Do you have your planning notebook handy? Courtesy of sprungphoto.com.
Getting married is often stressful and time-consuming. Unless you’re eloping or having a very small wedding, it’s a big, huge project. Why do we do it this way?
Is it just because the wedding industry marketing is so good? Is it because we follow tradition blindly? Is it because we want to feel rich and special? Those may all be part of it, but I don’t think that’s the whole story.
I think a big part of it is that if you’re inviting a lot of friends and family members, it seems the civilized thing to do to feed them a special meal and show them a good time, as long as they are making the effort to come to your wedding. You have to have room enough to fit all your guests and enough food and plates and forks for everyone to have dinner (or breakfast, or whatever). And you don’t want anyone to be bored. Besides, if you like to dance, you want to celebrate on the dance floor with your friends and relations. And then you might want to make the location look festive.
With just those few things in mind, all of a sudden you need to rent a venue, hire a caterer, find a good DJ or band, and get a florist. And then you probably want a photographer to document all your hard work! And maybe you need to hire transportation to get your wedding party and your guests around. If you don’t already have a lot of these resources, suddenly you’re up to your elbows in work and stress–and that’s before you even have an officiant and something to wear.
Are there ways to make wedding planning less stressful? Yes, of course. For one thing, if there are traditional things you don’t want at your wedding, you can leave them off your to-do list. You can aim for simplicity, even when it is out of fashion.
And, of course, you can hire a professional planner to help you. With a planner, you have excellent resources at hand and a calm head to help you put all the pieces together. If you want, you can hand off all the decision-making to your planner and just show up at your own wedding. That’s what I call stress free!
Recent Comments