Weddingbee Blog

I think I collected advice on how to make my wedding go smoothly for years before I ever got married. I didn’t have a lot of insight on who I would marry or what our wedding would be like, but I was determined that as few things would go wrong as possible.

Time passed, of course, and, before I knew it, it was last year and time for Mr. DD and me to have our wedding. And, well, I got my wish—not very many things went wrong at all. The things, after all, were just things, and we could control them. The people were a different story altogether.

I already wrote about the people who acted badly at our wedding, but I kind of oversimplified what happened. It wasn’t just during our wedding that they acted badly. They acted badly leading up to the wedding, too. The closer the wedding got, the worse they acted. They weren’t the only ones, either. Let’s just say that we found it to be very true what they say about weddings bringing out the crazy in everyone. Very, very true.

Mr. DD and I decided we had no choice but to spring into action and get things under control. At least, that’s what we desperately attempted to do. It felt like we spent the two months before our wedding just placating people and listening to a neverending litany of complaints. It stressed us out both physically and emotionally. It took time away from other things that were important to us. We argued more than we ever had before. We both kept getting sick. We really didn’t enjoy the last months of our engagement at all. But it was worth it, we thought. These were people who were important to us. We didn’t want there to be any trouble; we just wanted them to be happy on our wedding day.

As with all best-laid plans, this one definitely went awry. Our damage control just didn’t work very well. I really wish we had put our energy elsewhere. I really wish we had remembered to be happier leading up to the wedding, instead of focusing so much on other people’s happiness. It was our wedding day—I really wish we had considered more often that we were actually really excited to be marrying each other.

Maybe, then, it follows that my advice to you is this:

• You can’t control other people. They will do and say what they want to. Some of it might be really hurtful and might change your relationships with these people forever. But you having a wedding is not justification for them to act badly or even the reason they’re acting badly. It’s OK to just be happy and try to ignore them. Letting it affect you for, let’s say, a year after your wedding is probably a really bad idea.
• Take care of yourself. Yes, you are the host of a big event and you should be concerned about your guests’ comfort. But take it from me—it doesn’t help anyone if you’re a walking disaster leading up to the wedding. It’s OK to put yourself first sometimes when it comes to your own wedding.
• Don’t forget to enjoy being engaged. Sometimes planning a wedding will seem to be this big emotional, insurmountable thing. But your wedding is also the beginning of your marriage, and that’s a pretty awesome thing. It’s OK to give wedding stress a couple of days off and just spend time being excited about entering this new stage of your life with your spouse-to-be.

As for Mr. DD and me, we’ve taken a long time to sort things out for ourselves. There was no easy resolution to the situation, and it was difficult to be reevaluating relationships at a time when we just wanted to be happy newlyweds. But time does make things better. A lot better. And now, it seems, I have most of a wedding to tell you about.

You know, this wedding:

(Photo by Erica Berger)

Hopefully you’re still willing to listen?