This e-mail from a kindred spirit is about the underbelly of wedding planning and how the whole thing can get hijacked and derailed by family.
The same thing happened to friends of ours. By the time their wedding rolled around, they explained, "We just want the whole thing to be over so we can go on the honeymoon."
Here are some excerpts from the message:
Thank you for sharing your experience so honestly! Planning a wedding is clearly about so much more than chair covers and catering. It's about how to balance your needs as an individual with your needs as a couple with the needs of your family with the needs of your community. It's about having courage, as well as being able to compromise. It's about forging your path together as a new family, within the context of your families' histories.
The same thing happened to friends of ours. By the time their wedding rolled around, they explained, "We just want the whole thing to be over so we can go on the honeymoon."
Here are some excerpts from the message:
You guys had the wedding WE wanted! I so wish I had read your blog before I got married in 2008...
Instead, we had a 10,000 dollar marathon stress-fest that was my Mother-in-Law's wedding, not ours.
It was such a downer, we actually secretly went to the courthouse and got married a few months before the "wedding," just so we could have something that was ours.
i appreciated that my in-laws wanted to help us financially with the wedding, but I knew EXACTLY what would happen and it DID.
The pictures are beautiful, but that's not what we cared about. We had wanted a beautiful experience.
I so respect and admire that you guys had a vision and stood firm in it. We were so afraid of seeming ungrateful or disappointing someone that we kept caving until we were just props at an event for everyone else!
Thank you for sharing your experience so honestly! Planning a wedding is clearly about so much more than chair covers and catering. It's about how to balance your needs as an individual with your needs as a couple with the needs of your family with the needs of your community. It's about having courage, as well as being able to compromise. It's about forging your path together as a new family, within the context of your families' histories.
3 comments:
I have to agree that I am thrilled I found your blog early on in the planning process. I knew I wanted something meaningful and that doesn't cost a fortune. Your blog really helped my focus on what we actually want and be deliberate in our decision making process.
So thanks. You have been a great help.
It's funny to me that the wedding day tends to be so anti-marriage in that you are trying to get everything to be your way, trying to get everything just the way you want it, and you're taking vows to do just the opposite. When you get married you publicly declare that your husband or wife's life is more important than yours. That you will put their wants and desires ahead of yours (as best you can-- no one's perfect.)You are at the beginning of a great life of compromise. So why are we so dead set on NOT compromising the day of?
It taken me a long time to find my way back to your blog after that email, but here I am! Just wanted to say hello again!
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