Amateur Wedding Planner: The Devil is in the Details.

I always thought that planning a wedding would be easy. I mean, who really cares about chair covers, wedding cake, favors, centerpieces, place cards, seating arrangements, etc? Well, despite all my previous vows that I would never care about these seemingly insignificant things, turns out … I care. I’m ashamed to even admit it. But, now that we are full planning/panic mode for the wedding, I find that there is no other option … Between Jon and I, we have to have an opinion down to the most itsy-bitsy of details.

Sometimes, pure honesty here, it is overwhelming. Currently, we are about five months out from when we want to get married and we are currently venue-less. Yes, we have seen some ideas, but nothing yet has been screaming the proverbial “GET MARRIED HERE” vibe that we both need to feel before committing. Such things as weather back-ups, price, availability, and locale convenience have been the main fun-ruin-ers in choosing a venue thus far. However, lack of venues is definitely not the issue. There are hundreds upon hundreds of venues here in Denver, but narrowing them down to our specific needs has been slightly challenging. And on top of that … Web sites can be deceiving. We can look at a venue on the Web and think “Perfect!”, but then once we actually visit, we realize the location is extremely shady and not only would we have to provide our guests with a meal, but also bullet-proof vests.

So, needless to say, it has been an adventure thus far! Doing the research on the “perfect place” takes time and considering the fact that I work full-time, go to school virtually full-time, am moving apartments, and have to work on various weekends leaves me with about say … a 30.3 minute time frame to get wedding planning done! Needless to say, I called a wedding planner today. I surrender to the wedding industry. I may need reinforcements.

But the funny thing about this whole planning business, it is actually insanely fun! So much hype and excitement surrounds this one day, and being involved in the minute details of it all is somewhat empowering. I honestly never thought I would be such an astute student of details, but today in my procrastination of homework, I was researching wedding traditions all over the world and I began to realize the gravity of the actual wedding day and celebration. A wedding tangibly symbolizes the magnitude of marriage and there really is nothing wrong with paying the closest consideration to SOME of the details and formalities involved. Now, this does not mean that we go overboard and fly in on an F-15 jet to the reception, but in all seriousness, I am starting to finally get why people put so much time and effort into a wedding. The trick is finding a balance between putting on a great party and becoming Wedding Nazi Party Planner 2009. Sadly, I have seen many brides succumb to the latter.

But, what has really struck me with the realization of the time, effort, money, blood, and tears that comes with wedding planning, is the seemingly total lack of effort by many couples toward the actual marriage. I was reading today that marriages are one of the strongest bonds in the history of the world … It unites families, tribes, and sometimes even countries. So, my question no longer is “why all the hoopla about the wedding,” I get that now. But my question now becomes “why not the same concern for the actual marriage?” Brides (and grooms) can get so caught up in the details of the wedding that they forgo actually taking care of the most pertinent of details: Each other. To be honest, as I am finding, it is so easy to do! But I just have to keep reminding myself that Jon is what really matters through this whole thing and getting in a fight over what shade of ivory we use for the chair covers is so useless. (That never happened, but I thought it would be funny to say. Jon caring about the color of chair covers! Wow. Will never happen.)

Anyhow, all this to say … The devil really is in the details if you allow the details to own you. Talk to me in four months and see if I’ve gone to the dark side. In the meantime, one small detail looms: The date and the venue! Shoot me now.