What is your wedding theme?

What is the theme of your wedding? And I don't mean colors or style. I mean, is your wedding planning going well? Are you and your fiance getting along well? Are your parents thrilled for your marriage? Are they stressed about how to pay for the wedding? Are they bickering at every little idea you float about the wedding?

Unfortunately, I've seen time and again in both the weddings I've been involved with and the weddings I hear talked about that I didn't attend, the REAL wedding theme may have nothing to do with the wedding. "His parents weren't able to attend because they insisted on having a destination wedding." "Her mom went wacko and the bride and her barely spoke the entire twelve month engagement." "Sure, it was a pretty wedding but you didn't hear how the parents fought nonstop, causing enormous stress on their daughter the entire time?"

It is easy, I know, to brush off all that wedding stress as "normal". It's easy to say that events are going to make people crazy, but at the end of the day what matters is you have a beautiful wedding (and marriage.)

But just remember, the wedding itself is going to be roughly six hours. Your engagement is likely to be about a year. And the REAL theme of your wedding is going to last your entire marriage. The beginning of your marriage does not begin at the alter but at the proposal. All those interactions you have today may haunt you for years to come.

Always stop and consider whether someone's grand wishes may just be more important for your current sanity and for your long term marriage than your need to have a "my day, my way" wedding.

Learn more at The First Dance. And if you need to, talk with a premarital counselor who will be able to help you navigate the complex family stuff happening in your wedding plans. Or at the VERY least take a powerful online premarital inventory that may help you figure out why you're so stressed as you build your new marriage and enter a new family (your in-laws.)

Wedding Registry for men!

I am a guest blogger for a great wedding registry for men website! Check out our latest blog on their website.

The Man Registry has an unbelievably cool selection of gift ideas for not just the groom, best man, groomsmen, but also for fathers and male friends. You can also get great tips and follow them on twitter! Check out TheManRegistry.com for Fathers Day! Support a small business in the process.

Happy shopping!

Writing Thank You Notes

I was just inspired to share tips on how to write thank you notes! It's not about the etiquette but how to feel GOOD about your wedding thank you notes. You may still dread doing them, but hopefully your writers block will be lessed.

I'm still both happy, intrigued, and a little embarassed that both my mom and my mother-in-law were CALLED on the phone by their friends who shared how much they enjoyed my thank you notes. One woman even shared my note with my mother-in-law, she was that impressed.

I'm not positive what I did differently than others, but the article will hopefully give you some perspective on what went on in my head. I write for cash gifts, thank yous from gifts you registered for, gifts from strangers (friends of parents), and gifts you hate!

http://www.thefirstdance.com/weddingthankyounotes.php

Wedding Planning on a 5K budget

I'm just starting the idea of a 5K budget. What would you REALLY do? I am creating a challenge for myself and am looking for input from anyone.

The rules for "my" 5K wedding are to follow the core of what I valued in my actual marriage 5 years ago. These rules include:

1 - we would still invite who we invited. 125 showed up, I'd have to order 100 invitations (we had tons of social invites of people who would never travel.) I had and still have no interest in a tiny wedding. I'd rather go without some things than not invite people.

2 - we still would not have an outdoor affair. my husband has a long line of overly-warm people so the idea of being in a tux and sweating doesn't appeal to him. I hate bugs and sweating as well. We had a fall wedding and would still have a fall wedding. (too many southerners for our northern winters.)

I have some ideas but this is the month where I'm full time with our small children and don't have as much time - the end of June I'll be more free.

This blog is for people to comment. What would _YOU_ do, have done, with each category of weddings? Photography? Cake? Dress? Favors? Reception location? Obviously 5K requires a lot of creativity which likely means you'd have some very local ideas. But we'll start where we start and I'll build my own new wedding within $5,000. It was $12,000 before!

Comment on this blog and I'll be building via this blog as well as on the website.

The "I Don't Care" Blues

This blog is dedicated to all the potential, current, or past fights you have had as an engaged couple around wedding planning. The most common way this goes is like this.


bride, "OK honey, next action item is to figure out flowers. What do you think?"



groom, "I don't care."



Bride is then left with a few emotions, sometimes conflicting. These might include:

• Relief - one thing she doesn't have to coordinate his schedule and get his time to do!


• Annoyance - she also DOES NOT CARE about flowers, but apparently she has to care because he's said (or so she thinks...) that he wants nothing to do with them.


• Relief AND annoyance because she loves flowers but this yet ANOTHER thing he "doesn't care about" and she wonders if he'll have any opinion on anything??

So where does the problem arise? I will never forget the holiday party with my coworker who was there with her fiance. The groom was The Classic Groom who cared about nothing. Especially the flowers. Until the FLOWER COLOR meant his bride wanted him to wear a pink vest with his tuxedo. Then he REALLY cared. And she was at the end of planning, had the entire color scheme and vision set months prior. He felt that she had no right to make him wear a feminine pink color. She felt that because he said he didn't care, he had no right to ruin her color theme. He felt that he had at least SOME say because this was HIS outfit, not hers. He left her alone for her dress, why does she have a right to control his clothes? She didn't see the big deal and was annoyed at his "childishness."

What was going on? He had no idea what the flower decision related to that he MIGHT care about. She had no idea that he might care about things related to the flower choices she made. Perhaps neither knew at the beginning that the color thing would play itself out.

What can you do instead of accept an "I don't care?"

1. Be honest with yourself. If you are carrying the wedding planning burden, consider each task and what you want and need. If you really want your fiance to be involved with something you know they likely don't care about, then you need to express yourself and figure out what is reasonable. Afterall, if he really could care less, is dragging him to 4 florists, spending 4 weekends really going to help you, him, your wedding and your relatinoship? Probably not. But what if you're just wanting some validation on your ideas? Then you might say something like, "Honey, I'm thinking about keeping the flowers in the season of our wedding... this will keep costs down. When I've figured out what I think I like, I would really like to bring you to the florist to show you. I know you may not really care, but it will make me feel better having your 5 minute participation and nod of approval."

He gets a very concrete action plan and the reason. Go to the florist. Approve flowers. Easy, easy! She didn't ask if he cared and won't come back to get angry that he isn't helping out. This is a very groom-friendly conversation.

2. Research, ask the vendor (florist, baker, etc) what other decisions are impacted by this decision. Your vendor will really help you figure out what your groom might care about. Examples might be:

photography - depending on how expensive yours is, it may limit photo time or impact whether you two see each other before your ceremony. your groom likely has SOME opinion on seeing hsi bride before the ceremony.

baker - grooms may often just care about the flavor, or may have an opinion on saving the top layer for the one year anniversary and maybe don't care about WHICH baker. Or maybe he loves cake and wants to get taste testings from EVERY baker. :)

bridesmaids dresses - may only impact the vests of the best man and groosmen. the groom may hate the color or not want his buddies to be in pink (see story above!)

save the dates - the groom may not care if or how the STD's are done but may have an opinion on WHEN they're sent out. He may know his friends need a huge forewarning because they are always busy, or make travel plans during your wedding season. He may also need to fully understand what an STD is - it is basically an INVITATION, set well in advance, and there is no turning back, no uninviting those people. And for friends who didn't get a STD, if there are shared friends, your groom needs to know NOW that it may be a bit ackward when friends talk and some are invited and some aren't. He may just have no clue about any of that.

3. If neither of you care, find out of any other person cares - a parent, a best friend, perhaps a good friend who isn't in the wedding party but LOVES, say, flowers, and would love nothing more than figuring out some great options and researching vendors and prices. You never know!

4. If neither of you care and nobody else cares, then TOGETHER figure out how to make a decision. Brides should never be the "default planner" if she is equally as uninterested as the groom. This leads to her resenting the groom or worse, resenting the wedding itself. There are many other future issues in your marriage that neither of you are going to want to do (garbage pick up?!) but it has to get done. You might as well figure out how to navigate the "neither of us care" problem in the wedding itself. Perhaps you wheel and deal - he takes three things neither of you care about but you then don't complain if he takes a more expensive bachelor party weekend than you're doing for your bachelorette party. Or you divide the "don't care" list in half. Or one of you is good at researching and the other is great at making decisions. Maybe you split the "dont care" list this way... one researches, the other decides and signs the contrats. Get creative.

Feel free to share your "don't care" story!