Wedding Planning Sucks
Stress, Worry, and Self Isolation
The title may be a little dramatic but coming up on my 1 year anniversary and cleaning out the last of the wedding items from my home, I do not see this talked about enough.
The process of planning your wedding is over glamorized in the media that is consumed from the time you were a child and into adulthood. Armed with your idea that everything is going to be a fairytale until reality sets in. That was me with my Pinterest board filled with my current dream dress to my ideal wedding pins from 2015 which never need to see the light of day. I had started planning before the ring was on my finger and the day I got it was the day all the stress began.
I do want to preface this with personal factors that were also at play:
engaged at the very end of October, married the first few days of May
Fiancé/Husband was in and out of hospital with mystery sickness (this caused many wedding issues)
Both of our families live in different states
Wedding was out of state
Adopted a second dog one month before the wedding (least stressful part of all this)
Trying to find a house that wasn’t overpriced and didn’t need major work done that we could move into before my lease was up (literally got to a showing and the side of the house was missing)
I did not hire a wedding planner*
Thankfully at the start of this process, my now husband and I knew we both wanted spring and he gave me just about complete free rein. We decided that we needed to pick a venue first. This is a process in and of itself. Lots of venues don’t list there pricing online or if they do it doesn’t list whats included. This leads to so. many. emails. After we looked at countless venues between multiple states, someone in my family suggested one and after touring, we decided it was the one. I believe we got so lucky with our venue because I know so many people who toured a number of places before finding the one.
What made the biggest difference for me was that our venue included so many things that it lessened the amount of vendors we had to choose. This was something that was important to me. I had friends do it both ways and I am so glad that I went with the inclusive option. This will save some of the headache that is researching vendors and coordinating additional people and set-up.
Vendors included in our venue:
Florist
Catering Options
Wedding Planner
Tables, chairs, some décor and linens
Photographer, Videographer, and HMUA recommendations
Next on our list was a photographer. I do not want to know how many emails I sent to various photographers. The common theme I ran into was booked or $3000 + for the coverage I was after. While I do not fault the photographers for charging for their time and work there is big gap missing for photographers who are affordable for those without an insane budget. I ended up taking a risk on a photographer I found after pleading for recommendations in a Facebook brides group and our pictures ended up turning out great.
This risk was one of many that caused me to have ✨anxiety ✨. The biggest anxiety inducer was my wedding dress. Everyone’s experience is different but dress shopping was not the fun and exciting thing we are told and shown in just about every show and movie. The day started great on the drive there, then their was an appointment mix-up and then I bought a dress that looked nothing like anything I had pictured which called for many nights of no sleep and constant pit in my stomach. I was literally texting every married friend I had asking them if they had this same feeling and I was not alone. Thankfully the dress problem ended up being a non-issue because when I went to pick it up, it felt right ( I may have gaslit myself but I’m not going start overthinking that).
After these big three were knocked out, my husbands mystery illness decided to kick in about this time. To be exact, the day I left town for my bachelorette trip. So that was fun. This led to much wedding planning taking place in the hospital ER, which made me look insane.
Next was invitations, this was incredibly stressful and made so by me. I used to work in a stationary shop doing wedding and event invites for some of Alabama’s wealthy. While my dream invitation suite would have been from Arzberger Stationers, that was not in the budget. So I diy’d and wish I would have made them so much more but did what I could with time + budget available.
At this point you may be wondering, where does the self isolation kick in? If you are anything like me, you know how hard it is to turn over your vision that has become your brain child over to someone else. I had friends + family offer to help do whatever they could but it is so incredibly hard. I also have a hard time asking for help for the fear of burdening someone else with my problems. This lead to me being buried under mountains of stress that I was too afraid to let anyone help me dig my way out of. I had the mentality of I got myself in this mess and I have to be the one to get me out. I became a hermit almost because I felt guilty if I wasn’t working on getting these checked of a list. If you are in the process of planning, do not do this. Let your friends and/or family help, it will be okay and you will feel less insane.
My little bit of saving grace as the days closed in was our wedding planner that we had through our venue (shoutout Matthew). He was the absolute best and was super understanding with all of the craziness. I quite literally would not have made it through the day without him.
In summary, wedding planning may not always be the fun glamorous thing that is shown in media. Life is moving a million miles a minute as you are becoming event planner and life coordinator merging two peoples lives into a unit. Just know that you aren’t the only one with these feelings. Your dress will look amazing, nobody else knows about that small missing detail, and make sure to ask for help. Wishing you all the best and hope you have the most amazing wedding day.
As a bonus, here is a list of near “disasters” that happened in the days before and of our wedding:
One bridesmaids dress never came in (the store she bought it from did on the spot alterations with a sample dress two days before wedding)
Husband’s mystery illness caused his custom suit to have to be re-made due to excessive weight loss in less than a week, got it on Thursday with no final fitting before wedding on Saturday
Husband was supposed to bring his dog to the venue for the wedding, forgot he was the one bringing her. Brother-in-Law to the rescue
Veil got stuck on my reception shoes and now the bottom is completely ripped
Only one of two flower girls made it down the aisle
The main signage did not come in until two days before the wedding
Came an absolute down pour the morning of the wedding while we were headed to hair and makeup. This also caused a number of vendors to be late
I body taped my weeding shoes to my feet because the sling backs were not cooperating
p.s.
pick comfortable shoes to walk in
Vendor List:
Venue • In The Woods // Welcome Dinner • The City Cellar & Loft
Videography • Compass Films // Photography • T&E Social
DJ & Photo Booth • The TC Show // Floral • A Perfect Wedding Floral Design
Wedding Dress • Something Blue Shoppe // Stationary • Made By Abel
Groom’s Suit • Little River Haberdashery // Cake • Granny & Grammy
Catering • The House of Tacos // Hair & Makeup • Beauty By Caley Cline
Bar • ATL Mixers // Alterations • Urban Altered // Jewelry • Levys & Dream Island Jewellery