The searching, I think, is the single worst part of wedding planning.

Searching for wedding stuff seems like — from the outset, at least — tangible progress. It’s a necessary means to a specific end. But, ah, searching is not the same as finding. For I can spend the better part of a day looking for something, and not actually have it by the end of that day. And I won’t necessarily have it by the end of the following day, either.

Look, I like to try to be funny, and 96.793% of humor is exaggeration. Maybe I am lying to you when I say that I arrived at that number via extensive scientific research. But I am not lying, for once, when I say that the vast majority of items left on our wedding task list involve searching. I need to find gifts for my wedding party, for example. I need to acquire undergarments, lest I inadvertently shock our unsuspecting wedding guests. I need to find shoes, lest my poor bare feet be trampled by someone’s stilettos on the dance floor. I need about 30 more vases. I need to procure candles. Wedding jewelry. Cheap frames in which to display the table assignments. Cake plates for dessert display. Serving utensils for the welcome picnic. Miniature clothespins. The infernal hairpiece. That’s not even the whole list, but you get the picture.

Each time I come back to it, this all seems entirely manageable. I look over my list and I genuinely believe, somehow, that I can get all of this done within an hour, maybe an hour and a half, tops. I mean, all I have to do is find things I like on the internet, and then buy them, right? So I set to work. I click, and click, and click. I press CMD+T to open new tabs like a pro. I conduct new searches while simultaneously managing old searches. I do side-by-side-by-side-by-side comparisons. I search the shit out of the internet. If there was an award for internet prowess, I would nominate myself. And win. And yet? By the end of the day, I have maybe narrowed down my search for one of the aforementioned items to about a half-dozen options, and I haven’t even started on any of the other items. Haven’t. Even. Started on them.

Okay, crazy lady, you are saying. You’re taking this way too seriously. Just find something and buy it, for chrissake. Anything! Whatever! As long as it works, just get it and move on, woman. DAMN. You are freaking me out with your overly dramatic take on internet shopping. Wait… or maybe this is me saying this to myself. Because trust me, I am completely over the search for wedding supplies. I want to just have it all already, jammed inside my tiny house in haphazard piles that I continually trip over (future blog post spoiler alert!). But it’s simply not that easy. Take, for example, my search for a ceremony processional song. Which is not an actual object I can trip over inside of my house, but STAY WITH ME HERE. There are so many aspects to consider when choosing a song. Tempo, for one: is the song set at an improper pace? Too fast, and the beau and I will end up sprinting towards the officiant. Mood: is the song too somber or too peppy for its context? Lyrics: does the song in question contain lines about raiding a friend’s parents’ liquor cabinet while they were away on vacation? Because my original processional song choice did, and despite my liberal attitude regarding song meanings at weddings, I struggled to see how that would set the right tone for the ceremony.* No wonder this particular search effort dragged on for several days.

If we take that search process and apply it to any other actual item on my list, similar attention to details must follow. Is the object appropriate for its ultimate use? Does it need to “match” any other wedding stuff, and if so, in what way? Is it the cheapest option out there? Is size an issue, and if so, what are the required dimensions? And so on. It’s enough to make your head spin. Trust me, I am all for making snap decisions and moving on. I just don’t want them to be the wrong decisions, because that would just generate even more work on my part. So every point requires careful contemplation.

AND YET.

I must remain vigilant. I must police my mind regularly for any sign of weakness because, as with every aspect of wedding planning, the search lies malevolently in wait for just the right moment to leap out and sucker-punch me in the gut. A moment, for instance, such as this: I was on Etsy, searching for some metal marquee letters. DON’T ASK ME WHY.** I actually found some that would work within the price I wanted to pay, and purchased them. All within span of a lunch break. I know, right? I felt powerful. For once, the search was working with me, and not against me! And then. Not 43 seconds after I paid for the damn things, the smugness abruptly faded and was replaced by panic. OH MY GOD, some insufferable part of my brain shrieked at me in horror. Those letters are midcentury modern, and the venue is Spanish-Moorish! None of it works together! I made a horrible mistake!

This is the dirty side of searching. The side that’s full of doubt and second-guessing. This is the part you must fight tooth and nail, because really. Who the eff is going to notice any of the things you have so painstakingly collected over the past several months? And of those people who do notice, who is going to care? Here we’re erecting all these tiny monuments to our unique snowflake personalities at our weddings, and they will matter to no one but ourselves. That’s a hard fact that’s even harder to let go, because all these choices we make feel so intensely personal. It boggles my mind that there was once a time, for example, when there weren’t 2,498 ring options to scroll through online. There was pretty much, you know. Just one. You got a plain band, a goat if you were lucky, and then you got to go have seventeen children. Not anymore.*** But that’s the plight of consumerism, right? Navigating the minefield of options to choose one that reflects you as an individual. But I think the real lesson we can all take away here is that — ooh, look! These candles come in mulberry! Oh, but I can also get them in cottonwood. That might look better. Wait, what’s the actual color difference between cottonwood and linen? Should we mix and match different colors? Do I need tealights or votives? The short votive or the tall votive? And the reception is outside, what if it’s windy that day? Maybe I should get really tall glass votives to protect the candles at the bottom from blowing out? Hold up, these tall ones cost how much?

Oh, shit.

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* Tangential detail you are entirely uninterested in: we ended up solving this matter by cutting these lyrics out and just looping the instrumental part of the song, but then the DJ informed us we needed to pick a song for just me and the beau to walk in to. So, the goddamn search began anew. HOORAY.

** The wedding made me do it.

*** Praise be.