Would you know if this wasn’t the perfect wedding? Photo by T & S Hughes Photography.
Just for kicks, I went to my favorite search engine and typed in “perfect wedding.” It came back with links to Perfect Wedding Guide, Perfect Wedding Magazine, “20 Secrets to Planning Your Perfect Wedding,” and Plan Your Perfect Wedding Magazine. And that was just the first page. (It seems there’s also a movie called The Perfect Wedding.)
These results are hardly anomalies. I’ve read countless articles and blog posts on the “perfect wedding.” I’m pretty sure there’s even text on my own website that alludes to the “perfect wedding.” A lot of wedding advertising refers to various forms of perfection. Anybody besides me see a problem here?
Perfection is a pretty high standard for a one-time event. What makes it worse is that it is entirely undefined. It’s both nebulous and unrealistic. And this is the standard to which all weddings are held. And that is a recipe for a lot of anxiety on the part of people planning their weddings.
If you’re a fairly casual person and don’t really care whether or not your wedding is “perfect,” then there’s no problem. But if you have even a scrap of perfectionism in your character (and a lot of people do), then the standard of the perfect wedding can get in your way.
I’ve seen this with my own clients. Once, I had a bride confide in me the night before her wedding that she didn’t think she would be able to look “perfect enough” for her wedding the next day. I’ve listened as clients worried that things would not go “perfectly” on their wedding day. I’ve witnessed much (metaphorical) hair-pulling and teeth-gnashing as clients tried to find that one “perfect” thing so their wedding could be “perfect.”
Wouldn’t wedding planning be easier if we could just drop the fiction that there is such a thing as a “perfect wedding”? There’s a wedding that’s a perfect fit for you and your spouse-to-be. There are lots and lots of perfectly lovely weddings. But there’s no reason to go looking for the perfect wedding. Have your wedding, instead. Doesn’t that sound perfect?
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