The Big Fat Cry
April 14th, 2008 @ 4:33 pm by Mrs. Hummingbird
Since we are now officially two and a half months out from the big day, things have been kicking into high gear at Hummingbird Headquarters. While we’re getting stuff done and moving right along, things have still been a bit stressful and, as much as I like to pretend that I’m completely Zen about the whole thing, there have been days during the process that have left me feeling a little emotionally drop-kicked.
Much to my dismay, yesterday was one of those days.
Let me say upfront, I am not a crier. I especially hate crying in front of other people, so much so that when I got into my accident almost six years ago, one of the first thoughts to enter my head after “Oh man that really hurts*!” was “Oh crap, people are watching me cry.”
(Still from Lord of the Rings)
So, on the occasions that I actually do let go enough to tear up, my eyes do not look like they are just watering. I do not look flushed and sorrowful. I do not cry delicate crystalline tears that can easily be wiped away with a couple of dabs of a handkerchief. When I cry, I let ’er rip and I full-out bawl. Big wet cartoon tears that leave me looking like I had the worst day of my life while trapped in a rain storm.
(Photo: Ernie Sisto/The New York Times)
Anyway, while I have tried my best to keep everything together, yesterday got to me. I was coming home from my third wedding dress fitting when I felt a tickle in my throat. I coughed it down and looked out the window of the car, but I knew what it was. The panic started to build in my chest. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry. I repeated it in my head like a mantra and for a while, I managed to stifle it. Until, of course, I was driven back to my parents’ house and I saw my mom.
As much as my mom and I can butt heads, she is one of my biggest supporters and one of my closest confidants, so the second she saw my face and asked me what was wrong, I lost it. All the stress I’d been suppressing for weeks just poured out of me in my own unintelligible squeaky cry language. The lack of sleep. The wedding nightmares. The starting over with the bridesmaid dresses. The invitations deleting themselves. The four straight weeks of wacked out hormones and medication induced nausea. Mr. Hummingbird being out of town.
Even though I’d worked through everything logically in my head, I hadn’t let myself have any sort of emotional reaction to any of it. I’d just forced myself to keep my head down and barrel through it all for fear of looking like a weenie or throwing our planning off course. After all, I had a list. I had things to accomplish. I was charging forward and feelings be damned! Crying equals failure and how lame would I be to fail at wedding planning? I write on a wedding blog for heaven’s sake!
It sounds crazy, but these were still my thoughts when the first hot tears slid down my face. I was still convinced that I’d failed and that I was weak for letting it get to me, and it actually made me cry harder. It was only half an hour later, when I managed to stop the waterworks that I clued in and realized that I wasn’t being weak so much as I was being a normal person. I was tired, I was sick, I was stressed, I was lonely and, like a normal person would (and should), I cried.
One of the things I’ve really tried to do since I started blogging is be honest and keep an accurate record of what planning has been like for me, and so today, in the spirit of that notion, I’m letting go of my embarrassment and sharing my true experience with my readers.
I am not a wedding cyborg, I am a person with good days and bad, and I had a big fat cry and that’s actually okay.
Since I’m feeling much better today, I figured I would put it out there and ask you folks - have any of you had an attack the wedding weepies or a big fat wedding cry? What was yours about? How did it change the way you subsequently dealt with wedding planning?
* My exact thoughts at the time were riddled with profanity, so to be nice on Weddingbee, I put the G-Rated version.
Related Posts
11 Responses to “The Big Fat Cry”
our second out of many trips home to find a reception venue, we were unsuccessful. everything was too ugly/too expensive/too small/ too something. we had to drive 2 hours every time we wanted to see and try to snag a place. i thought we’d never find something, and as FI drove us back to our town, i stared out the window and lost it– the tears flowed, i had my break down.
he assured me we’d find a place that was the right size, the right price, not ugly. (he was right.)
he reminded me that what mattered was that we were getting married (right again).
but the cry felt good.
I have been crying in my office all day today because I hate being engaged, I hate doing wedding crap every single night, and we have no place to live after the wedding in 2 months. If this is supposed to be the best time of my life, then I’m in big trouble.
ha ha…i’ve lost count of the number of times i’ve cried so far during our over a year and a half engagement. part of that is due to a lot of work stress and other life stress, too, but i’m SO ready to be done with all of this in just three more months!!
If it helps you, I had this at the GYN office today . It wasn’t so much about the wedding exactly but the fact that I’d taken half a day off of work and this was the only “appointment available until June” didn’t help when details were mesed up with my insurance. I wanted to scream in the lobby….” I HAVE TO HAVE THIS VISIT NOW…because I want to get on birth control and make sure I’m not on big ole aunt flo in my wedding dress and that we’re having a honeymoon and not a babymoon!!!” but instead i just cried..big ole ugly cry.
I am also absolutely NOT a crier - I work in demolition safety, for heaven’s sake. I’m a tough girl! Criers get run out the first week!
FI is really good about helping me figure out that its okay to cry a little - and of course it’s okay with him as he would rather have me give up and cry a little than spend hours or days in the pissed-off-I’m-not-going-to-cry state. He’ll give me a big hug and say “Honey, there’s no crying in baseball!” And then I get to sniffle until I feel better, which usually happens pretty fast, since he does give the world’s best hugs.
I can totally identify with your tears=weakness sentiment despite the fact that in normal life (as opposed to bride-to-be life, which we all know is NOTHING like normal life!) I tend to cry whenever I am frustrated. With wedding related things I have an iron clad will to not shed a tear, which is kind of backwards. I am only in the beginning phases of wedding planning, but I’ve already gotten that “lump in my throat” feeling thanks to a difference in opinion with the FILs about reception sites. In the end, know that you’re not alone… think of shedding a tear or two as the release of your “pressure valve” & know that you are still a strong chic who is going to have a GREAT wedding. 
Good luck!
I cried like crazy the day after I bought my wedding dress. Should’ve been really happy right? Well I ended up getting an ivory dress not white and I was so new at wedding planning I didn’t realize everything would be fine and that other things come in ivory too. Anyway I freaked out when I realized that all things that should be white now needed to be ivory. I was a wreck until my mom and a few other people assured me over and over that things were fine and ivory was actually pretty common. It was not my first cry, I’ve had many since and in the 2 months I have left until the wedding I’m sure I’ll have a bunch more. But I’m getting married! And when I think about that things get a little better. And my FI is ALWAYS around to comfort me even when he doesn’t “get it”.
There was a day about a month ago that I had set aside for wedding stuff. I had a hair trial, a dress fitting, shoe shopping with my mom. Most of it a two hour drive north. That morning, I’m eating my cheerios and the salon called. My girl is isn’t coming in, can I meet with someone else…. The whole day was small changes. Adjustments. I try to be flexible. But for me (who doesn’t like change) I really had to change my mindset to flexibility go with the flow. Be reasonable. Think happy wedding thoughts. I was so excited to try on my dress for the first time, everything else was secondary.
The hair. expensive. not so good. appointment 20 late. then longer than it should. Fast drive north. look at shoes quick. scarf food.
Meet MOH and MOM at dress shop.
THEY CANT FIND MY DRESS.
for an hour and a half. they’re busy bees (no related bees at dress shop) helping everyone else while I’m waiting for my dress.
AN HOUR AND A HALF. NINTY MINUTES. I was calm. but inside I was FREAKING OUT.
Then they find it. Upstairs. in a fitting room. geesh.
and *whoosh* big presentation. They unzip the bag and pull out the dress.
WRONG COLOR
I ordered antique gold. and it was ivory.
I started crying.
the crying that never ends.
they asked if I wanted to try it on anyways. And she’s lacing me up in my gorgeous Maggie dress and I’m sobbing. Mom and MOH were strickin. It was a day that built up with emotion.
Ultimately the dress got fixed. The hair will be fine. I’m still shopping for shoes and I have time.
But I realized something. I have to try really hard not to cry at the wedding. Cause I’m not pretty when I cry.
Friday.
Friday was the last i sobbed. In my office.
i was emotionally spent. i was lonely (that d@mn ld engagement!) poor, overwhelmed with work and i had just read Mrs. Petunia’s ceremony post.
her joy and love was coming thru in such stark contrast to the misery i was feeling. and i walked over to my office door. shut it…..then leaned against my dry erase board and quietly sobbed for who knows how long.
so many things aren’t going right or how i expected and I am confused. this can’t be the most happiest time in my life.
Im planning a wedding long distance. Its stressful, and my hunnie’s favorite words are “Stop freaking out about *insert whatever thing we are just discussing and i am SO NOT freaking out about here*”
I DID have a meltdown about two months ago. I melted into the i-cant-do-this-what-am-i-thinking-everything-sucks-no-one-will-show-and-its-all-stupid puddle of messiness. I cried. A lot. At work even. I had to go to my second job that night. I cried there too. My step dad came, and just told me to write it all out. I’d yet to make a traditional to-do list. He knows i work best with a list. Im a virgo after all. So the next day, i did just that. I got it ALL out of my head and i now have an 8 page to do list printed out in my wedding binder.
Sometimes, we all just need to sit down and cry it out. Rub some dirt on it, as my fiance likes to say. Pick yourself up and get back to it. Nothing feels quite as good as crossing stuff OFF that to do list, i must say
Mrs. Hummingbird, Toronto
Age and Occupation: 25, Publishing Coordinator
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Videogame Designer/Cartoonist
Engagement Date: May 4, 2007
Wedding Date: June 28, 2008
Blogging Since: September 18, 2007
Venue: A garden wedding followed by a tented reception on Mr. Hummingbird's father's property.
About Me: I’m a pop culture loving, vintage obsessed foodie living in Canada’s biggest city with my fantastic fiancé and our lovable fluffy cat Bettie. I’m stoked to marry my best friend and to throw what I hope will be
the most fun and colourful party of our lives.
Oh, I am such a crier! I cry at the drop of a hat, but somehow haven’t cried over the wedding yet. No, scratch that, I cried when my FI tried to lower the budgeted $750 for ALL wedding attire for both of us to $500 because it “just seemed like a lot to him.” Somewhere in the tears was a protestation that he wanted me to buy a “Walmart wedding dress” and it just went downhill from there…. So you definitely have company! But I am doing my best to be “Zen-like” as much as possible (ok, as much as is possible for me