Plan your Way to a Stress-Free Wedding
Planning for your wedding can be a delight or a disaster. You and your fiancé can be in total agreement about almost every detail of the wedding. You agree on the time, the place, the number of guests, the honeymoon, the dress and the suit, and the structure of the ceremony. All of this goes smoothly despite the fact that you are of one faith and he is another.
[embedplusvideo height=”360″ width=”420″ editlink=”http://bit.ly/1lF7B2O” standard=”http://www.youtube.com/v/m8v1-WsXw1A?fs=1″ vars=”ytid=m8v1-WsXw1A&width=420&height=360&start=&stop=&rs=w&hd=0&autoplay=0&react=1&chapters=¬es=” id=”ep4830″ /]
The problem arises when you announced to your mother that you were getting married and I suppose that mothers probably start planning their daughter’s wedding as soon as they are born. The problem is that those plans seem to be held inside until the moment an engagement is announced.
Likewise, most women have thought about their wedding day since early in their childhood. As they grow up, and observe more, they develop their own ideas about what they want when that magical day arrives.
The stage is thus set for a potential explosion when these two sets of expectations that develop in parallel but largely unknown to each other meet for the first time. One always wanted large, while the other small. One always wanted the beach, while the other preferred a cathedral. You can imagine the other variations.
The guiding principle that will help keep you sane during the entire process is the fact that this is your wedding. Although compromises and modifications may be made always keep this thought in mind. An illustration of this was that my mother-in-law expected us to toast the Queen of England at some stage of the evening. Fortunately I was present when my fiancés mother made this known to her daughter. Thinking it was a joke, I laughed loudly, to my future mother-in-laws disgust. After all, it was our wedding. and we saw no reason for this unusual request
Bear in mind that money talks. Whoever gets the bill will ultimately have the last word on any expenses. The only way you will have complete control over your wedding is if you and your fiancé pay for the whole thing. If you cannot pay for the entire thing, be prepared to make compromises with the person who does. In light of this, it is a good idea to establish early on who is going to pay for what. People are much less likely to make an issue over an element of the wedding if they don’t have to pay for it. Thus, if you want to minimize any difficulty, try to arrange things so that you will pay for those elements of the wedding that might be controversial. We had a dispute over bridal cars. We wanted two open top convertible Jags. My Mother felt that a single Stretch Limousine would be more economical and would fit the entire bridal party. However we wanted some nice looking vintage cars to be part of the photographs. The problem was resolved when we agreed to pay for the cars ourselves. The moment that we agreed to pay for the cars, the controversy vanished!
Be willing to be firm on the important details and flexible on the minor ones. In the process of planning and preparing for your wedding, some of your initial expectations may be unrealized. In the process of planning, you’ll discover some impracticalities in your initial ideas and will need to make changes. For example, you expect to be married in your local Orhodox church because you are Greek. However, because your fiancé is not Greek Orthodox and does not plan to convert, you discover he wants to be married in his local Catholic church. So you will need to look for an alternative, which may be to get a Justice of the Peace to perform the ceremony. Or maybe a small simple ceremony held in each church followed by inviting all guests to the reception. Whatever you decide, when you reflect on it at a later date you’ll find it was a perfect solution. The point being is you had an initial expectation, it did not work out that way, so you changed your course and found a viable alternative.
Even the invitations can be a challenge. You may discover that the invitations you wanted cost much more than you ever expected. Why not do it yourselves? Put your computer skills to work and locate a stationery store who will help you with supplies. You can produce beautiful personalized invitations for a fraction of the cost.
In a meeting with the photographer, we ran into an unexpected clash of ideas over how many hours we would need photographic coverage. My mother wanted the photographer there for the entire day, however we thought it would be best if he left straight after the formalities of the evening, in order to allow us more freedom to enjoy our party. Now it could have been a problem, but it wasn’t because we recognized the principle of flexibility on minor details. We decided to allow the photographer to stay for the entire evening providing he wasn’t in our face taking photos continuously.
Weddings are marvelous events.
The magic of the event will tend to supersede any difficulty.
I wish you a wonderful and joyous wedding.