(5/10) Energy flows where your attention goes

Five of Ten: Top 10 things you must remember when planning a wedding….the less superficial list.

Energy flows where your attention goes. The energy multiplies and that place you put your attention will be the experience of your wedding.  

If you are focused on what other people will think of you, how they will evaluate your wedding, if they even do at all, then this is how you will arrive at your wedding day. Since when did a couple’s wedding day become synonymous with auditioning for a role in some society’s script? Oh it did, it was, long ago but aren’t we past that now? Maybe you are focused on how your own wedding will measure up to your friend’s wedding? Like you’re preparing to be picked for homecoming queen of instagram. This wedding, the celebration of the start of your own private marriage, is not a problem unless you make it so.  

You want to look your best so when you are old with sagging smile lines you can remember when you both were young and smoking hot. Do it! Have fun with it but if you are dipping into a crazy pants mindset, remember this special day isn’t first for anyone else but yourselves, and the people that support you just the way you are. 

Maybe for some, your wedding truly is an event that you have to go through the motions of a bit so that your family can live with you afterwards and your honeymoon is what you both name as the celebration of your union together? Maybe you come from a very religious family and you don’t subscribe to that religion anymore and you can’t bring yourselves to separate from it for this last one time. That’s okay, just admit it, make the intention clear to yourselves. Give it language. 

Maybe your wedding is a celebration of the growth you both are grateful to have made as individuals and in large part because of one another’s support? How have you changed for the better? How does this make traveling through life easier or more rewarding and probably both? 

Maybe you have already gone through a ton of hardship or even trauma together and you’re proud and touched that you are here together, committed.

Don’t ruin the year of your engagement by trying to be multiple people or please multiple people! Don’t ever do that anyway! What headspace are you returning to every time you think about your wedding?

(4/10) Your wedding celebration is happening for you

Four of Ten:  Your wedding celebration is happening for you.

[2020 Top Ten things to remember when planning a wedding…the more serious list]

Your wedding celebration is for you to enjoy, just like your guests. You are on the guest list.

You are there to enjoy the experience you have created and enjoy the company you have *chosen to invite*. 

Turn off your phone for 24, 32, 72 hours. Let the professionals capture the day. 

Studies show that you remember an event better when you are not the one photographing it. Okay I don’t know if studies actually show this but I have heard that many times and I believe this to be true. 

Be receptive to the present moment. On your wedding day there is truly nowhere else you need to be.

(3/10) Top 10 things to remember when planning a wedding...the less superficial list.

Three of Ten: Wedding planning can be simple if you know what the skilled planner knows.
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As always, what we write below does not apply to everyone.
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Right now, you may not believe that wedding planning can be simple but it’s true. So is the fact that what’s simple is hard. Wedding planning and any project, no matter its size, is simple if you have the time, experience, support and know what's ahead of you. It’s sometimes hard to accept what you learn as you move along because your assumptions will be tested. If it’s not time, experience, or a fear of the unknown getting in your way, then it’s your feelings about what’s happening, or things entirely separate from the project of wedding planning. If you don’t have the willingness to address all your feelings during this noteworthy time, then you are prone to project your feelings onto other things, such as your wedding planning.
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For some of you more than others, the time of your engagement and wedding planning brings up a ton of feelings. In other words, questions, expectations, fears, baggage from your childhood and your present-day insecurities. All normal stuff that is not all about shooting stars and fairy princesses. All normal stuff. You are not odd or alone in this.
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Take planning one step at a time and don’t fling your attention all over the place. Above all, hire help or enlist a levelheaded friend you trust. If you do hire help and your help has done this over 200 times to great success, trust them.
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Simplify your life a little so you can give yourselves time for all the things that come up this year, so that the actual wedding planning is simpler. If you take time for all your feelings, at the end of the road I promise that you will feel more ready, happy, and carefree on your wedding day.
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Don’t fall down the rabbit hole and have a year that is constantly in manic-mode and reassure yourselves by saying, it’ll all go back to normal once the wedding is over because it won’t, not entirely anyhow. If this describes you month after month after month after month, some other things are going on and after the wedding, when you crash, you will be left with the realities that you avoided beforehand.
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The process will be much simpler for you both if you get specific about the intention of your wedding. Yeah, yes, we know you want to celebrate with your friends and family, and for everyone to have a blast. But truly what is your wedding for and what is it not for? Aim your energy at the positive answer and try and let all the other bullshit fall away. Respect your own wedding - stick to your intentions. You are choosing to not just go to city hall for a reason, right? Well, why?

(2/10) Top 10 things to remember when planning a wedding, 2020

Top ten things to remember when planning a wedding, 2020….the less superficial list.

Two of Ten: Wedding planning takes time.

No shit Sherlock you may be saying to me in your head but it needs to be stressed. It’s not the end of the world, if you don’t have all the time in the world, to devote to your wedding planning. It will all work out in the end. Enlist a friend you trust, that listens well. You will need to talk things out often.

You need to plan ahead. Maybe you are handing off your work load to another associate in the office and you should start this process weeks earlier than you planned so that come the two weeks before your wedding, and the week of your wedding, you can truly separate. Additionally, maybe you are going on your honeymoon directly after your wedding. 

I wish this summed up all of wedding related stress but it does come close. Most don’t realize how much time it will take, nor how much time they will want to take when they become inspired. 

It’ll also take more time if you are good at handling detail and if you don’t have the help of a planner. 

Beating yourself up about not having enough time doesn’t help either. This is not the one day in your life that will matter. Have some perspective for yourself. If you are type A you don’t need anymore added pressure. Pressure is already there coursing through your veins when your morning alarm goes off. I know, I’m a wedding planning, I am type A!

With professionals on your side you don’t waste time staring too much at social media, or doing endless research we’ve already done ten times over, or putting any other cart before its horse. 

Perhaps give yourself your own boundaries by focusing on the wedding only at a certain time or on certain days rather than keeping a zillion windows open when you are at work. Let’s not get you fired while you’re engaged. A joke but I know its happened. 

(1/10) Top 10 things to remember when planning a wedding, 2020

Top ten things to remember when planning a wedding…the less superficial list.

If marriage was easy it wouldn’t be so meaningful and weddings so beautiful.

ONE of TEN: Wedding planning will be stressful and complicated because people are involved. 

You may want to pick and choose which people you involve in what pieces of planning. You can tell them only so many cooks are needed in the kitchen for each course. 

You do not need to answer the myriad of questions that others you. Just politely tell them that you have it all under control and you will fill them in, in due time. 

Your colors are none of their business and design typically does’t start with color anyhow. 

For a good portion of you, wedding planning will reveal unhealthy boundaries that you have been putting up with, only thing is now the topic of discussion is as close to your heart as possible. Know what you need and communicate it clearly. Stand by your plans for mental well being, always. 

What if this project is a tool to reveal all that you need to learn to deal with, so that you can both have a wonderful life together? For some more than others, this is a period of great transition. 

Maybe your families are very different. Maybe they don’t know each other well yet. Maybe they don’t even like each other. Maybe you are from two families with different religious beliefs, even different holidays. You spend money differently, your childhood homes looked vastly different. 

This is all just part of life and it isn’t going anywhere after the wedding. You can derive so much good stuff from planning your wedding. Instead of resisting, sit down together and identify what is really going on and how you both feel about it, and how you are going to deal with it as a unit now and in the future. 

Remember you both are your immediate-immediate family now. 

Maybe you are doing yourselves good to seek help? And to that I say, people who get help are people who are continually learning…they are the winners, they are the ones that don’t break.

If marriage was easy it wouldn’t be so meaningful and weddings so beautiful. 

Some of you may not like what I write above. That is okay. Not everything above applies to everyone and by writing what’s above I am surely not stating that I know it all. Don’t be naive, old fashioned, simplistic and judgmental - those that divorce are not irresponsible or bad people. You and I both know that upwards of around fifty percent of marriages end in divorce. Marriage is not a mistake if it does. And divorce is not a mistake. I know I am not suppose to ever use the D word. I am a wedding planner. I am suppose to be all sunbeams, superficial fairy dust and overly girly. Eye roll. We all have to go where we have to go, to learn what we need to learn, however challenging. Life is one continuous experience and we are all headed to the same place. Certainly though, we’d all love to learn a bit faster, and spend less time struggling and more time loving.