received.
A few weeks after we got engaged, my sweet cousin Meredith called to congratulate us. She and her husband had already been married for a while, and she told me the best advice she received when she was engaged. Here it is: Choose three or four things you really care about. Don’t sweat the rest. I cannot tell you how liberating this was for us! We knew right away what we cared about individually. For me, I wanted a dress with some kind of sleeves, a good dj (so we could dance the night away), and a ceremony that was special and sacred, in the cathedral where my parents and grandparents were married. Eric was focused on the tuxes (making sure they didn’t look like tacky prom attire), the photography (I cared about this one too!), and the ceremony. We put our energy into those three or four things each, and we were really happy with them. It made the decisions about other things so much easier. The food? We wanted it to be good, but we didn’t need to do tastings at five different catering companies. The invitations? We wanted them to be elegant, but we didn’t need them to be hand pressed. The flowers? Well, we wanted some, but we were more than happy to delegate to the professionals. The programs were actually created by the church, and we were glad to let them do it! The fact that we were planning our Memphis wedding from California made it easier to do this–we couldn’t have spent months tasting cake if we’d wanted to! This method had the added benefit of helping us support each other’s decisions. When Eric asked me what I thought about the tuxes, I gave an opinion, but I was happy to let him drive the boat on it. He did all the research on photography and found the amazing Amy Dale, and that was just awesome! By the same token, he was supportive of whatever dj I chose, since he knew that was important to me. When we made decisions about things that weren’t on either of our lists, it was easy to let the person who felt more strongly make the choice, since the other wasn’t too invested. It is no exaggeration to say that this strategy was a life saver!
Some of this might come as a surprise, given how much I love to make things, and, really, I would have loved to have been able to do that, but I didn’t think I could have both that and my sanity. We had a fairly large wedding (about 160 people), since both Eric and I have big families, and it was so important to us to have them there. Had it been a smaller wedding, I might have DIYed everything, but in those last few weeks before the wedding, I was so, so, so glad that we had kept everything so simple! (And I am sure that my mom was glad too, since she, of all people, knows that I am not very pleasant to be around when I am stressed!) I love seeing the beautiful things that other brides make for their weddings, but for us, this was absolutely the right choice. I don’t think that I could have made 160 of anything without losing my mind, and, in the end, we had just the wedding we had hoped for: sweet, simple, and full of family and laughter. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Iย feel like it was very us without making us miserable in the process, and I am so very grateful for that.
In the end, we were married, and blissfully so, and that was the most important thing. Looking back on this whole process, I kind of can’t believe we did it! It was a lot of work, but so worth it. A huge thank you to my cousin Meredith for helping us so much with her invaluable advice! For any of you brides or brides to be, I’d love to hear how your planning process went and what worked for you!

Jun 12, 2012 @ 05:22:19
“In the end, we were married, and blissfully so, and that was the most important thing.”
I’ve said this before, Cameron, but it’s worth repeating – you are wise beyond your years. You so get it!
Love,
Dad
Jun 12, 2012 @ 20:52:17
Thank you so much! It helps to have such great examples to look up to!
Jun 12, 2012 @ 09:52:17
Meredith gave you such fantastic advice. Your family is just full of sages! I remember thinking at the time how wonderfully odd it seemed to me that Eric was so hands-on with the wedding planning, I guess because I got used to hearing about men not caring at all about their weddings. More likely, though, men DO care but their brides don’t give them the chance to voice their opinions, much less delegate some decision making over to them. But the fact that the two of you worked as a united team in planning your wedding is a real testament to what a strong, loving couple you are. Love you both so much!
Jun 12, 2012 @ 20:57:00
I know, I am so grateful! Eric is the best, and without his help and his calming presence I am sure I would have lost it! But I think I really learned all of this for the first time when you and Ben got married. You were so even keeled about it, and I remember that you said several times that you were going to be married, and that was the most importnat thing. Love all three of you! ๐
Jun 12, 2012 @ 12:45:59
Thanks cuz! Glad I could help. ๐ It certainly made planning stress free for us too. Great blog post!
Jun 12, 2012 @ 21:00:19
Thank you thank you thank you, one million times thank you for the life saving advice! Love you!
Jun 12, 2012 @ 20:18:05
Our main thing was the hotel we were getting married in we were getting my friend who is a vicar to do the ceremony. That was number one on the list. But shock horror he then got offered a job here so we planned a wedding, a simple one in 5 or 6 weeks. The dress was already bought, his suit was easy to find. Rings were bought the week we booked a registry office. So we got married on a shoestring budget but it worked. We had already booked the hotel so we had a renewal of vows a year and a day later. Plus a huge party.
Jun 12, 2012 @ 21:01:57
That is so wonderful! I love that you got to have two ceremonies–one with your friend and one in the hotel you wanted. And I love that you could throw it all together so quickly and have it all go so beautifully. You and Chris are so perfect together, it just makes me smile to think of the two of you ๐
Jun 12, 2012 @ 21:36:59
Thank you. I do too when I think of you and Eric and how similar we are to you as a couple.
Actually I think I have seen Eric more times than I’ve seen you in the last 2 weeks. We need to cure that.
Jun 13, 2012 @ 21:10:54
Yes, definitely! I hope next week will be less hectic ๐
Our Wedding: Getting Ready and First Look | Krug the Thinker
Jun 13, 2012 @ 05:09:39
[…] Travel ← Our Wedding: Planning […]
Jun 13, 2012 @ 05:34:31
More evidence that you two are perfect for each other.
Jun 13, 2012 @ 21:13:15
I definitely think so!