Wedding Layers

There are four simple secrets to planning a wedding without (a) losing
your sanity or (b) having your dreams stolen by the people around you.

o Eat the elephant one bite at a time.

o Stand strong, sister!

o Give yourself time.

o Hand over the reigns . . . at the END.

Eat the Elephant One Bite at a Time

Have you ever heard about how to eat an elephant? The answer is “One bite at a time.”

It’s the same with planning something as elephant-sized as your wedding. Even if your wedding is relatively small in terms of the
number of guests or the number of vendors, planning a wedding is
an elephant. There are many, many decisions you have to make.

Wedding task check lists make it clear that you don’t need to
find a florist or invitations first thing. Finding a venue and a
caterer are tasks that need to be addressed earlier on.

Even if flowers and invitations are crucial pieces of your
wedding dreams, don’t worry about them until it’s time. Don’t
try to jam the entire elephant into your mouth at once.

Stand Strong, Sister!

Do you want the wedding of YOUR dreams? Or are you relatively
happy if you get half the wedding that you want and half the
wedding that other people think you should want?

If it’s the latter, that’ll be no problem. Other people are more
than willing to take over your wedding. You don’t have to put
any effort into getting people to bully you around to creating
the wedding of their dreams.

It’s a little more effort (although about 90% of it is purely
psychological effort) to be sure that you get the wedding of YOUR
dreams.

There are essentially two types of people who will try to take
over your wedding:

o Family members (including soon-to-be in-laws)

o Vendors

Handling these two types of “controllers” takes different approaches.

Vendors are with you just for this wedding. Family you have to
live with for the rest of your life!

Where do your priorities lie in managing these two types of
controllers?

With professional vendors, your top priority may be getting what
you want, at the price you’ve negotiated, and it really doesn’t
matter if you have to step on a few toes to get it. You’ll be
polite and professional when dealing with vendors, but you must
not be a push-over.

With family, your priority may lie with maintaining loving
relationships for a lifetime. You should be no more of a
pushover with family than with other vendors, but you SHOULD make
sure to hear their side of any issues that arise and to
continually emphasize (both with your words and
with your actions) your gratitude for this loving effort they’re
putting forth for your very special day.

A third possible type of controller is a combination of the other
two:

o friends or family providing services for your wedding.

This can be a little trickier, because you’re both dealing with
them as a vendor and planning to have a relationship with them
for the rest of your life. This requires a balance of the
strategies used with family members and the strategies used with
vendors.

You’ll need to find the right balance between treating a
particular person as a vendor who is a friend/family member vs. a
friend/family member who is doing you a favor by providing
something you’d otherwise get from a vendor.

Give Yourself Time

To have the most flexibility, you should start your wedding
planning anywhere from a year to eighteen months before you’d
like to actually get married.

Don’t panic! People have successfully pulled together weddings
with a few weeks or even a few days of planning. The 12-18 month
suggestion is just that, a suggestion. It’s based on the idea
that spreading the tasks out over time will cause you less
stress.

A longer timetable also allows for those chunks of time when
you’re lying on your couch thinking, “I could not care less if I
had a wedding!”

But, for those who find the last minute approach preferable (or
necessary), timetables can be completely ignored.

If you’re planning your wedding under a tight timeline,
controlling your own brain is one of the most important things
you can do. If you panic, you’ll not only make yourself miserable
at the time of panic, you’ll be more likely to ruin your wedding.

Even if you’re working under a tight timeline, plan in rest
periods. You need to take a couple days (or at least a few hours)
here or there where you don’t work on your wedding. Spend this
time just having fun with your beloved and remembering why you
wanted to marry him in the first place. Or spend the time by
yourself, resting and doing things you enjoy (other than wedding
planning).

When you’re working on your wedding, work on it, concentrate and
move forward. When you’re not working on it, put it from your
mind and remember that your wedding is but one day in the
wonderful life you have ahead. Don’t screw up the life just to
have the wedding.

Hand Over the Reigns . . . At the END

Even if you hire a wedding planner, don’t completely hand over
the reigns early on. Not if you want to achieve the wedding of
YOUR dreams.

But as you’re getting down to the week or so before your wedding,
the balance between the importance of planning your dream wedding
and the importance of living your dream wedding will shift. It’s
time to stop with the planning and start with the living.

Unfortunately, the planning won’t actually be finished a week or
two before your wedding. Some of the most important things you
have to do to stop others from taking over your dream wedding
have to be done right before your wedding. In fact, many of them
have to be done the day before or the day of your wedding.

But, repeat after me: “I don’t want to be planning my wedding on
my wedding day.”

You want to be living your wedding on the day of your wedding.
And if you can manage to start living your wedding several days
or even a couple weeks before your wedding, the better off you’ll
be.

To hand over the reigns in the right way and at the right time
comes down to (a) being prepared to tell others exactly what you
want and (b) handing the reigns to the right person/people.

One excellent reason to hire a wedding planner is if you don’t
know the right kind of people in your personal life to do (b).
If you ended up with a lot of unreliable or free-spirited or
wimpy friends and family, you’ll need to hire someone to hand the
reigns off to. It’s critical to be able to hand off the reigns
and live your wedding day!

(c) All Rights Reserved — Debbie MacGuffie

–Debbie MacGuffie is a professional writer who saved almost $10,000 while planning and executing the wedding ceremony and reception of her dreams. If you’ want to discover the money-saving secrets that industry insiders would rather you never knew, get free instant access to the facts at Fire Your Wedding Planner! [http://www.plan-it-reviews.com]

Author: Debbie MacGuffie
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Guest blogger

As a wedding planner, I have spoken to thousands of brides and witnessed, at close hand, at least a thousand in their wedding dresses. As a photographer, I have closely studied the bride’s photographic images in print. I, therefore, have an experienced eye and feel qualified to give some good advice.

I know many brides go out shopping for the perfect wedding dress within days and even hours of the proposal. Some go even before the proposal. Almost every bride I talk to discusses her dress. I know that the choosing of the right wedding dress is very important. Every bride I have seen is beautiful, but not every bride’s dress suits her. Some wedding dresses are a definite detriment to the bride’s appearance, the pictures and even the whole wedding.

So brides, I want to offer you some criteria for picking the right dress. Let these three principles guide you:

1) YOU LOVE IT AND WILL LOVE IT ON YOUR WEDDING DAY.

Above all else, you need to feel beautiful and comfortable. Don’t let your mother, sister, bridesmaid, shop clerk, Goth teenage cousin, or even your groom decide. This is YOUR day, and you need to trust your own taste and style. You will be the one walking down the aisle – the “Star of the Runway.” You will be the one looking at your wedding pictures for the rest of your life. So, how will YOU decide what the best dress for you is?

2) MAKE SURE IT IS COMFORTABLE AND FITS YOU.

Don’t buy your dress a year in advance – your taste or your shape might change during that time. Don’t buy your dress to fit after you have lost twenty pounds. You might not, or you could lose even more. In either case, it won’t fit.

Definitely enjoy browsing wedding magazines, but keep in mind your own budget, taste and figure. Too many of those dresses in magazines can actually only be worn by the anorexic thirteen-year-olds modeling them. Also beware of knock-offs or imitations of expensive wedding dresses in a magazine. They are often poorly fitted, badly sewn, and made of cheap, synthetic material. They might look alright on the mannequin in the shop, but they won’t look good on you in natural light.

Poorly made dresses often fall down, are too tight in some places and too baggy in others, with crooked seams and zippers that show. The bride is continually pulling and wrestling with her dress throughout the wedding and reception. Much too often, the bride’s underwear shows. It’s alright to buy an inexpensive dress, but, make sure it looks good in natural light – natural fibers such as silk or cotton are preferred. Make sure you have the right underwear to go with the dress, that can’t be seen. Walk around in the dress, sit down and move and check bra straps and panty lines. If they appear at home or in the shop, you can be sure that they will at the wedding. If necessary, you can have your dress altered by a good seamstress. A proper fit cannot be over estimated.

You might want to consider having the seamstress make your dress from scratch. This way, you can have total control over the style and fabric and be sure of a perfect fit. Make sure to get an accurate estimate of the price of the dress and labor before the seamstress starts sewing, so there will be no unpleasant surprises. And, allow enough time for delays and fittings. It is a wonderful feeling of power and creativity to design your own wedding dress, if you are so inclined, and it doesn’t have to be more expensive than buying off the rack.

Another option is to browse small boutiques. Some of the most lovely wedding dresses I have seen were not wedding dresses at all, just great dresses, usually white but not always. It is amazing what you can find when you venture away from the wedding dress department or shop. Some of our brides wait until they come to Hawaii and find real treasures that fit perfectly in one of the local shops. They are also perfect for a Hawaiian wedding, which brings me to my last criteria.

3) MAKE SURE YOUR DRESS IS APPROPRIATE FOR THE PLACE AND CLIMATE WHERE YOUR WEDDING WILL TAKE PLACE.

Even if you love your dress, and it fits and it looks great in your bedroom mirror, there could be a problem on your wedding day.

These are some problems I have seen: A bride buys a beautiful but elaborate and heavy dress for a tropical beach wedding. The result is misery – red, flushed, sweaty skin, heat stroke and even fainting! Another common problem is veils and trains worn for outside weddings. Trains drag in the dirt and sand, catch on twigs, and inhibit free movement in an outdoors wedding. You may think that your bridesmaid will carry the train, but do you truly want her trailing after you, always in your pictures, as you try to stroll on the sand, romantically, with your groom? Brides often come back from the beach with their train, heavy with sand and water. Unless you want to participate in the Trash the Dress fad, this is not recommended.

And, Veils – Now they can cause a spectacle on a windy day. The veil becomes a kite or parachute. I swear, I have seen brides nearly pulled away from their groom by a six foot veil unfurling in the wind. You don’t want to do a “Mary Poppins” on your wedding day. At the very least, the flying veils end up destroying hairdos, blowing in the groom’s face and being a general nuisance. If in doubt, make sure your veil can be easily removed, if necessary. The same goes for trains. Some can be removed or clipped to the dress for easy movement. But, make sure you test these apparatus before purchasing. I have, actually, witnessed four or five people trying unsuccessfully to figure out how to pin-up the train.

Or, perhaps, you are going to have your wedding in a church. Veils and trains won’t be a problem, but still consider temperature. Is the church or event room hot or cold? Don’t overdress or under dress. If you’re planning a winter wedding, or your venue is overly air conditioned, make sure an appropriate shawl or jacket is part of your wedding outfit, or wear a long-sleeved wedding dress.

Blue “chicken skin,” is not much more attractive than red, sweaty skin. Neither is teeth chattering. You want to be comfortable, because you want that smile on your beautiful face to be real, not forced. Your smile and joy and love are your most beautiful “apparel.” So, even if you don’t pick the right dress, don’t let it ruin your wedding day. Think about that sweet guy who is pledging to love you for the rest of your life and be merry.

If you want to know more about how to go about planning a Hawaii or a Maui Wedding, please contact Rev. Ayesha Sandra Lee from Merry Maui Weddings & Vacations, at (888)588-0400. Mahalo!

2008 Ayesha Sandra Lee & Merry Maui Weddings – All Rights Reserved

Author: Ayesha Sandra Lee
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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