Letting go of (some) wedding expectations...

I swear I say "it is what it is" almost weekly in regards to wedding planning at this point. We're getting married in Virginia in June, and since the beginning we said we're not changing our date no matter what. When we started planning last summer there were so many "what ifs" but we realized the most important part is saying our vows and actually getting married. All of the other parts of a wedding is mainly for your guests.

We already reduced our guest count from 150ish to 65, I can't have the destination bachelorette party my BMs have been been planning, and we can't go on the honeymoon we imagined, but at the end of the day, we're beyond ready to be married to each other and as long as our intermediate family can be in attendance, we'll have our "perfect" wedding

Since it's over a year away for you, I think you need to just sit back and see what happens. There is still a lot of time for you.

Absolutely! That's a great mindset to have, covid or not.

Looking back on it, it's hard to imagine why I put so much time and effort into certain things; letting go was very freeing.

"Focus on what getting married actually means" - you're spot on with that comment! My fiance and I, and a lot of the vendors that we have spoken to over the past few months, would agree with the sentiment.

Speaking from my POV, considering where I live (Northeastern U.S.) and everything I have been exposed to, the idea of wedding planning has focused a lot on having an "Instagram-perfect" venue with all of the perfect details, the perfect cake, the perfect [fill in the blank]. Now, that concept is getting flipped. Couples are now thinking maybe it's ok to not have all of these "ideal" things that we've come to think are necessary.

For me and my FH, we were never planning on having a huge event but even so, had to give ourselves options after getting engaged last summer. Initially, we wanted to postpone it all until October 2022 but decided we didn't want to wait. Where we landed was to break up our celebration into two events: a small ceremony at our home this October and reception in March 2022, two opportunities to celebrate. We are very excited for this since it gives us time to focus on our ceremony and vows (as you said, what getting married actually means), then party at a later point. Our honeymoon, too, is still TBD. With travel restrictions, who knows when we'll be able to go on the big trip that we wanted to go on, and even if we could, do so comfortably, with no concerns and no restrictions on what activities we can or can't do.

It has been inspiring to listen to vendors that we have interviewed talk about the new experiences that they have seen as a result of COVID-19: couples who are not choosing to wait and are making the best of it, adapting in ways that make sense for them. This is an unusual time and recent events, for better or worse, are causing people to reassess. And at the end of the day, love is the one constant that has prevailed.

Best of luck with your planning!

I am so with you!!

For me it's not even Covid-related (though we'll have a covid-wedding). My FH and I come from different cultures and the wedding will not be in a home country. I had to let go of a lot of things. Also budget played a huge role (why is everything so expensive???).

I have never been one who had detailed wedding plans before or being set on a whole lot of details. There is a lot around the wedding, that I don't even really care about. But since now we are planning a wedding and someone has to make decisions about all the little details (and this is someone is usually me and we diy-ing a lot) I got sucked into all the wedding crazyness. I also have way too much time to read on wedding websites and forums. I got pretty wedding obsessed and did not like it!

As someone else mentioned weddings have become all about the perfect pictures and having an instagram-perfect wedding. That's really not me and I don't care about that I care about it being a special day and celebration. But it was so easy to get sucked into this.

When I realized this, I came up with my "wedding vision" and wrote it in the front of my wedding planner book (which by the way is just a blank notebook where I write everything down, all my lists, budget, thoughts, etc. - took a lot of pressure of me instead of following a book that is telling me all the things I should have and do). Whenever it feels overwhelming or I get too far sucked into what I call wedding crazyness, I read my vision again. Everything I decide is supposed to fit my vision. And before anyone asks, I did share my vision with my fiancé and he loves it and agrees. It's just that I really struggled with all of this and he didn't.

Here is my vision.

I want our wedding to be a celebration and full of joy!

A celebration of God's goodness and grace - we don't get what we deserve and everything we have we don't deserve.

A celebration of God's goodness in our lifes, of the story he is writing with us.

A celebration of God's good invention of marriage - in general and for us personally.

A celebration of friendship and community and God's family.

Obviously, I am pretty religious and someone else's vision might be very different. For me it was just important to write something down and hold myself accountable to this. The day will be an expression of celebration and joy - no matter how many guests, what color the flowers (or if there are any flowers at all), if it's raining, how the pictures turn out and so on. It will probably not be perfect or ideal - but that doesn't matter. My vision is not to have the perfect elegant garden wedding in green, ivory and gold. The goal is not to be admired for our pictures. Or to be told how beautiful everything was. The goal is to celebrate and rejoice because it's a miracle that we found eachother.

I guess, I am also preaching to myself here. lol. Some days I am still struggling with letting go. Definitely prone to perfectionism.

As much as I hate covid and want it to be over, I actually think it is a chance to reflect on what is important.