Weddingbee Blog

As I mentioned a few days ago, now that our wedding is over, I’m not so interested in weddings anymore. I am, however, significantly more interested in them than I was before we planned our wedding…if that makes any sense at all. And I’m strangely compelled to continue blabbing about them. So I probably will.

But I must admit, I am interested in very different aspects of weddings than I was when I started planning 15 months ago.

Now that I’ve been released from my (self-imposed) crafting prison, I am mostly interested in weddings because they tell a story of two people, two families, two communities coming together. And I LOVE a good story.

I am only interested in the details so much as they help to tell the story, whereas before I stubbornly thought the details stood on their own.

And I DO think your guests are interested in the details too, just so long as they can eat them, keep them, interact with them, or if they have their names on them.

Those are the types of details that seemed pretty popular and I’ll be honest, fun while drunk at my beautiful friend Tanya’s winged wedding. (And Brendan. Hi Brendan!)

Now I am a good wedding blogger, so I could muse on and on about their bejeweled lantern centerpieces, awesome music, unique cake toppers, and the fact that the bride wore wings. (!)

I could. But I don’t really care about any of those details. (Sorry Tanya!) Except the wings. I will talk about the wings in a future post.

My point is that none of those details mattered very much. Not the ones you think/want/convince yourself are superduperimportant when you’re planning a wedding anyway.

And this is coming from me, the girl who once wrote a whole post about just how important wedding details are. So I’ve been there. And I still don’t thing there is anything intrinsically wrong with having a beautiful party, a beautiful wedding, a beautiful life, hell beautiful everything. I just know now that details can’t even begin to encapsulate the truly joyful moments you will (i hope!) experience on your wedding day. Because the details that matter are the ones you can’t plan for, beyond gathering your loved ones together in one place.

A few of my favorite examples from the Winged Wedding:

• The groom’s mother (his whole family and a slew of guests really) throwing her hands up in the air and singing along at the top of her/their lungs during the couples’ first dance.
• Also the groom’s mother positively reveling in the fact that she finally had another woman on her team, and in her own words, “not just any woman, a strong woman.” She told me this at least twice during the reception and I thought it was such a wonderful and loving affirmation of her whole-heartedly welcoming my lovely friend into their family.
• The impromptu dance-off between three small children and ALL of the adults on the dance floor (bride/wings included).
• The father of the brides speech where he mentioned asking his wife if he had to like his daughter if she turned out to be an asshole when they first got pregnant. Hilarious.

These are the types of details that matter in the great Petri dish of weddings and they’re not even really details: they’re moments. The moments that make you catch your breath, that reach deep down inside you and squeeze your heart so hard you nearly burst with joy. Or maybe they just tickle you enough to keep you smiling all night long.

I think as brides, we cling to a myriad of material details because it’s scary to realize we are investing so much time/money/heart in an event we can neither predict nor control. So while the details might be small change in the grand scheme of all things wedding, at least we can control the crafts.

My point? Do what you can, do what you want, do what brings you joy, and fuck the rest. Let go.

The rest doesn’t matter.

On your wedding day try not to get so caught up in the details that you miss the moments. The moments matter. And I’m married, so I must be an expert right?

P.S.  Interestingly enough, since the details matter so little, they should be really personal to make them worth the trouble at all. And so, ironically, we’re back where we started.

Thoughts?