Wedding Blog

We as brides-to-be put a lot of thought into our weddings. We also put in a lot of man hours in the name of conducting research, setting and attending appointments, shopping, budgeting, stressing, organizing and working on projects.

In my occupation, I bill my time by the quarter hour. Every 15 minutes I spend doing work gets billed to the appropriate client based on an hourly rate agreed upon by that client. In a service industry, time spent = money earned. I cringe when I think of the time invested in planning our wedding and what that would cost if I were doing it for my hourly billable rate. I think it would be safe to assume the dollar amount would allow me to more than pay for this wedding.

Is it possible for me to have spent hundreds of hours planning over these last 10 months? Say I spend 5 hours a week thinking about, researching for and crafting the wedding. (Which is probably a conservative estimate. I mean, come on. I probably spend more hours in a week reading Weddingbee.) At 5 hours a week, 40 weeks of planning = 200 hours.

Whoa.

I’m actually feeling more than certain that my number should be higher. Those early months, with all of the newly-engaged excitement, were spent glued to my laptop looking at bios on The Knot and discovering wedding blogs. Count in my marathon dress shopping days, meetings with vendors and attending bridal expos. There were single days where I’ve put in more than 5 hours. Could the hours I’ve invested be over 500?

For one day???!?!?

ONE. DAY. 24 hours. And, minus sleep, it’s really less than 20.

Am I alone in feeling a little sick to my stomach over this? All in all, I never really felt like I’ve been the obsessed bride type. I don’t talk about the wedding all of the time. I do have a life outside of the wedding planning. (I think so, anyway!) I still do my normal activities and hobbies. I still spend time with my family and still have date nights with Mr. Deviled Egg. I don’t feel like the wedding is consuming me. Still, I’ve logged a lot of hours.

And it scares me to think of all the hours I have yet to put into the preparations. The favor-making, the invitations, the programs, the seating plan, the decorating–all of these things will require a hefty amount of hours. Will my total investment be over a thousand hours? Even at 500 hours of total time investment, that is just over 20 hours of planning for each hour of the wedding day.

Am I crazy? Should I back off? Is it all really worth it? Could my time be better spent doing something else?

In a pathetic attempt to justify my time, I do actually enjoy doing all of the crafty projects and don’t mind the time spent doing them. When the wedding is over, I’m sure I’ll spend an equal amount of time taking on other crafty endeavors, just as I did pre-engagement. I also do believe our wedding day will be one of the most important days of our lives, so it’s not a bad thing to take the time and make it as special as possible. And, I’m enjoying the planning process. I like planning events, looking for inspiration and exercising my creative muscles. But will it all be worth it in the end? I guess only time will tell.

Do you think you are going overboard with the amount of time spent in planning your big day? Do you think it will be worth it?

For those of you who are married, how much time did you put into your planning? Do you have any regrets about the time you spent? Was it worth it for you?