Big vs. Small Weddings: A Personal Take
My wife and I are headed out of town for our Honeymoon tomorrow–a relaxing cruise to Alaska. With no kids. 6 kids. All at home with the best in-laws in the world. Nice, huh?
No diapers for a week. No fighting kids. No making breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 8 for a WEEK. Wow. What if the ship just kept going and we never came back?
Just kidding.
It’s funny. We are stressing out way more for the Honeymoon than we did for the wedding two weeks ago. That’s because of all the packing, taking dog to the kennel, making sure we didn’t forget anything, etc.
But the wedding itself was SO stress free. As I told you on the air–6 people…10 minutes…nothing fancy…no stress. And it was so elegant and beautiful and perfect.
Last week we went to our cousin’s wedding in Sacramento and we could feel the stress the bride and groom must have been going through–because we had both been there before. Except our first weddings were MUCH bigger. HUNDREDS of people. Photographer grabbing your arm. Caterer asking you a million questions about cake fillings. Shaking hands with an endless mass of people you don’t know or can’t place. Big limo. Too many groomsmen or bridesmaids. My wife was more stressed out being a bridesmaid than a bride!
Our first weddings were expensive blurs. Really. That’s the perfect description. Expensive BLURS.
I am not one to tell you what to do or how to think. I am just sharing my own opinions.
Although it is ultimately THEIR decisions, we will encourage all of our kids when they are older to go for simplicity over complication, smoothness over chaos.
Do you REALLY need to have EVERYBODY you’ve ever known go to your wedding? Heck, do you REALLY need every FAMILY member to be there?
We were torn between having our 6 kids at ours or not. We opted in the end for simplicity and got married on a weekend where 5 of the kids were with their other parents. We had the baby and our parents and my brother-in-law, the minister and her husband to ring the church bells.
Lunch was for 6…not 300. Simple, delicious, stress free again.
The photographers were my mother-in-law and myself using a $200 point and shoot camera. And you know what? They all ended up beautiful.
So…if you are on the fence and don’t know WHAT to do with your own wedding ceremony…give the simpler approach some serious consideration.
Because I guarantee you in the end, what you will ultimately remember is slipping those rings on each other’s fingers. Not the pomp and circumstance and clutter and noise.
Just my thoughts.
We will be heading to Alaska for a week and Mary Walter fills in! Thanks, Mary, and thanks to all of you as well. I will chat with you again on June 1st!
