will you buy a dream wedding?
Not too many days ago, I posted my sentiments at the w@w yahoogroup, asking my fellow brides-to-be if it ever crossed their minds not to push through with the wedding. Because it did mine, quite a few times already. I’m not having a Is-he-the-man-I-want-to-be-with-for-the-rest-of-my-life? wedding jitter nor the Am-I-really-ready-to-commit? kind. No, it’s not like that.
My reasons were more on being practical: 1) I want something non-traditional, something intimate and small. A wedding just amongst ourselves and our families. 2) And that I am reluctant to spend for what the guests will think and say about our wedding. I don’t want to create a wedding to please my guests.
Before I let out these thoughts in writing, I was planning a wedding. Happily doing so? I’m not sure. On the borderline of sanity? Most likely.
If you’ve followed this blog, you know that I’m weaving a dream wedding on a budget. Now, you shouldn’t take people seriously when they speak of making your dreams come true on a shoestring budget. It’s just another dream.
Yes, I learned that. And I also learned that most dream weddings involve guests. Did I say I’m hesitant to spend for them? As I go deeper into the crazy world of wedding preparations, I slowly but very clearly realized that I was planning a wedding for my guests. The menu, the setup, the flowers, even my dress are at the mercy of their scrutiny and judgment. And I fear both. So I sometimes find myself making decisions based on whether or not it will have a ‘wow’ factor on my beloved guests. Whose dream wedding is it anyway? I’ve fallen in my own trap.
So I had to stop and ask, in an effort to bring back sense into myself and our wedding.
Why should I share my wedding to a group of guests (who probably only half are well-wishers and the other half are onlookers, whom I don’t want to spend money for)?
But then, why should I keep it amongst ourselves?
Why spend for a one-day-affair instead of using the money to buy something else? Something more lasting.
But why not, if the one-day affair is the most important day of our lives? Don’t memories last?
If you have the chance to make a dream come true, why won’t you take it? Cinderella took it even if the dream only lasts until 12 midnight. And look what happened.
But if the dream has a price tag, will you buy it?
Why won’t you?
*****
I am truly grateful to the w@w community for sharing what they can to help me remember what weddings are for and the essence of planning for it. Ours is still a budget (nothing we can do about that). But I am ‘re-dreaming’ and redeeming it.
Also worth mentioning are two posts from A Pratical Wedding and East Side Bride, that provided the last waves of current for my light bulb moment.
Happy preps to everyone. And to me, too =)
staging a wedding
The past weeks had been a never-ending search for a wedding caterer, photographer and whatnot. I was telling myself everything would have been easier if our prospects (vendors) won’t have to subject to 3 important qualifications:
1. That they deliver good-quality service.
2. That they fit our budget.
3. That they deliver good-quality service and fit our budget.
*** *** *** *** ***
Seriously, a budget wedding is so damn easy to achieve. All that one really needs to get married is an officiating personnel, the rings, some witnesses and a partner. It’s actually the dream that complicates everything. And it’s when we get so mired in our fairy-tale ideas that wedding preparations became what seems to be a never-ending period of madness.
We’re sweating that small stuff because, yes, dream weddings are made up of those teeny, weeny bit of details. If we didn’t get the right color. If the ribbons were tied differently. If the band played the wrong song.
I got lost in the trappings of my own dream wedding that I failed to see the essence of it all. I had to pause, step back and look at the wider picture. I had to stop looking behind rose-colored eyes.
I want OUR wedding (not mine alone) to celebrate us. Not stage us. Yes, that is my dream.
*** *** *** *** ***
Did anyone fits the bill? No one did and I think I’m going crazy.
simple weddings are beautiful
This picture is so breathtaking…
{Photo found on mintdesignblog dot com :: Keeping It Simple}
And Ellie of Mint couldn’t have said it any better when she wrote: “You can tell the day wasn’t about the dress, the cake, the color scheme, the menu… just the marriage!”
Maybe there’s a place as serene, as intimate and as lovely as this near us. I have to find it. Seriously.
wedding noes and yeses
Part of the essential steps or guidelines in creating a dream wedding out of a thin budget (luckily, not out of thin air) is knowing what you want. You’ve dreamed of this your whole life so essentially you should know what is in that dream wedding that makes it THE dream wedding.
But for me, since I’ve never really envisioned my wedding until D proposed to me (honestly!), I only have a list of yeses–the things I want included in my wedding– and noes–obviously, those that I don’t want. Here, I’m sharing it with you:
1. No to inviting everyone we knew. Yes to inviting only the people who have actually witnessed our relationship.
2. No to stiff ball gowns. Yes to simple, streamlined dresses.
3. No to bridesmaid’s gown that will never be worn again. Yes to (inspired by) spring dresses.
{From Southern Weddings}
whose dream wedding is it anyway?
What is your dream wedding?
If you say, your dream wedding is getting married on a beach, just before sunrise, surrounded by all your loved ones. Then kissing your groom just as the sun rises and running to the water to meet the soft waves of the early morning tide, and stumbling into the sand and kissing some more.
I would have exclaimed, ”oh, how lovely’.
But nowadays, dream wedding has become more of a lavish social event put together by popular wedding vendors, exotic destinations, elegant ballrooms, landscaped garden venues, top designers, make-up artists, event stylists, caterers, planners and coordinators. Wedding niceties like fireworks display, Swarovski crystals on the wedding cake, intricate beadwork and delicate lacework on the bride’s gown, imported and expensive blooms, complicated lighting, elaborate setup have raised the bar for dream wedding standards. All the glitz and glamor, all that jazz. But are they really the stuff dream weddings are made up of?
Some will probably say I’m just whining because I can’t afford that kind of wedding. Hmm, defensive as I may seem, but no I’m not. Honestly, even if we have the money, my dream wedding doesn’t involve a huge amount nor I would want to spend a huge amount for it anyway. But I understand. A wedding, like all the other celebrations in one’s life, is part of a lifestyle. You have an extravagant lifestyle, you would naturally want an extravagant wedding. Nothing wrong with that so long as you can afford it, right?
What I’m probably lamenting is the fact that wedding, though not all of them, is fast evolving into another ‘dress to impress’ occasion where the main, albeit undeclared, purpose is to leave the guests in awe. Even I am guilty of this. We want to showcase our wedding more than celebrate it. We crave for admiration, for people to talk about and remember how beautiful our wedding was. But whose dream wedding is it anyway?
But as I’ve said, I understand to some extent. I am a bride-to-be myself. We have our fairy tales, our dreams. Although I wish that we can also have the simple yet romantic perspective of men on wedding. When asked what their dream wedding is, most grooms, at least those who know how to answer, would say:
“Marrying the woman of my dreams.”
Now, isn’t that what wedding is all about?
