So if you’re reading this – you’re probably married, engaged – or atleast know someone who is married, engaged OR are thinking you’ll be getting engaged in the near future. After my last post in the Wedding Series I realized there was one thing that I should have shared before jumping right into dress advice – sorry I was super excited I had found the one, can you blame me? Well, today marks just about nine months of being engaged and it marks exactly ONE YEAR (365 days) until our wedding! Can you tell I’m excited?
Thinking back on the past nine months of slow wedding planning there’s some advice I recieved that has continually replayed in my mind as we’ve gone through the craziness that comes with picking a venue, deciding on getting a Wedding planner, making a budget, etc. and I wanted to share this advice with all you past (to see if you agree), current (to hopefully help when things get stressful) and future (to start you out on the right foot) Brides and Grooms.
Before embarking on this Wedding planning process I had been alongside a couple friends, co-workers, and family members who planned their weddings and from my observations – everyone takes to the process a little different – rightfully so. Everyone is unique and different and every wedding is unique and different – so I wasn’t expecting anything less.
Two biggest themes I saw though are you either LOVE wedding planning or you absolutely DESPISE it. Trust me – I got comments from both sides of the spectrum. 🙂
Regardless of the excitement from some and look of sheer terror from others I dove right into wedding planning and decided I’d be forming my own opinions. It wasn’t until after I chose a venue and scouted out the p e r f e c t wedding planning team (more on both of those to come) did I get truly get the best advice that I want to share.
I’m sure many of you have heard of Southern Weddings – they have an online presence as well as a print magazine – but what I’m sure many of you didn’t know is that they sell an array of wedding “helpers” as I like to call them. One of these helpers is the ‘Joyful Wedding Planner‘. As much as you think you don’t need a binder or some sort of tracker to keep your budget, ideas, inspirations, etc. in one place – you do.
But buying this planner, while I definitely recommend, is not the topic of this post and not my advice.
My advice comes from the pages of this binder – one of the very first pages to be exact.
Whether you love wedding planning, hate it, or are just kind of ‘meh’ about it – the most important piece of advice to remember throughout this entire process is that you are not just planning a wedding, but that ‘…planning for a wedding means planning for more than just one day; that there is nothing on this earth more important than family; and that, while details are nice, true love always, always wins.”
What does this mean?
It means that through the hustle and bustle of food tasting, picking out table settings and the packaging of those endless envelopes filled with gorgeous invites you spent hours deciding on – don’t lose sight of the true meaning of your wedding. That your love – the love that brought you and your partner together is what is going to last after all the pretty linens, done up hair and beautiful dresses are gone. Celebrate crossing things off your ‘check list’, say I love you everyday and if it ever gets to be too much – take breaks.
And while I’m sure you don’t want to hear it – your wedding day is just a day – the love between you and your partner is what is going to be there day in and day out.
And that – is the best advice I’ve gotten in this exciting, stressful, amazing time in my life planning my wedding.
Images above by: With Love + Embers
Location: Fells Point, Baltimore + Cyllburn Arboretum
So tell me – have you gotten any good wedding planning advice? Or just marriage advice? I’d love to hear what you think – I still have 365 days to go so I’ll be reminding myself of this advice throughout those days 🙂 .
Also – stay tuned for some more amazing images from our sunset engagement shoot with With Love + Embers coming real soon!
XXOO,
M