cheap wedding inspiration

{True Life} I’m MARRIED!

You GUYS! I’m MARRIED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

These are just iPhone photos from our coordinator and our phones. Our professional photos are still in editing.
But they’re going to MELT YOUR FACES OFF.

It was 70 degrees and sunny, in the middle of March, in New York. Who’s the luckiest bride in the world? THIS GIRL.

For my next act, I shall acquire all the exclamation points on the planet, and immediately use them to express how thrilled I am to be MARRIED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You’ll find that that’s what happens, once you’re done being engaged! You want to speak only in happy! Positive! Uplifting tones! Suddenly, your fiancé has morphed from the impossible imbecile he had turned into the last week before you were married, back into the dashing, patient, understanding man you agreed to marry in the first place. Moreover, you will be relieved to learn that your half-dragon DNA slides back into remission almost as soon as you get into all that complicated underwear.

But. Like all great successes, getting married stems from a series of properly-made choices and well-laid plans. We didn’t just get married, The Husband and I hosted a very successful reception, wherein everyone from our sorority sisters to or grandparents left with no complaints and during which my father’s toast made everyone cry– including the groomsmen.

Look at that handsome devil. I married that guy!

He grew up to make one very handsome groom for me. And yes, I was the happiest girl on the planet that day.

There are a bunch of things (that I’m breaking into three separate posts so as not to bore you to tears in one sitting) we did right that led to our ultimate success. As we made the decisions, there was a lot of back-and-forth about whether or not they were “right”. I’m here today to tell you the truth about why our wedding was a success– and it wasn’t just because at the end of it all, we’re madly in love. (Though, I’ll tell you, that didn’t hurt.)

1. I booked vendors that we both trusted. It might sound like a total no-brainer, but let me tell you. When the darkness of those final hours before you hit your crafting deadlines looms over you, you want to find yourself hunkered down with a team of people who have remembered the extra batteries, water, snacks and a change of clean undies. The wedding vendors we chose are all people I’d feel safe having in my Zombie-apocalypse bunker. I recommend finding professionals you trust that much, because when it comes right down to it, you realize too late that The Wedding takes more than one OCD, control-freak bride to manage. Literally… it takes a village. Hire your village accordingly.

2. I hired a day-of-coordinator. I wasn’t going to do it. I swore that I would not be one of those brides who “takes the easy way out” and hires someone else to worry about The Wedding. Then I had a girlfriend who has loads of experience in Texas offer to coordinate mine for me because she’s looking to establish herself in New York.

Let me just tell you: The perfection of my wedding day is singly accredited to Grace Caudle, and her amazing ability to keep me calm and carrying on. (Her company is Plan with Grace, and you should check out her Facebook Group and Twitter handle to get in touch with her and to see more photos from my wedding!) I didn’t worry about anything, at any point, because I trusted her to stick to the schedule we talked about and make this wedding happen. And it was GLORIOUS.

Most importantly, Grace made it possible for all the bridesmaids, the Maid of Honor and the Matron of Honor to relinquish their duty-hats and just enjoy the event they had also put so much time and work and love into (because remember, those friends of yours who have stuck by you even when you insinuated that they should not complain about their shoes being too narrow, or the dresses being “interesting” color choices… those girls love you and want to celebrate with you. They don’t want to run around taking orders from you when they could be drinking and dancing. That’s what a Day of Coordinator is for.) Even if you’re on a shoestring budget, even if you’re not sure how you’re going to pay for it… Get a day of coordinator. It’s the best investment with the biggest payoff: SANITY.

3. We picked a hard-deadline to quit crafting & stuck to it. If The Husband had let me, I know I would have been crafting into the wee hours of the morning of the wedding. Or I’d have been hot-gluing my bouquet together on my way down the aisle. That’s just the reality of who I am as a human being. I’m an over-achiever and a perfectionist and when I get myself all fired up, my off-switch tends to get a little faulty. I knew that if I didn’t give myself a hard deadline to call it crafting quits, I’d be a stress-addled, glitter-glued, twine-and-inky mess on the day of my wedding.

I made it down the aisle with a bouquet I had finished more than 48 hours beforehand. It was a nice, leisurely stroll and this image, courtesy of Grandpa Gullo, is my favorite that I’ve seen of the wedding so far. And that’s saying something.

Giving myself a hard deadline also gave me another opportunity– the chance to turn Bride Brain off and focus on what I was REALLY doing on Friday. I was getting married. I was done planning The Wedding, and shifted my priorities over to enjoying time with my bridesmaids and making lists of all the things I’d be apologizing to my husband for in regards to my behavior during the planning process, once we were good and married. Thursday morning, I told everyone there helping pull the last details together that we had until noon. “At noon,” I told my sober-faced wards, “anything that isn’t done turns back into a pumpkin. And the fairytale wedding will just have to forge on without it.” Noon struck, and maybe it was all the mental preparation, the establishment of the deadline well in the future and the fact that I had committed to sticking with it… Or maybe I was just SO READY to get married. Either way, I set down the got glue gun, shoved anything that wasn’t already packed into boxes and kissed the cats goodbye. No hysterics necessary.

4. I still gave myself something to do during downtime. Giving myself a hard deadline for stopping with the crafts created a whole new challenge: I hate downtime under normal conditions, so the day before the wedding and the morning of, I knew I’d need to keep busy.

Thursday afternoon, right after I slammed my middle finger on my left hand between the heavy oak doors of the hotel where we stayed (hard! I slammed it hard, and everyone heard the crunch, and then I spent ten minutes trying not to puke from the pain and reminding myself to breathe and wondering if it’d hurt less to just cut the finger off) the girls ushered me out to manicures, and then to the rehearsal supper, and then to bed. Friday morning, the girls got up with me early and we went for a hot tub soak, a wet steam and a sauna. Not only did it keep me from morphing back into Crazy Dragon-Lady Bride, it made us all glowy and fresh-faced. And it gave us the chance to laugh and goof and ease into the day. If you tend to get twitchy when you’re nervous, give yourself one or two things to do the day before and the morning of– trivial things that can be cut from the schedule if necessary. And make sure they’re enjoyable things– rewards, for not dying or killing anyone, instead of last-minute, half-crazed errands.

5. I communicated expectations openly and honestly as far as time management, and listened when a vendor gave me pushback. If you want a smooth wedding day, there is one key conversation you need to have with two vendors: the photographs.

I enrolled our photographer and both our day-of-coordinators (one was specific to the venue) in what the timeline looked like for photos. And– here’s what we did right– I sent the photographer the list of shots we wanted a month or so before the wedding and asked her how long she needed to get them and have them look good. I figured she would want two hours. She wanted three.

As a bride, I know that the urge to tell people to suck it up and work it out is at times almost overwhelming. And, for the most part, it’s an acceptable response, if you can find a non-nasty, diplomatic, assertive way of communicating it. But when your photographer or venue coordinator tell you that something needs to give, YOU are the one who needs to adjust. Don’t forget, they’ve been doing this for years, whereas this is our first time at the rodeo. If your vendor communicates a need for more time or resources and you deny them their request, expect the product to suffer. Period.

And thus concludes the first set of things we did that made our day run smoothly. Until next time ladies, stay classy, keep your heads up, and don’t forget to talk to each other. Because even when we make it down the aisle and past the finish line… we’re all in this together.

-MMV.