Feeling a bit lost

[fieryred33143]

Date: 6/17/2009 7:44:51 PM
Author:House Cat
Everything I read about wedding planning states that you should allow your and your FI''s personality to shine through in your wedding. The problem is that none of this wedding ''stuff'' feels like us. How does prancing around in a big white dress, while FI wears a tux, being the center of attention, having photographers snap photos of us all day, equates to being ourselves? I have to be honest here, I''m feeling lost, almost swallowed up in a sea of expectations of what I should be and what my wedding should be. I really have no idea of how to personalize the day.

House Cat,

I haven''t read through the rest of the responses but this paragraph could have been written by me. When I first started planning, I was done in a week. It was going to be about 15 guests, a garden ceremony at a church, followed by a dinner. Very simple and very us.

By the time we were done with our three months of planning it snowballed into this huge event that neither of us wanted. We fought all the time about anything that had to do with the wedding because we were both so frustrated. I am *not* a big white dress kind of girl. I don''t even wear dresses ever. My FI is not the type to be the center of attention, he absolutely hates it. And yet we were planning this huge wedding and it sucked for us.

We decided to put the planning on hold and just be engaged for a little while which I really regret. If I had stuck to my guns and really planned what I wanted, we would have been married by now.

I ditto NF''s suggestions on how to make it more you. Don''t think of this place as being cookie cutter. Think of it as an opportunity to showcase your personalities.

 

[House Cat]

Date: 6/17/2009 11:39:09 PM
Author: CNYHopeful
House Cat, you are certainly not alone in this regard. Until recently, I felt a certain fear of ''a cookie cutter wedding'' and struggled with how to personalize it. A couple of thoughts:

1) Ultimately, it''s the people who really make a wedding. It''s the interaction, conversations, and quiet memorable moments that people will remember most. Simply by sharing the day with those nearest and dearest to both of you will make it YOU!

2) FI and I decided last night that we''d incorporate 2 things important to us into the reception: music & travel. We are using lyrics from our favorite love songs with the favor tags and places we hope to travel together will be written on the Table Cards. So instead of just having table ''1'', it''ll be table ''New Mexico'' and ''Rome, Italy'', etc. Also, we''re asking FFIL, who''s an amazing artist, to design a monogram for our place cards, invites, so it''s more personal etc.

3) Our Catholic wedding is especially important to both of us so we plan on being very involved in the planning process (readings, music, extra rites, etc.). Our friends are doing the music so it will be extra special. The priest presiding is a good friend of ours so that eases some of that concern.

This greatly puts things into perspective for me. You are right. My friends and family, my children and FI will be the most memorable! Thank you!

 

[House Cat]

Date: 6/17/2009 11:47:52 PM
Author: katamari
I totally hear you, House Cat! The wedding industry has a strongly vested interest in making things as cookie cutter as possible, and it does make personalizing your wedding difficult. Some PPs have some cool examples, but even some of the weddings so heralded as personalized on other blogs, to me, also just look like the same ''ole run-of-the-mill wedding. I am hoping that is just because I wasn''t there to ''feel'' how it was different.

As one recent horror story, I went to a wedding last month were there were multiple reception sites in the same venue. I had agreed to help carry the gifts from the gift table to the groom''s parents'' room and, in the path, walked past the two other reception sites with the other helpers. The DJs were literally playing the same song at one point at ALL THREE WEDDINGS (3 different DJs), and we heard them all play one song, but at different times on top of this, in the, like, 15 minutes it took us to walk the gifts through the hotel. Yikes!

We are trying to fight it as much as possible. We are giving beer as our favor (FI is from a family of brewers), we are having a pub quiz and a ton of games (including a Wii station, but this was inspired by Violet02), our invites are completely un-wedding-y, we are DIYing almost everything, NO flowers (not one) and I think it will be the little things like this that satisfy us. Will our guests notice? Probably not. But it will make us feel better.

Hopefully you and Mr. House Cat will find something! I encourage you to fight the wedding complex as much as possible!

OH no! I umm, feel really sorry for those people having their weddings at that venue! I sure hope it wasn''t the first dance song!!!

What are you doing instead of flowers? I love your beer idea! I remember the thread with all of the cute names!

 

[Haven]

House Cat--You''ve gotten excellent advice thus far!
And, if you haven''t found Neat''s wedding photos yet, do find them. They are my favorite on PS.

I wanted to echo CNYHopeful''s post that said the people make the wedding. This is so true. Good company is all you need to make an event memorable. Once you add in great food, drinks, music, and a reason to celebrate--BAM! You have a great party on your hands.

I hadn''t really heard of "cookie cutter weddings" before I joined PS, (I even started this thread asking about them way back when, which turned into a great discussion.)

Now when I think back on the whole thing, I see things that definitely reflected who we are and our personalities and interests. All of those things organically became parts of our wedding as we were planning because we made our decisions based on what we loved and wanted.

As long as you base your decisions on personal preferences rather than what you believe you *should* be choosing, you''ll be fine!

**Just a note about using table names instead of numbers--you may want to consider putting both on the tables and place cards. It can be so difficult and awkward to find your table at a large wedding when they aren''t numbered. I''ve been to a couple weddings where they had names and then the guests all ended up wandering around getting frustrated trying to find their tables.

 

[annadragon]

House Cat - Sounds like you have time to truly get the wedding you want. I have friends who''ve been married at Ren Faires, or done crazy fantasy style stuff like pirates and ninjas (I don''t have pics as they are friends of friends who are related to some other friends...ya know), they''ve done S&M play-party receptions (kinda weird but they didn''t invite family), and one of my favorites: I belonged to a mountain biking club where 2 members during a club trip to Moab, Utah put on their best biking shorts and tied the know at the city hall with the mayor officiating - it was totally them; no planning or fluffing or reception to entertain people we just took off for the bike trail after the ceremony.

If you like vintage and victorian, maybe steampunk styling would be a consideration. If you don''t want to go through the hassle, there is no rule which says you must wear a certain type of dress or have particular things. Find something you''d want to wear. Many women who participate in the SCA (Society for Create Anachronisms) sew and make their own costumes/dresses/outfits and are used to doing period pieces, that might be an avenue to pursue for what you want to wear.

Beer favors are an awesome idea. Perhaps some homemade mead? Or maybe get some Absinthe (now that it''s legal again) with vintage spoons and dispensers?

Wedding a la Bram Stokers Dracula without any death or blood of course

Sorry, I''m kinda having too much fun in your thread but please continue to post

 

[House Cat]

merrymunky: I love what you and FI are doing to personalize your wedding. I can''t wait to see the photos. I think I might suggest to FI some tux alternatives and see how he feels about it.

honey: Your wedding sounds like a dream! We really wanted to do a destination wedding, but when you have 4 children, the vacation part of it gets sort of taken away from you. So, that was out for us. I love the photos of the DW''s though. It''s sort of like, "ahh, in my dreams." I envy you!

Patchee: I love how you''re directing your DJ. I think I''m going to do the same because my wedding is small, 70 or less. We don''t need to be announced. We have already decided we will dictate the music, because I just can''t stand to sit through music I hate.

HudsonHawk: You have given me great ideas! I love the idea of the color palette you''ve give, but I always feel reserved about using pink at my wedding. I feel like I might be ignoring the groom somehow. What do you think? I love the color so much and would so love to use a dusty rose color and sage (swoon.) Picking one era is very smart too. I''m really glad you reminded me of this!

Diva: The caricature artist sounds like so much fun!! Your guests are going to love that!

Nakedfinger: I LOVE that inspiration board!!! It''s so beautiful! Thank you!

 

[House Cat]

Date: 6/18/2009 11:46:47 AM
Author: Morgie44
You may want to check out this ceremony for inspiration if you would like to write your own (or even part of your own). This couple, also wanted to something a bit more personal than the cookie cutter ceremony and wrote this beautiful ceremony together and had a close friend officiate. My favorite part, that I have never seen before at a wedding but think is such a cool idea is their Wine and Love Letter ''ceremony''.

http://erinsarris.googlepages.com/ceremonyinfo

:::All teary eyed because I''m a big ole sap:::

I LOVE that ceremony!!! I love the box, wine, and love letter ritual!! Thank you so much for this Morgie!!

:::still teary eyed:::

 

[Squirrly]

Date: 6/18/2009 11:38:00 AM
Author: House Cat
Squirrly: Music is very important to me too. I guess I just wasn''t seeing this as a way to personalize a wedding. I feel encouraged now! (My teens would love nothing more than to have a Star Wars wedding, btw..)

while i never had my wedding planned out as a kid, i realized recently i''ve had the music picked out for ages. then again with both of my parents being musicians, it was never a question of if i would be musical, it was always what would i play

and i refused to date anyone who wasn''t musical just because it''s such a huge part of my life,anyone else would think i was crazy! thankfully i ended up sitting next to the right guy while playing a concert

what type of music are you thinking of? i know you''ve said you like vintage, so period music from the victorian era, or traditional wedding music with a victorian flare?

i loooove baroque, especially Bach so my favorite song will be our recessional, and i have some others picked out for pre and post music (and i''m sure my list will grow) but the party processional will be from Wagner''s Lohengrin (Elsa''s procession to the cathedral) and the most personal touch is that since it''ll be at the church that my mother is the organist for, her organ has a record/playback feature, so although she will be sitting up front, it''ll be her playing my bridal march (everything else will be string quartet)

 

[elrohwen]

For me, including my personality into the wedding actually means not including a lot of things that most people include. For example, we're not doing any of the traditional bouquet tosses, etc. I doubt I'm having a guest book, because I just don't care! Haha. So in a way, it's more about what I'm leaving out, because I just don't find those things important. Leaving those things out and including a few different things (my wedding dress is tea length, our favors are beer glasses, we're going to have trivia) is making it "our" wedding instead of a cookie cutter wedding. Oh, and we're having a selection of cheesecakes instead of regular cake.

I'm honestly not into a lot of that wedding stuff either, so I'm going my own way to some extent. I am into having a big party with all of my friends and family, so I am going to have a semi-traditional wedding where we can invite them and have dinner with them. My advice: don't be afraid to leave out the things you're really not excited about.

ETA: You mentioned that your place is all included, so you feel that you have less uniqueness. Have you asked if they will change things for you? My place has tons of stuff included, but at our request they're willing to change all sorts of things to make them more us. It's worth asking!

 

[House Cat]

Date: 6/18/2009 4:16:24 PM
Author: Haven
House Cat--You''ve gotten excellent advice thus far!
And, if you haven''t found Neat''s wedding photos yet, do find them. They are my favorite on PS.

I wanted to echo CNYHopeful''s post that said the people make the wedding. This is so true. Good company is all you need to make an event memorable. Once you add in great food, drinks, music, and a reason to celebrate--BAM! You have a great party on your hands.

I hadn''t really heard of ''cookie cutter weddings'' before I joined PS, (I even started this thread asking about them way back when, which turned into a great discussion.)

Now when I think back on the whole thing, I see things that definitely reflected who we are and our personalities and interests. All of those things organically became parts of our wedding as we were planning because we made our decisions based on what we loved and wanted.

As long as you base your decisions on personal preferences rather than what you believe you *should* be choosing, you''ll be fine!

**Just a note about using table names instead of numbers--you may want to consider putting both on the tables and place cards. It can be so difficult and awkward to find your table at a large wedding when they aren''t numbered. I''ve been to a couple weddings where they had names and then the guests all ended up wandering around getting frustrated trying to find their tables.

I think this will be the biggest obstacle for me. I tend to get wrapped up in the shoulds a lot. I once had someone say, "you''re shoulding all over yourself!" I never forgot that. With wedding planning, the shoulding can go way too far. There are easy shoulds that I can eliminate, like the bouquet toss. There are other shoulds that I feel obligated to have because of other reasons. There is a part of me that worries what my guests will think. Now that I''ve admitted that, I''m not going to worry about that so much.

Haven, thank you for sharing that thread with me! I do agree too, that family and friends will make the wedding so special. They are truly what is so important about the day. I think when planning, I begin to lose perspective and suddenly, tiny details seem so huge. Sad. I need to write a gentle reminder in my journal about this. "Family and friends are the most important ingredient to the party, not the color of your napkins!!!"

 

[FrekeChild]

Hmmm...I just now saw this.

Our wedding?

In Vegas, Mandalay Bay to be exact, I'm wearing a silver dress (with a cobalt blue shrug thing), my MOH is wearing a black cocktail dress, FI is wearing a dark gray suit with a blue shirt, I have no idea what his BM is wearing...22 people total. I don't care about flowers or any of that, but since it's included in the package, we're having white roses. No traditional wedding music either--some Ol' Blue Eyes, Celine Dion, Elvis, etc-music that has an emotional effect on us. After the "wedding" we're going to go eat dinner at a restaurant. Not sure where yet. And then? Probably to go see a show of some kind. Maybe Blue Man Group.

No bouquet tosses, no wedding cake, no garters (although I think one is included in our package), no champagne toasts, no color coordinated ANYTHING, no first dances, no dances in general, no assigned tables, no menus, no programs, no honeymoon, no limos for transportation (except we get one for picking up the marriage license...comes with the package) and not even a real traditional reception.

It's very us though. The location itself is very sentimental for us, and the rest is very...quirky.