I used to be the girl who would scowl secretly when I’d see a bridezilla planning out every single detail down to the napkin color. “Really,” I thought, “does it matter?” Little did I’d know that I would be on the verge of becoming one myself.
Within the last two months since I’ve gotten engaged, I’ve booked the venue, set the date, chosen the church, and am almost there on picking the dress. Immediately my next instinct is to book the photographer and band/D.J. next, followed by choosing the bridal party and color scheme, all within the next month? Did I mention I still have more than a year until I get married (June 12, 2010)?
Truthfully, I was one of the girls that always dreamt of my wedding day, but in hindsight most of those visions were just of me in an indescript white dress with a gorgeous mystery man at the alter smiling at me. I actually was surprised at myself when I realized days after the proposal that I had little to no idea of what I wanted for the wedding. And so it began, the RESEARCH.
I dove into wedding planning with such intensity that it would put Edward and Bella’s Twilight love to shame. Within weeks I had formulated complicated spreadsheets each wedding category and had a binder the size of a cooler at my side at all times. With a vengeance, I put a thousand miles on my odometer scouring the city for venues, then churches and driving to small bridal boutiques on the perimeter of farmland searching for The Dress.
I flew to NYC from Chicago last week to spend a week with my fiancé, since we are currently dating long distance, ready to try on a gazillion more gowns at all the hot designers. However,I had so much fun doing normal things that I forgot I was planning a wedding until today. Our days were consumed with strolling the parks, brunching with friends, dancing in clubs…in other words, I kind of got a life. And now that I am back to the daily grind, the last thing I want to do is more wedding research. I feel burnt out. Don’t get me wrong, I love every single part of my engagement and planning out each detail of the wedding, but I realized I overdosed on wedding planning when I bought an Economist instead of a bridal magazine at the airport gift store. I need to space out my planning a little better and given I have more than a year until we get hitched, I’d say I have time.
So I made a vow to prolong my wedding research break until after Easter, kind of a late Lental sacrifice. This is not to say I’m not thinking about it, contrary, I have a million ideas I can’t wait to follow through on, but I realized this week that I better space it out a little better, one thing at a time.
Anyone out there similarly exhausted? What are your methods for better planning?
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I’ve got wedding planning fatigue too. I have a similar time line to yours–we got engaged 3 months ago, and our date is set for 7/3/2010. I have a venue, a photographer, a color scheme, and I’m already tired of trying on dresses!
We’ve decided to wait until we’re one year out to make anymore “big” decisions, but I feel your pain. How in the world can I wait 15 months for this event?
Oh yes, absolutely, but I’ve had much less time than you to plan my wedding (8 months total, a little less than six months to go)! There have been several times when I’ve told my fiance that I am sick of planning and can’t we please just go to the courthouse instead! Although now that I have all of the big things out of the way (I’ve decided to get as much done up front as possible), I feel much better now. I’m going to take a month or two break, then get back on the planning wagon!
Oh yeah… me too. We have been engaged for almost 2 months now. All I find myself doing is looking up wedding stuff. I have 18 months to go though. I started losing my mind cause I had so much stuff I wanted to sort out… like centerpieces, hairdo’s, venues, bouquets, yada yada yada. I am constantly saving pictures from the internet that inspire me. Since my wedding is so far away (October 2010) and I can’t just sit still, I decided to create a personalized timeline/checklist for 18mths. I am both a planner and a procrastinator so I can’t just sit down and wait for June to come along to start planning….. cause I love planning stuff. Then again… if I sit down for too long and don’t plan out enough time.. I will wait til the last possible moment to wrap things up. I definitely don’t want that to happen. The timeline will help me keep my sanity and allow me to stay on track. I haven’t quite finished it but I when I do… it will be a breath of fresh air.
Well see, unlike you, I hate planning my wedding. I know – bad bride but seriously, I hate it. I got engaged 10/2/07. My wedding date is 8/9/09 & I didn’t even start planning anything until January of 09. Up until I found blogs, I was really thinking something was wrong with me. Now I realize, I just don’t care about napkin rings or chairs or favors and that’s ok.
I go through phases from “OMG – I’ll never be able to pull this off” to “I totally have this covered”. Probably somewhere in between but I still have to talk myself down sometimes. I stop looking at the wedding sites, magazines & even a couple of blogs – I have a no wedding zone for a little while & find when I come back, it’s much better.
For awhile anyway……
Lol.. I’m sorta like Christine. Wedding’s Oct 2010 and so far, I’ve set the date and book the venue. We’re in the midst of looking for a photographer and deciding on a colour scheme and designing our save the date. I should probably take a break and concentrate on my upcoming exam but it is such a good distraction.
Yes. I feel your pain. I think I overloaded myself on planning the first six weeks trying to get it all done. I chose to only be engaged for 10 months because I did not think I could handle the planning bug for longer than that. I took a two month hiatus and now I am caught up in all these details I did not realize existed – I thought I was done! AHHHH, the details will get you.
I am in the same boat! We got engaged on Valentine’s Day (our 4 year anniversary) and our wedding day is set for either June 25 or July 3, 2010 – we can’t decide! I have already purchased my dress and veil, chosen the color scheme, designed the centerpieces, and booked the venue, band, and florist (we have to confirm the date with them soon though!) We’ve also decided on favors, made a tentative guest list, and booked our officiant….needless to say, I am EXHAUSTED!
We still have ~15 months to go, and it seems like with almost everything planned, all I can do is sit and wait for the day to arrive. I am definitely going to have to space the rest of this stuff out, or I’ll have nothing to do in the next year!
I stumbled across your entry and had to comment because I love your choice of wedding date – same as mine! The hardest thing for me is that I have been overseas since we got engaged with two months left before I am back home – even before and especially after the engagement I’ve jumped headfirst into the online world of weddings and done as much as I can over here – but I’m really antsy to get home and really dive in for real. Luckily my fiance has booked our ceremony and started the reception venue process, but we both look forward to detail-oriented me taking over a bit. I tell myself that this will all pay off when I am ahead of schedule next year (while busy finishing up college) – but to be honest I just love the possibility and prettiness of everything! I do wonder if I overload at times… but we’ll see how things change when I am back.