Am I excited to be engaged? Yes. Am I happy to be marrying the love of my life? Of course – he’s my missing piece. Am I thrilled that I’m the first one of my friends around me to go through this experience? The jury is still out on this one.
Planning a wedding is hard. I mean, HARD. Throw in the fact that you don’t know what you want and it’s perfect chaos. I’ve never had the vision of what my “happily ever after” would look like. Of course the man of my dreams was going to be at the end of the aisle that I walked down – whoever that would end up being (Hi, Ben!). I knew my wedding wouldn’t be in a church. My dress would be the Vera Wang ballgown that Kate Hudson wore in Bride Wars because it was princess-y perfection.
Timeline? Nah. There was never a “must be married by” age requirement for me. Flowers? I can barely name more than five types, and that’s probably after I’ve done a Google search. That Vera Wang dress? I tried a similar one on. I wasn’t head over heels for it nor did I have that magical “THIS IS MY DRESS” moment.
The truth is…
Our Save the Dates took almost three months to finish from the time I contacted the company to the time I received them in the mail. The design is every ounce of rustic-ness that I wanted them to be and more, but the process was very trying. The company was unresponsive. They had “network issues”. Their graphic designer was “out sick” for a chunk of time. Let’s just say I won’t be revisiting them for the formal invitations.
My mom met a wedding coordinator at my brother’s soccer game that was interested in working with Ben and I for our big day. He specialized in beach weddings, and I explained to him that our wedding was going to be a rustic themed one held in a backyard. He remained interested, so I hesitantely sent him a link to my Pinterest board. He never made it to our first meeting, because of how late he was running from another wedding (he blamed the bride for running late) – forcing us to reschedule. He then had a conflict the morning of our new meeting day and offered a new time. When I said that it wouldn’t work for us, and I hoped that we could schedule for the future (my mom’s words, not mine – I was livid), he didn’t reply. It’s been over two weeks later and I still haven’t heard from him.
Dresses have been a whole new hurdle. I fell in love with with a dress that I found on Pinterest. Shocker, right? The dress designer is LA based, and a boutique two hours away from where I live carried the design I wanted, at least, according to the brand’s website. I went ahead and scheduled a dress appointment at the store. When I double checked with them to confirm they had the exact dress – they blindsided me with the fact that they haven’t carried the brand for months. Two words: appointment cancelled.
Opinions from everyone are abundant, and to say this experience is overwhelming is the understatement of the year.
Give me a company holiday party, I can plan that. An All Employee Summit hosted at the same time as our company’s Educational Conference? Lots of details, but I’m up for the challenge. My own wedding? I’m completely thrown.
In Pinterest world, it’s okay to have five different wedding cakes pinned to your wedding board. All kinds of color schemes. Multiple dress styles. In the real world, you have to choose. There’s no board. There’s your wedding day where all of your choices come together and come to life.
Even though I’m forever searching for that red “pin it” button hoping that somehow these choices will all eventually make sense, I know that the most important details of this wedding aren’t pinnable at all: Ben and I. As long as he’s the one at the end of the aisle, and I’m the one walking down it, then I know that we’ll be just fine.
Follow my wedding board here.