I think most of us are well-aware of the unsolicited “advice” you’re bombarded with once the wedding planning takes off. I often find this “advice” to be in response to ideas expressed by the individual getting married. People intend to be helpful, I would think. But often times, it’s discouraging to hear because the “advice” comes off as opinionated and lacks affirmation of one’s original ideas. Once you hear someone else’s opinion, you start to wonder, “Is my idea really not the best one?” Hosting a wedding is a paradox in itself. It is about you and the one you’re marrying. But then it also is about pleasing those who come to celebrate you two. Some advise you to focus on yourselves. Others advise you to please everyone else. The feat to achieve in this paradox is finding a happy balance. This is what makes it hard. Nevertheless, Maya and I strive to achieve this happy balance.
While dealing with unsolicited “advice” in the beginning phases of wedding planning, you may wonder where to start. Now I’m being one of those people giving advice to others…(but I intend to entirely be helpful to your own ideas and interests!) You can start out by discussing each other’s top priorities, alone. Setting your priorities straight may help you determine how much of your given budget you’d like to allocate to each priority since they are important to you two. I’m sharing this advice because, admittedly, I jumped into wedding planning in full splash, allowing my heightened imagination to cloud my sense of reality. It took me approximately a week before I pulled myself out of the water, and started anew by treading the water carefully and patiently. I couldn’t help myself at first. If you end up doing the same thing, that is okay, or so I’ve been told. It is a novel, exciting time. If you get carried away, so be it. Just draw yourself back in when you need to. For starters, Maya and I each chose three top priorities. You can choose more, but I suggest: the less, the better.
Maya’s Priorities: (1) People, (2) Food, (3) Music
Cecilia’s Priorities: (1) Location, (2) Flexibility, (3) Self-Made
You may have noticed that Maya and I developed pretty general priorities to start with. If you choose to do the same, generalization may allow you and your fiance to keep your expectations manageable, as well as allowing creativity to do its charm. After discussing in more detail what our general priorities were, Maya and I continued to dig into more detail. For instance, with the location of the wedding, it quickly became clear that I wanted to consider my hometown in Central Pennsylvania. I adore the nature backdrop among other more sentimental reasons. We were able to decide on the Central PA region pretty quickly since Maya’s family has spread out from coast to coast; therefore, she does not have much of a home base anymore. We are keeping the specificity of our venue choice private for now since we have yet to tell our guests! One of my priorities, check. Easy peasy. Meanwhile, food is an undeniable priority for Maya. She hopes for good food. When we do some tastings with select vendors, I’ll be focusing on Maya’s impressions and how we can please her and our guests.
As an aid in choosing your top priorities with your fiance, download the Priorities Checklist provided here. You can develop other priorities on this list too with the given spaces at the bottom of the checklist. Happy Planning!
The Ariel Series 