Wedding Advice

At this experienced stage of being married for 2 whole days, I have come up with some things I wish I had known before the wedding.

I got a TON of wedding advice before my wedding.  So much of it.  Because I have a lot of women in my life who love me and care about me and didn’t want me to make their mistakes.  Which I did.  Which, any new bride who might read this will.  You have to.  It’s a rule.  But, regardless, here’s my advice.

1. Even if you’re totally sure you won’t have a completely irrational meltdown, you will.  Just go with it.  Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do about it.   It’s a rite of passage.  If you’re lucky, it’ll be in the car with your fiance with no one else around.  If you’re not lucky, it’ll be smack in the middle of family pictures.  If you’re me, it’s both.
2. People won’t like things about your wedding.  That’s fine.  When they have a wedding, or if they’ve already had one, you won’t like things at theirs either.  
3. Make sure you’re “there” during the ceremony.  Mine moved so fast, I felt like I was still trying to make memories of things and then the next thing was happening.  Don’t worry so much about focusing on remembering everything and just be in the moment while it’s happening.  Photographers make sure you remember it.
4. If there are very specific things you want or don’t want in your wedding, make those clear to whoever you need to in order to have them happen.  Don’t get wrapped up in every single detail.  I wasn’t really all that concerned about the flowers, so we told a dear friend what colors we wanted and then I never thought about flowers again until I saw them.  And they were beautiful.
5. Don’t spend what you don’t have.  There’s nothing about that day that could warrant going into too much debt (in my opinion).  Our wedding was cheap, but still pretty.  It had everything we wanted and we don’t have to stress after the fact.
6. Sometimes you’ll have to do things in your wedding that you don’t really want to do.  That’s just life.  They will seem like a REALLY big deal before the wedding, but after, you’ll probably forget all about it.  Usually it’s to make someone else happy.  And sometimes it’s worth it.  So, just suck it up and move on to the next thing that will make you really happy.
7. Try to have an answer when people ask you the vague questions.  Like, “What do you want your wedding to look like?” or “What’s your theme?”.  Just something.  Although, I never did and we turned out just fine.
8. Make LOTS of lists.  On any given day I would have 3 different checklists:  Things that needed to be done before the wedding, things that needed to be done this weekend, things that need to be done tonight…  The only wedding website I found that actually gave a “reasonable” checklist was on WeddingWire.com.  The ones in magazines really only help if you’ve been planning your wedding for 5 years.  Or, look at the items on one of those lists and make your own timeline.  Don’t let them stress you out.  We all do things in our own time.
9. People are going to annoy you and you have no clue why you are annoyed.  Just try to keep it to yourself, because you won’t be annoyed later.
10. Surround yourself with people who know you really well and love you.  And you’ll be fine.  If you're lucky like me, a lot of these people will be your future in-laws.  

This is my advice anyway.  Women getting married probably won’t listen to it (I didn’t either!) and women already married, probably disagree with it.  I think wedding planning is a very personal thing and a different experience for everyone.  But this is stuff I wished I had known beforehand.

As soon as I get some pictures from my photographer, I’ll post them, but this was taken by a friend!