Weddingbee Blog

I deleted a bunch of things off my Giant Wedding To-Do List, and it’s not because I finished them. It’s because I ditched them. DITCHED ’EM!

Months ago, I had big plans. Here are just a few of the projects I had dreamed that I’d take on for our wedding…

Votives wrapped in old book pages,

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and a poster for the cocktail hour in which guests could pin a cute flagged tack to indicate what year they met us,

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and fortune tellers whose purpose at a wedding I don’t entirely understand… but look how cute:

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and custom buttons with fun wedding-related slogans,

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and Moo cards with trivia questions to scatter around the cocktail tables, and a hand-rigged photo line, and so on and so on and so on.

I do have the time to create all these little details. I could scrounge up the money from somewhere if I really wanted to. But the months were ticking by, and I kept moving “order personalized buttons” and “create photo line” farther and farther and farther down the to-do list. Every time I started to plan these projects, I’d think, ugh, and stop. The idea of creating, storing, shipping and/or packing, then organizing or presenting or displaying all these cute little details filled me with dread. Yet I persevered, and kept them on my list for a long, long time, despite how badly I didn’t want to make/order/store/pack/display any of them. Why?

Well, two intertwined reasons, really. One, I am an Internet-savvy bride, and that dreaded phrase that often gets tossed around in the wilds of wedding media—cookie-cutter—was ringing in my ears. Our wedding is already pretty darn traditional, save for perhaps the slightly off-beat reception venue. If I don’t stuff my wedding to the gills with these little details, won’t it be just another boring, typical, traditional, cookie-cutter wedding?!

Two, the fact is not lost on me that I am a Weddingbee blogger. If I could get a little meta on you for a second, um, have you seen the weddings of my fellow bees? They’re spectacular. I love blogging here, and I feel like I’ve gotten so much from this community, and I really don’t want to be the bee that makes everyone think, “ugh, BO-RING!” I could tell you that I don’t care what the Internet thinks of my wedding, but that would be a lie. I like you, Internet! I don’t want you to think my wedding and I are super-lame! So, to be honest, I was reluctant to give up a lot of the little stuff because I wanted to have something to show Weddingbee.

Finally, it was time for a reality check. I’ve reached the point where our wedding is weeks, not months, away. I so, so, so wanted to just scrap the buttons and the trivia cards and all the whatnot, but I kept thinking, “but if I get rid of that stuff, then our wedding won’t have any personal details!” You guys, that is crazy talk. Everything about this wedding is personal. Mr. Octo and I chose everything about it, from the location to the food to the cake flavors to the colors of the napkins. Oh, and also? Our wedding will be personal because we are getting married at it. What could be more personal than that?

I’ve gotta be me, you guys. I am not, under any circumstances, a crafter—in fact, I didn’t actually know that crafting, with the paper and the supplies and the glue and whatnot, was even a thing people did before I started reading wedding blogs. All those details would be adorable, but they wouldn’t be me. I do still plan on spending time making things that I think will be functional and useful (ceremony programs, out-of-town bags, that kind of thing), but the fun-but-wholly-unnecessary stuff? Out. Scrapped it all.

So, I’m not going to be the blogger who shows you DIY posts, or who has a fleet of beautiful and cohesive handcrafted items, or who has a truly visually stunning wedding. But I can be the blogger who reminds you that, ultimately, your wedding is supposed to make you happy, and that ideally, the process of planning your wedding should be pretty fun, and that laying tons of unnecessary and avoidable stress on yourself for the sake of personal details or visual impact or whatever is silly. If you LIKE creating all that stuff, then do it! If, like me, the thought of it fills you with dread and anxiety, DON’T do it!

What’s your stance on creating and crafting for your wedding? Do you, like me, sometimes feel intimidated by the world of wedding blogs?