Weddingbee Blog

With the wedding QUICKLY approaching, I’m having mixed feelings about our planning progress so far. On the one hand, we wanted to keep things as simple and stress-free as possible, which is part of the reason we chose a destination wedding. Being thousands of miles away, our plan was to leave everything up to the hotel’s wedding coordinator, which both of us are totally fine with. On the other hand, the more I read about other peoples’ planning, the more things I end up wanting to incorporate into our day. We are definitely limited on how much we can bring given the baggage allowances with the airlines these days, but I find myself trying to stretch our limits with new plans every day.

A lot of stuff is still up in the air regarding our ceremony, which I think is part of my stress. I’ve talked to the coordinator about some of the details, like the flowers. I have since found out that we don’t have a choice when it comes to flowers; we get whatever is in bloom and looks the most fresh at the florist’s that day. It would have been nice to know that when I went and researched all the flowers they mentioned in the contract. As far as music goes, we can send a list of songs we want, but it totally depends on if the steel pan player knows them or not. From what I’ve been told by the coordinator though, I’m jumping the gun (not his exact words). According to him, the little details are usually discussed about a month before. A month??? For someone that’s trying to plan a wedding, a month before to me is pushing it. For example…

I’d like to know if we have any say in the wording of the ceremony. It will be non-denominational so we’re obviously not having a mass or readings or anything like that, but do we have any personal options? I don’t know.

I don’t like that I don’t know.

I’d love to incorporate a sand ceremony with a unity vase like Mrs. Lovebird wrote about here but at this point, I honestly don’t know if we can put our personal touches on things or if it’s just a generic ceremony (which I’d be OK with also… I just would rather know sooner than later). I know, I know, call the wedding coordinator and ask, right? I could do that, but then I’d be calling him every day with a new question and I don’t want him to think I’m a crazy woman. Then I start thinking… relax. Enjoy this time and let them handle everything. Grrr. Gotta love internal debates.

I’m also really worried about what to do after the wedding. Our original thought was to go to the bar, have a toast with our families, then party the night away on the resort. Go swimming. Hit the beach. But my FMIL suggested that we all have a sit-down dinner. Good idea, but the resort won’t work since they can only accommodate parties of 10 or less, or else they consider it a reception, which we want to avoid. Going off the resort is going to cost everyone an arm and a leg with cab fare and the meal, so I don’t know if that’s such a great idea either. So at this point, I’m lost.

To add to all of this, not only do we have the actual wedding to plan (or not plan), we also have our after party in June. I keep trying to remind myself that I should leave the wedding in the hands of the coordinator and use the after-party as my creative outlet for things like centerpieces, decorations, and favors. But then I start thinking of our laid-back style and wonder if I’m going a little overboard with all of the ideas and plans I have for the party. I feel like I’m torn. My creative juices are flowing but some things are on hold for now. For instance…

I definitely want to make centerpieces, something with delicate white branches and teardrop crystals (I bought 300 teardrop crystals from the Weddingbee classifieds last week – my first WB purchase), but if we put them together now, we have nowhere to store them. Plus, those crystals are the only things I’ve gotten for them so far. So now, we wait.

For a wedding that was supposed to be completely stress-free (and actually has been up until now) I feel time is closing in on me, but I’m trying to keep the stress at bay.

I just had to get it all out. I can’t forget to breathe.

DW brides: did you choose a DW because it’s relatively stress free, only to find it’s hard to sit back and not actually plan?