WIC

I'm starting to see why wedding planning is crazy. Not that I want to elope, but I'm also seeing how planning can drive people to do it.

I'm not whining. I'm incredibly blessed. My parents love fiance, his parents love me, our parents like us. They're excited about the wedding and willing to fund it. Fiance and I love each other and can't wait to be married. key words there: be married, not just get married/have a wedding.

It's the wedding industry. What Meg from a practical wedding calls the "Wedding Industrial Complex", or the WIC. This insane, consumer-driven popular crowd that tries to tell brides what they must do/buy/have in order to have the perfect/magazine worthy wedding. I'm not going to judge what other people do in their own weddings. But it's gotten to a point where people get so obsessed with the details that they alienate loved ones, only focus on the bad things and actually end up hating their wedding day. that sounds awful.

Do what YOU want. not just because martha stewart told you to. (though she does have great ideas that jive with my own personal style). Know your means/budget and stay within that, whether it's big or little. Decide what's important and nix the rest.

Um the point of a wedding is to celebrate the union. remember? everything else is optional.
The further I get into this, the more I've been scaling back my plans and ideas. And I've still got a year to go.

I already had a minor WIC moment where I spent WAY too much time researching letterpress invitations because I thought I HAD to have them. Then I realized it would cost over $1000 at least, and these are things that people will look at a couple times and then throw away. Um no. For some people who are into graphic design and are the creative types, I understand that this is an important detail to them. But I realized that I didn't care about invites until I had spent too much time looking at magazines and blogs. It helps that fiance is quite rational and can see past the ridiculous.

So the important things (at this stage):
-close family and friends (smallish and intimate to facilitate conversation with people that love and support us. because we enjoy spending our time chatting with our closest friends and family)
-food (while it may not be a sit down meal, it's going to be delicious and I am definitely going to have plenty, I can't believe that the average couple doesn't even get to eat at their own wedding!! because we love to eat food.)
-actual ceremony (it's the point of the whole celebration. I want it to be personal and memorable. it's kind of a big deal and a representation of who we are and what we believe)
-good music (we're not big on dancing but we love music. we'll be calling on le DJ iPod, with maybe some help from one of our many talented friends?)

this will be an ongoing discussion. I've already sworn off the knot dot com. because of this craziness:

you've got to be kidding me? now what you ask? ENJOY BEING MARRIED. it's why you did all that wedding stuff in the first place! Now I retreat to the little corners of the wedding planning community that are sane. Like Meg. Or when you need a quick dose of witty sarcasm, esb. I've been weeding out my list and I'll post some of my daily reads.