What works, what doesn't?
Wow, almost a month since my last entry here... I guess that we've been too busy planning for me to talk about it. More things are coming along... save the date cards sent. Officiant chosen. Dresses are in (might even be going to the shop to pick up today, in fact). We now have every major vendor booked except for a rental company and maybe a videographer. The annoying, pink-exclamation-pointed checklist on theknot.com only has 2 things on it for us to do in the next 30 days. We're actually ahead of schedule. We rock.
Last night we met with our officiant to go over some preliminary details, and for her to get to know us a bit better. Part of this meeting included (for interest's sake) asking us what we loved about each other, and why we wanted to get married. Let me tell you, I know exactly the answers to both of these questions, but they're not the sort of things we're accustomed to being put on the spot about, to give an answer to a near-stranger. Both Steve and I later said that we felt we'd given incomplete answers, just because trying to answer on the spot was kind of weird. We had a good giggle over it though, agreed that we might send her an email or something at some point to fill in more details, and then had a lovely evening eating at Qdoba and watching a Kurosawa movie we'd picked up at Wild and Woolly.
One of the weirder things about being engaged is that it has lent me the tendency to analyze not only every wedding I attend, but every relationship I come across, in a harebrained effort to deduce what works, what doesn't, and why. For example, I've been trying to assess the whole theory of bigger/expensive wedding = doomed marriage. For my part, I've been able to think of an equal number of big weddings and small weddings I've attended where the couple wound up divorced... but then again, I think that a couple's choice of wedding has more to do with their personalities than an effort to 'show off' getting married. Smaller weddings seem to be more common among the quieter, non-partying people I've known, people who would just plain rather spend their cash elsewhere, and folks who are older or younger than the average marrying age and don't care to go through the fuss of a big wedding. However, I've heard the whole theory spouted off enough (by people who've been to many more weddings than I have) that I feel there must be something to it.
I think I may have come up with a potential real factor: the problem is not spending the money or inviting hundreds of guests, not in and of itself anyway. I think that the problem may be the MENTALITY behind it for some people - trying to buy a fairy tale. Maybe the sort of person who is willing and able (or expects mommy and daddy to give them) $100K to spend on a wedding is just used to getting their way, and doesn't know how to handle it when a marriage isn't exactly what they'd planned it to be. Maybe the sort of person who goes bridezilla over the peony centerpieces not matching the exact shade of pink in bridesmaid gowns is too used to micromanaging, and expects everything to be perfect.
We won't be spending enough to feed a starving country for a month. We won't have 500 of our most intimate friends there to celebrate. We've had to do a lot of compromising(!), both because of budget and to keep us both happy. There's a lot of things that aren't going to be storybook perfect, and I'm sure things will go wrong on the big day. But you know what? It will be something we crafted together, and it will leave us with great memories and a story to tell, mishaps and all... a lot like real life.
Last night we met with our officiant to go over some preliminary details, and for her to get to know us a bit better. Part of this meeting included (for interest's sake) asking us what we loved about each other, and why we wanted to get married. Let me tell you, I know exactly the answers to both of these questions, but they're not the sort of things we're accustomed to being put on the spot about, to give an answer to a near-stranger. Both Steve and I later said that we felt we'd given incomplete answers, just because trying to answer on the spot was kind of weird. We had a good giggle over it though, agreed that we might send her an email or something at some point to fill in more details, and then had a lovely evening eating at Qdoba and watching a Kurosawa movie we'd picked up at Wild and Woolly.
One of the weirder things about being engaged is that it has lent me the tendency to analyze not only every wedding I attend, but every relationship I come across, in a harebrained effort to deduce what works, what doesn't, and why. For example, I've been trying to assess the whole theory of bigger/expensive wedding = doomed marriage. For my part, I've been able to think of an equal number of big weddings and small weddings I've attended where the couple wound up divorced... but then again, I think that a couple's choice of wedding has more to do with their personalities than an effort to 'show off' getting married. Smaller weddings seem to be more common among the quieter, non-partying people I've known, people who would just plain rather spend their cash elsewhere, and folks who are older or younger than the average marrying age and don't care to go through the fuss of a big wedding. However, I've heard the whole theory spouted off enough (by people who've been to many more weddings than I have) that I feel there must be something to it.
I think I may have come up with a potential real factor: the problem is not spending the money or inviting hundreds of guests, not in and of itself anyway. I think that the problem may be the MENTALITY behind it for some people - trying to buy a fairy tale. Maybe the sort of person who is willing and able (or expects mommy and daddy to give them) $100K to spend on a wedding is just used to getting their way, and doesn't know how to handle it when a marriage isn't exactly what they'd planned it to be. Maybe the sort of person who goes bridezilla over the peony centerpieces not matching the exact shade of pink in bridesmaid gowns is too used to micromanaging, and expects everything to be perfect.
We won't be spending enough to feed a starving country for a month. We won't have 500 of our most intimate friends there to celebrate. We've had to do a lot of compromising(!), both because of budget and to keep us both happy. There's a lot of things that aren't going to be storybook perfect, and I'm sure things will go wrong on the big day. But you know what? It will be something we crafted together, and it will leave us with great memories and a story to tell, mishaps and all... a lot like real life.