Of Brides and Weddings

I hated being a bride.  It's not often that you would see this in print but it's true.  I actually googled "I hate planning my wedding" during wedding planning.  No joke.  It was that bad.  I never thought of myself as a bride growing up, I never even dreamt of it.  In fact, weddings to me where something that happened to other people, like cheerleading.  It just wasn't part of my life plan.  Until I became a fiancee and the inevitable had come.

My wedding and wedding planning were not family love fest.  In fact I felt more abandoned than ever. There were no goos and aaahs with my dress, I went alone to all my fittings.  We talked about flower girls and ring bearers but the truth was that no one in both our families had kids small enough yet old enough to fit the role.  After much wrangling, that idea was jettisoned.  I remember getting dressed and it was me and my two bridesmaids.  That's it.  No aunt knocking on the door, no mothers, sisters, cousins, champagne juice drinking or anything like that.  I had tea.  I only took one picture with my mother actually and that on her way to her to take her seat at the venue because she was 15min late.

Another observation in hindsight was that had I known that the fairytale magazine wedding doesn't happen like that for everyone, or that it WAS possible to actually not enjoy parts of the process, I would have taken the time to do things more to my gut.  I ended up having a long dress, a long veil, etc etc, but if I were able to do a do-over I think I would do things exactly how I wanted to, even if it was a little odd or quirky.  Instead of planning the wedding around whether others would have a good time, I should have planned around whether me and Bo would have a good time.

I'm writing on this reflection simply because I've noticed that 80% of my friends who are getting married or are close to it, are so focused on the wedding, and I understand, but consider that it may not be exactly as you thought.  And like I also advice friends about marriage, with wedding planning, you don't automatically stop being yourself.  You still have the same worries, same sense of humor, same wahala, same anxieties as you did before.  So don't necessarily expect it to be a Cinderella story, do what it is that's right for YOU, everything else will fall into place.