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Wedding when and where;
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Best case scenario for planning any kind of wedding? Have about a year available to do it all, from start to finish.
Great weddings can be planned in less than 6 weeks, but if you want a wedding with all the trimmin's and lots of attention paid to details, a year or thereabouts is an adequate time period.
A year gives you enough time to plan a wonderful wedding where everyone involved remains relatively sane and as stress-free as possible, and all parties are still speaking to one another when the day arrives!
Remember, everybody involved has a life, too, and all this wedding stuff has to be done on top of people's regular home and work responsibilities.
You want this wedding to be memorable in a good way, and if you want a wedding with lots of trimmings, there's a lot to do - wedding invitations, a wedding cake, a wedding gown to be ordered; wedding favours, wedding rings, music to decide on; wedding venues, bridal attendants, decorations to be chosen. (Want more information on all that's to be done? Go to "Prepare The List" which is also under Basic Rules - rule number 2 - on your navigation bar.)
One area where a couple should be realistic is when choosing a date for their wedding. Sometimes it's hard to get the church you want at the time you want and the reception venue you want for the same date.
Make a list of several possible dates if you can, and prioritize that list.
Mark and Sarah want to get married on August 8, 2008 because they think it's cool to have their wedding on the eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth year of the millennium. Unfortunately, nine gajillion other couples want to have their wedding on that date for the same reason. They may have to change their date, or change their church or the time of their marriage ceremony or change their reception venue of choice and those changes will be made according to where their priorities lie.
For example, Mark and Sarah are able to get the church of their choice for August 8 but not for the time they want. (Churches, etc. often have multiply weddings on any given day but they usually have a limit as to how many they are willing to officiate on any one date. Usually, it's first come, first served and Mark and Sarah weren't first.)
The reception venue they have chosen and really, really, really want is available on that date.
Mark and Sarah are realistic and decide that they will change their plans a little and get married a little earlier in the afternoon than they had planned in order to have the wedding on the day that they have already chosen. The date is more important to them than the time of the wedding. If the reception venue that they really, really, really wanted was not available for that date, they would have changed the date in order to have their reception at this particular venue.
Sometimes there's sadness...
Celebrating a wedding should be full of happiness, but unfortunately the unexpected happens, causing you to rethink the date you've chosen for your wedding.
Let me give you some examples:
(1) Rob and Jessica have been engaged for a couple of years and have their wedding planned for November. About a year before the wedding, Jessica's father is diagnosed with a terminal illness and is not expected to live to walk his daughter down the aisle.
To this couple, having Jessica's dad attend their wedding is more important than adhering to a wedding date they picked because it was the anniversary of the day they first met. So they are realistic, make many phone calls, and escalate the date of the wedding to May 15.
Rob and Jessica may miss running in their scheduled annual May marathon on that day, but Jessica's dad is a proud and happy papa on May 15 and the tears he sheds on that day are only ones of happiness that he was able to be a part of his daughter's special day.
(2) Less than two weeks before Carrie and Mike say their vows, Mike's mother has an accident and dies. Advice-givers galore want to know if Carrie and Mike are going to postpone their wedding because of this tragedy.
Realistically and with wisdom, Carrie and Mike decide to proceed with their plans on the arranged date. There are tears when the toastmaster raises his glass to absent friends and family, but the happiness of the day wins out over the sadness of the past two weeks and the focus is the wonderful occasion of this day.
Sometimes unfortunate, sad, even tragic things happen. We don't wish these kinds of things to happen to anyone when they are planning a wedding, but if something of this nature happens, be realistic and do the best thing for everybody involved.
Let me tell you that in all like cases that I've experienced, the sadness does not take over and the main reason for the day shines through like a beautiful, sunny day.
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