The Wedding Planner

This day was nearly three years in the making. Here's how we pulled it off.

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When I describe our first wedding, I never refer to it as an elopement, despite that being the very definition of what it was. That word always had such a shady connotation, as if you were somehow cheating yourself and others of the grand celebration that is required for such a momentous occasion. Firstly, getting married is not an accomplishment so everyone just needs to calm down about this being the most important day of your life, and secondly, the whole wedding industry is a giant racket. You want me to spend how much for five short hours of my life?? You're joking. How do I reconcile my frugal feminist spirit with my deep-seated compulsion to adhere to antiquated social norms? We eloped and caved in for a big party, mostly due to pressure from our parents, anyway.

But Nicole! It's your wedding day!
Nope. We already got married. This is their day. And I'm okay with that.

***

I am fairly organized so the idea of planning a wedding was not intimidating, especially since we had so long to do it. Every now and then, it was actually kind of nice to think about what a fun day we were going to have with all the people that we like the most. Guess who was NOT thrilled about planning our wedding. Hint: It's Jason.

They say, "If you can make it through the wedding planning process, then you can make it through anything." I used to scoff at this, imagining ourselves to be above such pettiness. We have planned week-long holidays for our friends and families on multiple occasions so we know that we make a good team. We have traveled the world together without much issue at all. Why would a wedding be any different?

It would probably be easier to list things that we didn't fight about in the process but I am going to spare you all the gory details and say that it was a challenge. I never realized how much I hated the phrase "I don't care" until recently. I understand if you don't have particular feelings one way or the other about seemingly insignificant details but if you say you don't care and then turn around and have something nasty to say about a decision I made, I am going to hurt you.

ProTip 1: Assign roles at the beginning and then trust that your partner will do a good job with whatever that task is. Only ask for their opinion if you really want it, not when you have already made a choice and you're expecting them to confirm it. If you really do want them to help you make up your mind on a particular issue and you are leaning one way or another, establish that you will listen to their feedback but that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to take their advice in the end.

I relied pretty heavily on Offbeat Bride and The Knot to help me stay on track. The Knot is basically everything I hate about weddings (making you feel shitty about your DIY decorations, convincing you that it's totally normal to spend $30K on one day, making everything an advertisement) but they had some really great organizational tools. The website builder is free and easy to use. The budget tracker gave you suggestions but allowed you to adjust them according to your needs. The planning checklist had great tips and reminders about things I totally would have forgotten about. And by far the most useful tool was the guest list feature. You have names, addresses, RSVP/ gift/thank you note status, meal preference all in one place AND a really nice seating chart application that allowed you to recreate your venue space and drag and drop your guests at tables, no complicated Post-it Notes madness needed.

*UPDATE: The Knot has since changed a lot of these tools and they are way less user friendly now. No more seating chart (but the guest list is still there), the budgeter is worthless and I don't love what they have done with the checklist. Sorry, guys.

ProTip 2: Technology is your friend. We saved a bunch of money by doing e-mail save the dates. No one needs another magnet with your face on it. Create a cloud-based shared folder for all things wedding and invite all the necessary parties (spouse to be, parents, wedding planner, etc.) We used Dropbox and it was a real life saver. Google Drive works great, too. Since we didn't want to have a bunch of physical stuff to take back to France with us, we registered at Zola. Our guests were able to contribute to different "wishes," like plane tickets home for Christmas and new home furnishings that we could then go and buy ourselves in Bordeaux. It seemed a lot nicer than just saying, "cash gifts only."

All of our big decisions had been made a long time again so in the last two months, all we had were little details to worry about. Once you have the RSVPs in hand, everything happens very quickly. You know how many tables you need so you can start doing the seating chart and getting centerpieces. The food, booze and dessert are all determined by the number of people that end up attending, as are favors, place cards and programs (if necessary).

ProTip 3: Close friends and families like to feel like they're helping. Relinquish control and find them something to do. We made place cards with Jason's family and the favors with mine and everyone was so proud to see the fruits of their labor on the big day.

Stuff for the tables. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

Place cards. Thanks, Julie and Jackie!

I am an obsessive planner. I need a To-Do list with each item scheduled to the minute or I can't get anything done. If I get a little of schedule, it's okay, but having the structure is comforting to me. And I figured if I feel happy knowing exactly where I need to be and when, so will everyone else around me. Enter the wedding weekend itinerary. I had a detailed document with each event, times, the parties involved, contact information, what to bring, transportation suggestions, who was responsible for certain tasks... The whole works. It was immensely helpful. I printed copies and distributed them to all the necessary parties. I had scheduled salon appoints for my bridal party, our moms and Jason's sisters, and their stylists all had their pictures and beauty requests before they even met them so they could prepare as much as possible before the big day. Because that's how I roll.

ProTip 4: Don't feel locked in by a traditional wedding format. There are no rules to any of this. There are a lot of hot trends right now, many of which are huge money pits, but there is no reason you should feel obligated to do any of it if you don't want to. If your guests really are the most important people in your life, they are not going to give any shits if you don't have a program or giant floral centerpieces, or a signature cocktail. Welcome bags at the hotel seem like such a nice touch but when the hotel charges $12 a piece just to put them in the rooms, they start to look a lot less cute. Your guests are there to see you and to have a good time. All the rest is extra.

Since we're already married we asked my Uncle Craig to officiate the ceremony, no ordination necessary! I got a lot of inspiration here, here, and here but in the end, I trusted him to just say some nice things about us and share some personal anecdotes about the keys of a good marriage. We enlisted our siblings to do some readings that we both agreed on and we exchanged wedding bands. Doubly married!

ProTip 5: Do whatever you can to maximize time with your guests. Do pictures before the ceremony so you can get right to the party afterward. Doing rounds at tables was surprisingly difficult and time consuming. Everyone wants to see you and talk to you and ask you a million questions but you have to be diligent about moving on. We didn't get to every table because we spent too much time at some and I felt terrible about it.

ProTip 6: Have a designated drink runner. I don't think I made it back to the bar once the entire night and I would have died of thirst if Josh and Stefanie hadn't been keeping me well hydrated. Thanks, guys!

ProTip 7: Consider not just how you're getting everything to the wedding but also how you're taking it back at the end of the night. ArtisanWorks said they could keep things over the weekend but they weren't open on Sunday so if we wanted anything for the picnic the next day (leftover booze, for example) we needed to take it with us at the end of the night. This was a bit of a mess for us and we should have assigned spots in cars for things before we started drinking... Oops! I had to go back and grab a bunch of stuff on Monday when all I wanted to be doing was sleeping.

ProTip 8: If you've got a lot of dress, make sure at least a few people know how to bustle it or be able to explain it to someone. My mom was the only one who got the tutorial from the seamstress and I didn't even get to see it because I was busy wearing the dress. When it started to fall out, I was pretty useless to get it back in order. I didn't want to keep harassing her all night to come fix it and other friends offered but no one could really figure it out. I ended up carrying my train a lot. Also, think about peeing. Being a pretty pretty princess is all fun and games until you have to take a piss and half your dress ends up in the toilet and/or covered in urine.

ProTip 9: I had planned so aggressively leading up to the big day that I had nothing to worry about once it arrived. Less so for Jason, but that's okay. It all worked out in the end. Know that something will go wrong but don't let it get to you. We forgot to bring toys to give to the babysitter. I left my mini video camera batteries in the charger at the salon so we didn't have that to pass around all night. We had several no shows that we really thought were going to be there. It happens. Worry about you and your spouse having a good time and then, by default, everyone else will be happy, too.

ProTip 10: Look around you for a second. This is maybe the only time you will have all of these people in the same place at the same time. Enjoy it. They are the people you love the most in the whole world and they are all here for you and that's really awesome. Look at your spouse. Is he/she still breathing? Good. Are you? Great. Take it all in. Don't let the little moments slip away too fast.

It's your day, after all.