was i born without the "wedding gene?"
I really think there IS a gene that dictates "eagerness to plan a wedding."I'm short that gene.
I have a wedding coming up (in a startling SHORT amount of time, in the opinion of
people who were born WITH the wedding gene). I'm sure nine months down the road, once the wedding is behind me and pictures are framed and hung on the wall with care, I'll "be able to laugh about all of this."
In the meantime, however...
Here are some excerpts from recent conversations:
My wonderful mom: You're going to carry flowers, though, right?
My wide-eyed, oblivious self: I'm supposed to carry flowers? What for?
My wonderful mom: Well don't you want something to hold? Like a bouquet?
My wide-eyed, oblivious self: Oh...do I have to carry flowers? What kind of flowers would I carry? Could I just carry...ONE flower? I haven't thought about this...
My wonderful mom: Maybe you should ask your cousin to find you some flowers to hold.
My wide-eyed, oblivious self: ...........
This one occured between a co-worker and myself after they overheard one of those conversations during which I absolutely lose my cool and broadcast my emotional deficiencies to the entire office during one of those "personal phone calls."
Fatherly Co-Worker Guy: How's everything going today?
(my nose is still red and my eyes still puffy from the lost-cool-phone-call)
Me: I've had better days.
FCWG: You've had better days huh. Yeah, this stuff can be tough....us guys, we usually just go with 'whatever..doesn't matter to me.' Makes it hard for the lady.
Me: Trouble is, I wanna say, 'whatever, doesn't matter to me,' TOO! That's the way I feel..
FCWG: And everybody has opinions, don't they...a lot of opinions coming out of the woodwork...
Me: Seems like it. So why don't I have as much of an opinion as everybody else?
FCWG: We've all been there...all been there.
This is not totally true...I have an opinion. I don't want fancy flowers and big puffy dresses and bridesmaids in tulle and coordinated shoes...I don't want caterers and rehearsal dinners and tableclothes and flowers and poetry recitations...HOWEVER...I'm a young, suburban, 20-something female...when I throw up my hands and say, "I don't want to plan a wedding!!!! I don't care what you wear, or who you bring, or where you sit...I don't wanna be responsible for it! No! NO NO NO!!!!" people give me this sort of unusual, sideways, "were you dropped as a kid?" look...it's a sort of squinty expression.
Fiance is likewise laid-back. Likewise not inclined to want to plan much.
So far I've spent $30 on a white sundress. I'm going to the local grocery store for a cake. The reception will be about a dozen pizzas from the italian joint down the road. There will be ONE bridesmaid (my sis) wearing WHATEVER she feels like wearing and ONE groomsman wearing WHATEVER he feels like wearing...
I'll be sportin a $30 Forever21 dress and trying not to drip pizza sauce on it. Then, I'll wear the dress whenever I want to for the rest of the summer - because it's PRETTY, dangit - and there's no tulle or beads or anything to stand in my way.
My one good idea so far: party favors. Mixed cd of our favorite tunes. Seems like an honest, substantial (CHEAP!!!) thing to toss at the people kind enough to endure the Saturday-afternoon-in-july-debut of my gross genetic shortcomings...
posted by heatheradair at 7:18 PM
12 Comments:
lol. i've been through this with nearly all my friends at this point. (i am the one lone hold out 28 year old not-married-and-not-looking-to-get-hitched-anytime-soon) I too, wasn't born with the planning gene, but here's my two cents (if you pardon yet another opinion...)
1. CD - FABULOUS idea. I went to a wedding in Galway, Ireland where the bride and groom did this. So sweet, so practical and yes, cheap. Love it so much better than the usual crap i've gotton - little dishes, flower pots, frames etc. Another great idea? No favors but a little scroll that says that you and hubby have made a charitable contribution in leu of a gift.
2. It's YOUR wedding, do whatever the hell you choose. You want to walk barefoot down the aisle while donning a black dress - so be it.
3. As for flowers, no you do not have to carry them. one single flower is fine (calla lillies are perfect for this), or a rosary if catholic are perfectly acceptable. On the practicle side, having something in your hand can help with nerves, too btw. Your local grocery store can also do the flower arrangements (two of my freinds went to their local stop and shop and saved hundreds of dollars doing just this)
4. Just enjoy it. Seriously - this is a special day for you and your hubby. politely tell mom to butt out or have sis do it for you. If mom wants to help, sick her on the shower. :)
TRYING so hard to enjoy it, I really am!!!! (thinking of rounding up a handful of peonies to "carry" because they were my favorite flowers as a kid...something sentimental seems better than something arbitrary?)
And add to the plain old joy of organizing the fact that the wedding is about an 8 hour drive south of home, so that means coordinating places for peoople to stay in a small beach town (on the same weekend that the LPGA is planning to be in town, as well...so hotels are few and far between), trying to get the california people to come north, the seattle people to head south, and hoping no one gets lost and ends up in wyoming along the way....
*BIG SIGH*
At any rate, yesterday i had a ridiculous meltdown and "decided" to elope. I've threatened this before, it seems so simple...but then there was a whole host of other questions....WHERE do I elope? Do I have to bring along witnesses? And when I face the facts, the one thing wedding-like that i want is a photographer...lots of pictures. So then we're back to the small ceremony idea...
ACK!
But thanks for the thoughts! I think i just need to be constantly reminded that I can do this however I'd like, keep taking deep breaths, and CHILL the heck out...this is not a presidential election i'm spearheading...it's a 10-minute ceremony followed by pizza and time with the family and friends...that's not so bad, is it??????
you're not weird. i hated planning my wedding. if i ever have another one, i won't tell anyone til after the fact. i say right on; your wedding sounds perfect. and makes me hungry. trust me, lacking the wedding gene actually makes for a far more attractive lady.
thanks, mere - the biggest hurdle has been (and shall continue to be) reminding myself not to worry about traditional expectations and just say, "hey, if i feel like skipping that particular tradition I WILL!"
gimme a ring, a kiss, call us man and wife, get me outta town, I've got a sunburn with my name on it waiting for me in Sedona...
Oh I feel your pain. When I got married, I kept it to immediate family and best friends and a nice dinner at the local restaurant (very small town so there weren't many choices), everything was set in, like, four hours - and the pastor said it was the most enjoyable wedding he ever attended. (Too bad the marriage didn't last.) Listen to Z. Madison's advice and I completely agree with Mere.
In fact, the eloping thing may not be a bad idea...you can just throw a party later.
Finally, thank you so much for stopping by my blog and for your kind words - I appreciate it!
Best,
TMB
Planning my wedding has been my mother's dream....and my nightmare. She wants my opinion but then does something totally different, gets mad at me for being a "bridezilla" bc if I'm shelling out the cash to do it then I want final say! I don't want to "plan" the wedding but I want final say on everything that my mom is planning. Does that make sense? I want the whole frou frou wedding but without actually having to put forth the effort to do it....You're wedding sounds amazing. Mine is "small" with family and superclose friends only....the guest list is close to 300.
Isn't it amazing how the numbers add up? I remember sitting down and making a list of just the "MUST HAVE IN ATTENDANCE" people and realizing that was 150...
plan right now is 2 dozen: parents, grandparents, sisters and brothers, a cousin or two...that's IT.
43 days to go...
Okay, I've been looking at the blogs I visit and comment on lately and I'm starting to feel like a male girlfriend or something. I need a sports or fighting blog to visit or something.
Anyhow, I'm trying to plan a marriage now and I have to say, planning a small one seems harder than a big one. If I just had a big one I could just get the biggest place I could find, send out a million invites and call it a day. But it's almost impossible to find places that do decent small weddings. And in NY you'd think there'd be a million places to choose from!
Argh.
Ditto, T.
i had the same thought this week (about small weddings, not about your propensity to get sucked into girl-conversations...kind of you to hang in there...i hear there's a whole underground poker-blog movement gaining serious momentum. er...hard to know which sounds more engaging, a conversation with a bunch of chicks about flowers and party favors, or a play-by-play of the latest card tournament? nail-biter there...)
ok - back to the point - i started feeling like i should just go for the whole shebang - big expensive show-pony wedding, it would be easy...invite everyone you've ever known, cater the heck outta the thing, get crazy about monogrammed napkins and nonsense...
then i took a look at my credit card balances and thought, "hmmmm, i wonder if everyone can get by on just ONE piece of pizza each?"
as everyone else has already said, it is your wedding...do what makes you happy! i hated planning my wedding, it was terrible...nothing was the way that i wanted it to be and i always regretted it. now that i am divorced, i know that should i marry again, it will be done my way!
I, too, was born without the wedding gene, so I totally feel your pain. Lucky for me that my younger sis is planning the wedding of the year as to only pound into my head every day that I would rather elope than plan a huge waste-of-money party that will stress me out to no end. I've already told my mom to enjoy it with my sister, because I definitely won't be going the big blow-out route when I decide to tie the knot.
Call me crazy, but pizza, a sun dress and a few flowers sounds like a PERFECT wedding. Oh, and cd party favors are the BEST!!!
ps...Thanks for checking out my blog. I really like yours!
Lexi -
i'm soooooooo glad when I hear about other pro-elopers!! That's still what I wanna do.
I have a younger sister too, and I'm wholly, completely, unabashedly expecting HER to do the big wedding bash...the huge bachelorette parties, the massive showers, the million-dollar registry, all of that...and I'm sure i'll have fun watching her squirm trying to pull it all off...
in the meantime...i'll be burning cds, and spending my weekends trying to get a tan instead of worrying about photographers and caterers and all of that JUNK.
Post a Comment
<< Home