You know how people always talk about having a “simple wedding?” No stress, just enjoying each other and the special people you’ve invited to spend your special day with? And then, that week and day comes, and it just IS stressful and NOT simple?
How does one keep a wedding simple? Is this even possible? Everyone I talk to says that they have tried this, but because of one thing or another, it always ends up being stressful and not so simple.
I (Hannah) quickly realized this within the first week of being engaged. I was at Hobby Lobby (because where else do you go to start planning a wedding?) and was looking into the possibility of making our invitations. I found cute & kitschy paper, stamps, ribbons, stickers, and envelopes. Of course, it might take us 2 weeks to make them, but our invitations would be so pinterest perfect, all the 15 year-olds would save them for inspiration for their own weddings. After 45 minutes of strategizing in the aisles of the mecca of the craft world: this stamp with that paper with that ribbon, with that paper laid on top of this one, I had two thoughts.
(1) “Crap. This was not going to be a simple wedding.”
And then after a moment of sitting in the defeat and sensing my stress levels rising already:
(2) “Wait a minute. What if I just said NO to trying to make this day perfect? What if I just realized my goal of this day (to have people I love in one place, celebrating me and my man) could be reached in MUCH easier ways than my culture tells me?”
Our wedding website says that we have 179 “to dos” and we are behind on 89 of them. We haven’t sent out invitations, gone dress shopping, figured out colors, or even talked to the wedding party yet. We HAVE had a conversation about whether we want the wedding in the evening or in the afternoon (no decision yet…). We don’t have a budget (well, we do- its somewhere between $0-$50 depending on how much utilities are in March). We aren’t having a cake or big reception. We may or may not be including a dog in the ceremony. We had no idea what an “A” or “B” list was before yesterday. We know that we want candles and Christmas lights (well, I [Hannah] do at least). We DO have someone to marry us and we DO have the church booked! We also have amazing friends who have offered to help. We consider these things fairly significant steps.
We have just realized (Ryan probably faster than me) that we desire to keep Simplicity as the highest value in planning this day, because when we say NO to things that honestly, don’t matter, it can free us to say yes to the things that really do.
Well, this is our plan at least. We’ll see how it goes :-)
2 Comments
Unencumbered. What a wonderful way to start your life together!
We’re definitely trying to stick to that! :)