Weddingbee Blog

If you are planning a wedding, don’t plan on building a house. Building a house sort of dropped (like a cement block) into our laps. I don’t know if I shared with you how this all came about, but here’s a little background. When my maternal grandma died, she left me and my parents a pretty good sum of money. Instead of spending it or putting it in a college fund, my parents decided to buy some property.

When Mr. Joey and I got engaged, they started talking about giving us part of the double lot. Then in January, everything was a go. Building prices were down, we could get the money, my Dad (the contractor) had time this summer — everything fell into place. In March, the lot was signed over to me and I became a property owner. Just in time to pay property taxes — my parents are no dummies.

It wasn’t my intention to plan a wedding and build a house at the same time. The cards fell into place and my Dad gave me a “Build it or Bust” speech. So we went on with building it. In hindsight, I should have tried to convince him to start later — like after the wedding. Just the permit process has been all consuming. I feel like I can’t put anything into my regular life, let alone wedding planning. I don’t know how many times I’ve gotten a call from someone at 2PM telling me to pick up something here and get that notarized there. Luckily, because I’ve made my life flexible for work, work is now being flexible for my life.

It’s hard to stay positive about one good thing (the wedding) when the other good thing (the house) is draining me of all my energy.

People ask me what I want for bachelorette parties or showers, and all I have to offer is, “I don’t care, as long as I don’t have to do anything.” I can’t get excited about table settings when all I can think about is if our soil engineer will get his comments to the city by Monday. I thought I could separate the wedding and house, but somehow these two different milestone events have become so tied together that I can’t think about the wedding without thinking about the house.

The house was supposed to be done right around the time of the wedding. If we had been on schedule, we would have gone from the airport after the honeymoon to the new house. Our registry indecisiveness has revolved around the house. Everyone who knows we’re building is expecting to see a house when they come to town. Let’s just say there’s a lot of stress when I think of the house and then the wedding.

My Mom told me not to stress out about it. She says stress will make for an ugly bride. But how can I not stress about two somethings that have taken up so much of my life for the last 3 or 4 months? Sometimes I think we should have eloped, sold the land, and bought a condo. I want to be excited about both events — they both are true blessings — but most days I’m too tired, too overwhelmed, and too busy to be excited.

Are you tackling a huge project while planning your wedding?  What is it, and how do you balance the two