Ponderings from a former Bridezilla

behapy2day

Ladies,

 

Today, DH and I decided to try and tackle our cluttered garage. We have been in our new house for about two months now and wanted to finally be able to park our cars inside of it. Anyway, we had tons of boxes that really hadnt been gone through since the wedding because we were in the process of house hunting right after getting married.

 

Going through some of these boxes made me realize how planning a wedding can really be a sickness. I cannot believe the things that I found that I had purchased for our big day and then never used. For example, I have 20 white pillar candles, a punch fountain still in the box, a ton of left over paper, TEAM BRIDE shirts, shepherd hooks galore, half of my programs that no one took, palm fans, spools of ribbon, frames for table numbers, an aisle runner that I paid a fortune for, linen napkins that the caterer left, 12 unopened packages of sparklers.... I could go on and on....

 

It made us laugh hard at how important all of these items seemed leading up to the wedding, I can't believe I spent so much money on these things because I HAD to have them or else my wedding just wouldnt be perfect.

 

While my wedding was beautiful and a dream come true- my marriage is much more of a dream come true and I think we would be just as happy as we are now if I hadnt spent a ton of money on palm fans.

 

rambling over.

 

To make this post fun- I thought I would turn it into a poll. What do you have in your closet, garage, or attic from your wedding that you look back on and can't believe you thought it was SO important.

sandye

I'd say my wedding shoes. It was love at first sight. But they are the most uncomfortable shoes ever made. They are sitting in a box in my closet but I won't wear them because just looking at them makes my feet hurt LOL

mrs.exhibitv

I agree with your post! We had our dream wedding as well, and while there is not much I can imagine having cut out, I realize now that I stressed myself out more than necessary.  Whenever people say "weddings are stressful", I now realize that it is usually the person who is adding the stress themselves.  Luckily for me all of our leftovers are at my parent's house in a closet. I plan on cleaning it out soon.   I have a lot of leftover:

-paper -- I anticipated making more stuff and just ran out of time

-yalmurkes -- I ordered enough for all the men, even though half were not Jewish, because I didn't want to run out. I ended up having at least 40 extra.

-ribbon

-programs - tons left over that no one took!

 

It all seems kind of silly after the fact, but hindsight is only 20-20.  

 

EliStar

Hmmm.. Though it was almost three years ago, and I don't remember everything, I don't know if I would have cut out any of the details of my wedding. I did have a lot of leftover paper, ribbon, DIY stuff but I ended up using it for other things.

If I was planning it all over again, however, I would DEFINITELY have a smaller wedding. We invited almost 250, had about 215 show up and it got super expensive. I would have kept it to only close family and friends and not had more than 100 guests max. That would probably have saved us (well, our parents) about 20K alone.

MrsMichiBolooki

mrs.exhibitv:

I agree with your post! We had our dream wedding as well, and while there is not much I can imagine having cut out, I realize now that I stressed myself out more than necessary.  Whenever people say "weddings are stressful", I now realize that it is usually the person who is adding the stress themselves. 

This is so so true.  I wish I didn't waste a moment being stressed over silly details or thinking I "had" to have something.  I don't think anybody complimented us on the things that were the most stressful to figure out, like my favors. I also went crazy at the end upgrading to chiavaris, linens, clear chargers, etc. None of those things were in my original budget.  Although I do think they all added a lot to the decor, it was still a little nuts that I did that a week or two before the wedding! I let the wedding madness take over at the end...

I didn't have anything leftover in my house except things that I quickly sold (like the gold chargers I never even used!) and my wedding dress. We have a tiny place and one small walk in closet and inside hanging is a huge bag with my wedding dress inside.  I really really need to get this preserved and put away in a box, it's ridiculous. DH reminds me all the time that it's taking up all the room in there. 

So yes, I agree that I let the planning take over!  However, I did enjoy it 99% of the time and had the wedding of my dreams . 

angie74

I tried, times a million, to not get that way. being a regular on TheKnot didn't help... I feel like the website and a lot of posters make it seem like if you have white plastic folding chairs at an outdoor wedding, no favors, and cheap flowers your marriage isn't as valid as someone else's.

our only goal was to invite all our friends and family and have a good time. in order to do that, and have 200+ people there, on our budget, we had to save everywhere we could. so we did. we had centerpieces that were recycled from a friends wedding, lap length white linens, BBQ, beer and wine, a DJ, DIY invites, no favors, etc. and it was amazingly fun.

I was worried going into the wedding that some people may think it wasn't that great, because they were used to black tie affairs... his family is from down here/New York. mine is from the south, where weddings and parties like ours are the norm. but everyone had a blast, and his mom said people called her for weeks saying how awesome it was. I'm really happy we managed to keep things in perspective and do what really mattered. 

I've never AWed our wedding video here, but if you want to watch the highlights, it's here http://www.jonzietz.com/kaskel/. be patient- it takes awhile to load. 

JennyLo26

Until about a month ago, I still had a manzanita tree, a couple of jars, 22 easels and battery operated candles. I got so tired of looking at the boxes sitting in my garage. Luckilly, a good friend of mine got engaged on New Years and I invited her over and made her take all the crap with her lol. I told her feel free to throw away what you dont want...I just couldn't do it myself.

ssthomps

I didn't really have much left over either. The things I do have left over I use them.  Like my shepard hooks with the hanging candle lanterns, I put them out when we are having guest so they can identify our house.  We always get compliments on them.  I was really realistic about how much I wanted to spend and did my best to stick to that. Although like Michi I did add things at the last minute, Like a candy Buffett, although i sold most of the jars so no harm done there.

MrsMichiBolooki

JennyLo26:

Until about a month ago, I still had a manzanita tree, a couple of jars, 22 easels and battery operated candles. I got so tired of looking at the boxes sitting in my garage. Luckilly, a good friend of mine got engaged on New Years and I invited her over and made her take all the crap with her lol. I told her feel free to throw away what you dont want...I just couldn't do it myself.

Remember when I kept wanting to buy those easels off of you??? lol how funny.