25 February 2015
The Downside To Being Overly Organised
Greetings friends,
This will be my last post as an un-married woman, although I think I may write another one and just post it after the fact.
I feel a bit strange writing about the wedding on my 'Girl That Eats Chips' blog, but I REALLY can't be bothered writing another one for the wedding blog too, so I'll just link this one to that one BADDA-BING BADDA-BOOM WE'RE IN THE BUSINESS!
So anyway.
I'm kinda all over the place about what to write.
I know I had some ideas but they've kinda gone out the window now. (I have since decided what I'm gonna write about, hahaha)
It's only 10 days til the wedding.
I would describe my current feeling as: Asieriuhekmnaslxm;LMSOIJWHKAJNBmnabjSHVGHADR.
I'm sure you all know what I mean.
So I've been engaged for over a year now, and I have been organising the wedding since before I got engaged (only by a week but still).
It has been, thus far, pretty easy.
But some things have NOT been easy, and quite recently I have become quite frustrated with a few things and borderlined on becoming a Bridezilla (something I've been trying to avoid).
I've found that there are downsides to being overly organised in regards to a wedding.
1. Making a Guest List A Year In Advance Isn't The Best Idea
I found that there was a pretty large number of people that I decided to un-invite during the course of the year of being engaged. If Lyndon and I had gotten married within five months of being engaged, I am pretty certain that these people, who I'm not really friends with anymore, would have been at the wedding. And sure, you could say that maybe we would have remained friends because the situation would have been different, but maybe not.
At the end of the day, I am glad I know who my real friends are, and I am more than happy with my guest list, but I still wish Lyndon and I could have saved time and awkwardness sending out Save the Date cards to people we would have to end up un-inviting.
2. Confirming Guest Lists Months In Advance Is Stupid
I didn't know this at the time, but turns out people will be dropping out of your wedding as close as two weeks before your wedding, even though they RSVP'd as coming.
I finally understand now why people don't usually ask for RSVP's until two or three weeks before the wedding. I thought it was stupid, because I always figured I'd have my whole wedding planned at least a month in advance. Turns out what I did was stupid. I confirmed everyone at the end of November (a little over three months from the wedding date) and have since had a massive number of people tell me they actually can't make it.
I had all the name tags and seating charts and decorations for tables completely done, only to have to throw out the name tags of people who were no longer coming and re-do my hand-written seating chart.
The amount of times I've had to re-write the seating chart is no longer funny.
I think it's fine to send out Save the Dates and/or invitations as early as you want, but if I could go back I would ask for my RSVP's a month in advance AT THE EARLIEST.
3. People You Have to Deal With Aren't As Onto It As You Are
It is difficult. The few times I've gotten genuinely upset during wedding planning was because the people I was dealing with were extremely hard to get hold of/didn't give me the information I wanted/were just generally unhelpful.
It's funny because even thought I really believe I have been as organised as humanly possible, I'm still being stuffed around by some of my wedding organisers and there is actually NOTHING I can do about that.
My advice to any engaged people is, try your BEST to be as organised as you can.
The truth is, you will most likely have to deal with people who make you want to tear your hair out, but as long as everything is organised and running smoothly on your end, hopefully you can avoid a breakdown.
There have been a few moments where if I hadn't have been to on top of everything, I would have had a meltdown.
People suck. They don't care if they don't get back to you about something.
Your panic and stress does not faze them.
I am STILL waiting for an email from one of my organisers, I was meant to have it two weeks ago. Still don't. I'm not stressing about it, but it does irritate me.
4. You Doubt Your Decisions
These are our wedding colours: Pearl and Turquoise. AKA: White and Blue.
I have second guessed my decision of having these as our wedding colours more than a few times over the last year.
That's the problem with having to make decisions and stick with them for an extended period of time, you wonder if you made the right choice.
Lyndon and I picked turquoise and pearl because Lyndon's birthstone is pearl and mine is turquoise so we were being cute when we picked them as our colours. It means something to us, more than just the fact that we both really like blue. Because we do really like blue. But it's more than that.
5. The General Questions Of "How's The Wedding Planning Going?" Gets Pretty Tedious
Most/hopefully the majority of my Social Media friends should know that I finished planning my wedding at the end of January/very start of February.
Yes, I am very organised. People like to tell me that, I guess I'll have to agree. I planned the wedding like this on purpose because I get stressed very easily.
The fact that it's less than two weeks til the wedding and I'm STILL getting people asking me how the planning is going is getting a little annoying and unoriginal.
I want to yell: I FINISHED A MONTH AGO ACTUALLY!!!!!!!!
I usually just say in a slightly snarky tone: I finished a month ago.
But you can't really blame them for asking because I always asked my engaged friends the same thing.
The DIFFERENCE here is that most brides don't have their weddings organised a month in advance like I did. I feel like I'm in a rare section of brides. Maybe I'm not. I don't really know.
In my experience, most brides leave their planning up until the day before, if not the day of, them getting married.
But I am just ranting now.
If I could go back and do things differently, maybe I would have suggested that Lyndon propose to me a little earlier than seven months into our relationship.
We knew we were getting married after one month of being together.
I always wanted to get married in Autumn, hence our wedding is in March.
But there's no point wondering "What If?"
So many people I know have gotten engaged after Lyndon and me, and married quite a while before us.
I have watched girls go through the experience of getting engaged and planning their weddings, and then actually GET MARRIED, all the while I've just been sitting there, with my own engagement ring on my finger, just waiting.
I wouldn't recommend being engaged for a year.
It's too long.
There are some upsides, but at the end of the day, you don't need a year to plan a wedding.
Lyndon and I could have gotten married at the end of January, as that was when I had finished everything (this includes months of not really doing anything from when we got engaged in Feb 2014)
I could have planned it all in less than 11 months.
But anyway.
I'm just babbling now.
I will leave this blog here.
I hope you have somewhat enjoyed it or learnt something.
I don't know, I feel like my writing has gotten worse over the last few months hahaha.
But thanks for reading anyway.
xxx
A fun read. I would say that "dealing with people who aren't onto it as you are" is a fairly common experience. Don't panic, but it is highly likely you may also experience some of this on the big day itself. My advice is to not let it phase you, but make the most of the day and have fun :-)
ReplyDeleteGreat advice, Euan! I will definitely keep that in mind :-D
DeleteGood advice Marts! Super excited for your special day eeeppp
ReplyDelete