Dear me,
Your wedding is not a blog post. OK? Got that? I know you already know that, but I think you needed a reminder, because you were seriously having a little meltdown there for a while. Hell, you still are. That’s why you are (er, I am) writing this right now.
You were freaking out that your wedding wasn’t going to be as pretty and as fun as the ones you see on the internet. And not even those impeccably styled ones, where it looks like no one ever sits down at the table or touches the silverware. You’re agonized by the real ones, with real people.
Well, that’s a silly thing if I ever heard one.
See, you think you’ve got this wedding thing sussed. You’ve said all the right things about how you’re planning for the marriage, not just the wedding day. About how you’re focusing on the sentiment and not the material items. About how you want to eff the pretty and the perfect and just be present, prepared, and joyful. You’re making a mental list, you’re checking it forty-five times (a day), you’re crossing off what you can (and not nearly quickly enough, I might add).
But then you saw a wedding recap and yes, it was pretty and fun in ways you were worried yours won’t be (which is still silly and YOU KNOW THIS), but what struck you most while reading it was the realization that there is this one day? Where you ACTUALLY GET MARRIED. It will be a day — not unlike other days — when you wake up, you go about your business, you go to sleep. Sunrise to sunset, and on to the next.
This should not be an earth-shattering revelation, yet somehow it is.
You know, logically, that you will get married. You know what the venue looks like, you know what vendors you’ve hired, you know more or less who is going to be there. You know there will be flowers in vases, you know there will be a ceremony, you know you will party hard afterward. You’ve walked through the entire thing in your head. You have seen it unfold in your mind’s eye. You have plugged in variables X, Y, and Z, and spit out the calculation: Wedding Day.
Your head has known all along that you’re getting married. But now, suddenly, your heart knows it, too.
So right now you’re grappling with both a shock and a stumbling block. And you know that if I had the capacity to solve all of your problems in one fell swoop, I would. As it were, all I can do is offer some suggestions.
- Forget about unattainable levels of coolness. Remember that the blogsphere is but a narrow window into the worlds of others. Refer to this post whenever you need a jolt of truth. Know that for every beautiful wedding blog moment, there is a metaphorical cluttered desk just three feet to the right.* Actually, you should just go ahead and bookmark that page right now.
- And as for the matter of your newly-minted heart: Hold on tight and enjoy the ride.
Love,
me
______________________________________________
* (thanks, Kimmie)
Josh found that post on Jezebel yesterday and told me to check it out. I took a look and let out a huge sigh of relief. I don’t/can’t DIY very much and it’s good to know even the craftiest of gals have a sink full of dishes.
You got this, girl. You wanna know how I know this? B/c when I start to feel a overwhelmed and suffocated by all the indie/blog chic stuff and need to snap back into reality… your blog is one of the places I make sure I visit. 🙂
Lovely letter.
Oh wedding porn and it’s ability to sink into our minds and eat away at our confidence. It took me a while to realize that our wedding wasn’t going to/didn’t have to be as well styled as the stylized wedding posts on blogs. We may be able to pull out certain key elements, but they won’t ever be entirely the same. And honestly, it’s a relief to me that we don’t feel obligated to achieve that kind of style. Can you imagine how much work goes into those things? Who’s got the time?
I dont read those lifestle blogs, and even before I discovered wedding blogs I felt insecure simply from the real life weddings I’ve attended. So, if anything, wedding planning has taught me that I am a lot more insecure than I like to think I am, especially when it comes to what people think of me. Its a blow, but I think I will survive.
I think at some point I may get to the point of writing messages like this to myself on our bathroom mirror, like ‘You’re doing great!’ or even ‘You’re going to be just fine.’ Sounds cheesy but gotta pump up yourself in whatever way works, right? I think the one that we’ve got going for us is that I’m a little weirded out by the people who look forward to ‘submitting’ their weddings for inclusion on the popular wedding porn blogs just to show off their pictures rather than actually having something meaningful to impart. I should be a bit more forgiving though, because I can see wanting to stretch out talking about such a big event just a little bit longer after the amount of time and effort it took to get together.
Hmm. Jezebel just had a redeeming moment with respect to design and wedding blogs. Because what they and you wrote is so damn true. I fell in love with Design Sponge and Apartment Therapy and all sorts of Pretty Wedding Blogs when this process started. And now, I realize it’s all crap that makes me feel bad. Yes. As in my wedding reading, I prefer real people with messy lives and real challenges besides the pictures. I like women with personal blogs who admire and strive for the pretty, but still remain honest. Because I’m messy, and have been feeling inadequate, because I can’t keep up with my life or blogging lately, and everyone else seems capable of both. So thank you for this. And Yes.
Haha!! My sisters and I have often done the call-each-other-up-and-marvel/envy all the twee lifestyle blogs.
When I first found out about vintage clothing bloggers, I spent a whole day hopping from one blog to the next. First I was feeling inspired… but that eventually turned to discontentment: I could never even hope to be that effortlessly amazing (and of course, most of them seem to be younger and thinner than me). And then I just got bitter: where did they get all the time?! And the money? Did they ever eat? Surely they have jobs, right? Then I decided their parents must be filthy rich. Yeah, I could have an awesome sparkly photography blog, too, if my parents were funding my Brooklyn apartment and estate sale shopping habits.
Oops, so that doesn’t sound very generous. But it did do a number on my self-esteem. I try not to read too many on a regular basis… it makes me wonder: how do *they* feel about other bloggers? do they feel they must compete? do they know they’re on a pedestal, in many readers’ minds?
Anyway, it’s an interesting phenomenon. I did try, for maybe 1 day, to do “that kind” of a blog… but I realized I was centering my whole weekend on what I could photograph, what would make my life look cool and carefree and vintage-y… so I let it go.
I hear you. I think I’ve managed to avoid all blogs that truly make me feel bad about not having a picture perfect wedding…. but in focusing on blogs that celebrate the feeling of a wedding, I’ve instead started to worry about something I have very little control over. We can do our best to make sure the day and the alcohol flows smoothly…. but the rest is out of our hands I feel. Party magic just has to happen and it’s an unwieldy beast that relies on a precise mix of ingredients – but as long as it happens I know I really won’t care about the prettiness, or lack of it. But how to ensure party magic…? (disappears back into own head to go over all details and rack brain for ideas)
Great post, and how much do I love the failed attempt at atmpospheric photos by the Jezebel writer?!
I like to think of my blog as the anti-DIY chic blog. Half-arsed projects displayed in an environment that I didn’t bother to clean before I took blurry low-resolution, badly lit photos of the end “product” with my camera phone. It’s important to keep it real.
Oh, and your wedding is going to be fantastic. The magazines and the unattainably beautiful blogs have nothing on you.
Reminders like this are important sometimes. I think we all know what the end goal is, but getting derailed and hung up on other stuff is far too easy in blogland. Great letter to yourself to refocus on the necessary and the whole point.
that ending was hilarious. thanx for that.
Haha, WTF. That’s good. I felt that face the other night when I was on stage; I can TOTALLY imagine making that face on my wedding day. Thanks for the visual, I hope I can remember that on my day in time to cut it out!