Jump to navigation
Wedding Planning
R. Alex Whitlock
While looking up an old post, I ran across this one that I wrote
about weddings (written almost exactly a year before I
popped the question):
I've never put much thought into what I want from a wedding. All things being equal, I'd prefer one in a church but from the looks of it that will probably not happen and I'm hardpressed to be too disappointed in that area. [...]
Going to Adam's Baptist wedding was an eye-opener for me in some respects. Prior to his, the only weddings I'd been to have been Catholic, Episcopalian, or non-sect. Catholic and Episcopalian weddings resemble a church service with a special event and non-sect are pretty much anything-goes. So to have the religious overtones without the service was interesting.
I think shorter is probably better (Adam's was quite short). I'd probably prefer to get married somewhere interesting than in a rent-a-chapel. Ultimately, though, I suspect that most of it will be left up to the bride and her mother.
To which the newly married Adam replied in the comments:
Alex, *all* of it is left up to the bride and her mother. When they ask your advice on whether you like something or not, your two options are to agree and get their smiles, or to not agree and at best get scowled at (unless you can come up with an instant, far better solution). Vague "I don't like this..." won't get you anywhere.
Eel and I haven't really done a whole lot of planning. A date has been scheduled, though I have not yet been informed what that date is. We have a wedding planner book, but I'm not hugely enthusiastic about po
uring through it.
So in short, not only is Adam apparently right, but I'm
glad he's right. Just tell me where to show up. And when.
Update: Forgot to mention, everyone with Adam a happy day-after-birthday!
Observations
Not exactly. While it is certainly true that the wedding is for the girl, and she (and her mom) will do the vast majority of the planning, you have to be there to help, IMO. otherwise, during one of the 3-4 inevitable breakdowns that occur in the process, the girl is going to accuse you of not being around enough or not caring enough to help out.
Yeah, there's no way I'm going to get off this easy. But I can pretend for a little while, right?
Alex, you read something into my comment that i did not intend: I never said you do not help out with what *they* want your help with. There was no "just show up" for me, although my share of the actual labors was very small compared to theirs.
Also, thank you for the birthday wishes! Don't worry, you're not late, you are early. Today is day-BEFORE-birthday (April 22nd). :)
Addendum: At this point in the planning, the reason they haven't asked you to do anything is because there isn't anything *you* can do. When it gets closer, you'll get your share of grunt-work. :)
The only thing that may save you is being in a far different location from where the wedding will be held and how much of the setting-up for the wedding is outsourced to a coordinator.
I don't mind doing work as much as I do decision-making. Lift this, order that, great. Choose a floral design? Not so much.
It doesn't *have* to be all for the bride and her mother. In fact, I'm probably going to be more involved overall than Lucy's mom. It all depends on what you want - Lucy and I want it to be for *us*, so we're doing the majority of the planning. If her mom was running the show, the result would be totally different and I'd feel like a stranger at my own wedding instead of having it be an expression of who Lucy and I are as a couple and what our values are.
There don't have to be any rules. All except those surrounding the actual license are self-imposed to some degree. Remember that.
My husband's refrain, leading up to our wedding, was "I'll be there to pick up the pieces if things start falling apart." About three days before the wedding (purposely very small, family only, held in North Lake Tahoe) he came to my frazzled rescue.
It was a perfect day.
Best wishes!
Add an Observation
Comment spam is an ongoing problems that we're trying to address. Previously we required people to create accounts and log in. I am thankful to say that is no longer the case. We're giving Captcha another try and are playing around with a text-based Q&A variant of Captcha. So bear with us as we try to figure out how to best get a handle ont he problem. Please note that any comment on a post more than 30 days old will go into the moderation queue, where I will get to it when I can which could be once a week.
