The Mindful Bride - Wedding Planning Does not have to be Stressful

I never thought that I was the kind of girl to have the big wedding and get into all the bridal fanfare.  Well, I shouldn’t say never.  I wanted and imagined the big wedding day in my 20s, but as a 36-year-old bride who is about to say “I do” for the first time, I had thought I was over all that and would do something small and subtle.  After all the weddings I had attended over the years, watching friends and friends of friends get married, I thought it was exciting, but also thought there’s no way I’m dealing with all that; the showers, the perceived stress, the silly bachelorette party, not to mention the expense.  But one thing that’s been ringing truer as I get older:  never say never. 

Once I met the right man, the big wedding slowly started creeping into my head and wouldn’t leave.  I picked up a couple of bride magazines in the airport gift shop on the way back from our vacation in Mexico, where we got engaged.  For years I would occasionally thumb through the pages of wedding gowns and flowers at the newsstand, but now I had a legitimate reason to buy them without feeling silly.  And the main attraction for me in these magazines:  the dress.  Now I’m not the girliest of girls out there.  I drink bourbon and like to target shoot with my handgun, but I do love to shop and I’ve always envisioned the wedding gown I would wear.  So the dress was certainly in the forefront of my mind, but that was a must no matter what type of wedding I would have.

Jason, my fiancé, and I started mulling over what kind of wedding we wanted to have once we returned from Mexico.  It was February and there’s one thing we did know:  we did not want a long engagement, so we decided to aim for a fall wedding.  Obviously we couldn’t proceed with much planning until we decided what kind of wedding we would have.  Initially I said “Let’s just go off the some Caribbean island or the shores of Lake Michigan with family and close friends and get married.”  Jason was open to the destination idea but after a couple of days he told me that he actually preferred the big wedding.  Somewhat taken aback, I started to think about the big wedding concept more and it wasn’t more than a few days later I decided that yes, that is what I wanted too.  I realized that I didn’t want to have any regrets about not having all our friends and family come together and see Jason and I get married, followed by an amazing celebration afterwards.  So that was it, we were going to do it.  I was all in.  Let the planning begin!

Adrienne Smith is a free lance journalist writing for MeetingPlannerOnline.com.  Adrienne’s monthly wedding planning column can also be found on the: www.MeetingPlannerOnline.com website at the wedding news page.