Wedding Blog

We are officially less than 2 weeks away from the wedding day! We’ve been planning this sucker since last March and we’re SO tired! Our wedding planning process has been filled with emotional highs and lows. If you told me a year ago that I’d be crying and angry about the cost of flowers and cake, I wouldn’t have been able to believe it. I can’t tell you how many times this year I’ve uttered the phrase “I just can’t wait until this is over.” Yup, I can be a drama queen.

Growing up you are led to believe that a wedding is all about the couple getting married. Realistically for South Asian brides (and for many other cultures I’m sure) weddings are about families joining together. Every person has an opinion about what you should do. Not only do you have to consider your parents’ opinions, you oftentimes have to think about grandparents, aunties & uncles (the real and fake), brothers, sisters, and cousins. On top of that, you have to make sure that you are respecting your culture and religion. For me, that involves respecting both Sri Lankan and Indian culture as well as the Buddhist and Hindu traditions. I’m not for a second complaining about our rich cultures and religions or our wonderful and well-meaning families. I love that our wedding encompasses so much history, life and love. We are who we are because of our families, our religions and our cultures, and our wedding wouldn’t be “us” without it. It is just truly overwhelming sometimes to try and consider all of it when you are planning a wedding. How can you fit so much and please so many in just a few hours on one day?

On top of all of that, the wedding industry is incredible. The flowers, cakes, chairs and tables are so gorgeous and the creativity is truly inspiring. People put so much thought and time into making weddings special. Who would have thought that you could really worry about the stamps that go on your wedding invitations? Or spend hours thinking about what favors to give out and how to wrap them? I certainly had no idea what I was getting into when we started planning this wedding. It has become an obsession of mine for our wedding to be thoughtful, unique, and perfect. I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of hours perusing wedding blogs and florist/photographer/design websites. Not to mention the tons of magazines I devour (MS Weddings, In Style Weddings, Asiana (a great UK South Asian bridal mag)). I’ve made spreadsheets, checklists and even an entire binder filled with wedding documents and inspiration organized by categories with dividers. Yup, I bought dividers. I haven’t done that since high school.

So now we have families, culture, religion, inspiration and a compulsive bride obsessed with making our wedding an event to remember. Then add another huge factor… money. South Asian weddings are notorious for being lavish. We have hundreds of guests, elaborate jewelry and bejeweled outfits. We have a guest list of about 400 people! I like to joke that we really are having a circus wedding since Mr. Margarita is riding in on an elephant and our wedding site has zebras at it. The costs of having large weddings are out of control. I also feel like all of our costs are doubled instantly just because the service or product is for a wedding. I almost choked at my cake tasting when our baker busted out the price. I am feeling the budget pressure especially now as final payments are due and last minute costs are adding up. We’ve planned according to our budget, but it’s quite another story to actually cut the checks and realize that all this money is going into one day.

I know I’m not the first bride to realize this or feel all of these frustrations. I think it just all came bubbling up this morning because the wedding is just around the corner and my to-do list is 5+ pages long. I feel like a bridezilla for working so hard on this wedding, wanting so much, and becoming so focused on the details. All this heartache and drama just can’t be worth it for one day. So, I tried to remind myself today that I need to focus less on the things in the wedding, and more on the people. As cliché as this sounds, I know that what will make our wedding perfect is having all the people we love with us. I just need to make it through all the other frustrations to get there. 12 days and counting!

Do any of you feel this way as your wedding day gets closer? How do you deal with it?