Weddingbee Blog

Hive, I’ve been a bad bride-to-be lately. I’ve been a bit of a Debbie Downer. A Negative Nelly. A bad-attitude bride.

Image via Sweet Things Direct

I’ve been doing lots and lots of wedding planning. I’m crafting and sewing like crazy. I’m responding to emails and text messages and phone calls about my bridal shower, additional plus-ones, and whether or not kiddos are invited. I’ve got wedding-related appointments scheduled from here to eternity (well, not really, but you get the idea). And somewhere, in the midst of all this craziness, I started to hate my wedding.

Like really, really hate it.

Image via Amazon

I was watching some silly wedding show on TLC the other day to pass the time or something, and I got really sad all of a sudden. Here were all these happy people celebrating a marriage, and I kept thinking, “I don’t want this, I don’t want any of this.” Instead of feeling excited for the happy couple and thinking about how excited I am for my own wedding day, I was filled with dread, and I started hating the idea of my own wedding.

I think a lot of this does go back to my original desire to elope. I know many people assume that couples who elope do so because of extenuating circumstances: financial difficulties, unexpected pregnancy, an upcoming move. But for me, I genuinely wanted to elope.

As a little girl, I never really dreamed of having a big wedding. It was never something that I wanted or that excited me. It all seemed like way too much work and stress. I preferred the idea of doing something quiet, something personal, something simple. I liked the idea of being alone with the man I’m going to spend the rest of my life with and pledging my love to him in a way that I wouldn’t want to share with 200 other people. I loved the spontaneity of eloping, of being so excited to start my life with Mr. Parasol that we just had to run off together and get married.

With the wedding just over a month away, I have to admit that I am a little sad that Mr. Parasol and I are not eloping. As I said, I have always really wanted to elope, and it’s been difficult to let this dream go. This wedding is a sacrifice for me but, on the whole, it’s been one that I’ve willingly and happily made. Every once in a while, though, I remember what I’ve sacrificed, and I feel a little sad.

But my bad attitude also stemmed in great part from my inability to see the forest for the trees.

Image via Free-Extras

During these past couple weeks, I’ve gotten so bogged down in wedding planning that I’ve almost forgotten why we’re having a wedding at all. All I could think about was which DIY project to tackle next, where to order flowers from, what song Mr. Parasol and I should use for our first dance, who’s going to track down people who don’t RSVP on time, and what type of favor we want to provide for our guests. As I forged ahead with wedding planning, I only saw all of the individual pieces and how much work each one is and, pretty soon, I found myself desperate for this day to come and go so that the wedding could finally be over. I hated that my to-do list never seemed to get any smaller, and I couldn’t wait to get the wedding over and done with. I started to treat it like one of my final seminar papers: a long and arduous project that I just wanted to finish already.

Needless to say, that is not how I wanted to feel about our wedding, and I hated that I felt resentful of what is supposed to be a joyous and celebratory occasion.

But then something changed. This past weekend, Mr. Parasol and I had the pleasure of attending the wedding of one of his college roommates. Mr. Parasol and I decided that this was the perfect occasion to take a break from our own wedding planning and simply enjoy a wedding as guests. We didn’t have to worry about food or decorations or whether or not people were having fun. We could just sit back and celebrate with our dear friends on their special day.

Hive, it was exactly what Mr. Parasol and I needed. We witnessed a beautiful and meaningful ceremony that was also very quick and to-the-point (yes, those are possible!). We ate delicious food and lots of it (what wedding diet?). We caught up with a ton of our old college friends and shared lots of stories and laughs and drinks. We celebrated with the bride and groom and marveled at how cute they were together, especially when they got engrossed in what must have been a really good conversation at their sweetheart table. And we danced. Oh how we danced! For hours. And with the cutest little girl, who I now seriously want to rent to come dance at my own wedding. We danced so much that my legs were sore the next day.

At the end of it all, we sent off the bride and groom in a balloon-filled car, bid goodbye to our friends, who we will see again very soon at our own wedding, and went home feeling happy, content, and revitalized. It was perfect.

Personal photo

I think that somewhere along the way, between the invitations, the bunting, all the appointments, and trying to figure out how Mr. Parasol and I are actually going to pull this thing off, I forgot that a wedding is first and foremost a celebration. When the day comes, all those little details don’t really matter. If I don’t finish every project I wanted to or things don’t look exactly the way I envisioned, that’s OK. Because at the end of it all, I’ll be married to my best friend, and I will have had a blast celebrating with my family and friends.

More than anything, this wedding reminded me that weddings can actually be fun, a fact I had completely forgotten. So even though my head is still swimming with all the things I still have to do, I’m working hard to not let myself get overwhelmed, and I’m reminding myself to have fun and celebrate. Our guests won’t care if I add a few more decorative details to the guestbook table or the stair banister. They just want to celebrate with Mr. Parasol and me, and now I can honestly say that I can’t wait!

Have you ever felt overwhelmed or disenchanted by the wedding-planning process? How did you cope with these feelings?