From The Heart: Keeping Things In Perspective (when planning your wedding)

What stage of the wedding planning process are you at right now? Have you decided how many guest to invite and chosen your invitations yet? Are you stressing about getting the save the dates out in good time? Perhaps you’re wishing you hadn’t chosen to make them all yourself? Favours or no favours? A free bar? Children or not? Should you invite those cousins you barely see for the sake of keeping Auntie happy? What if it rains? Veil or no veil, and oh my, which dress?

What if you knew you only had months to live?  Would these things still matter at all?

All too often, it takes something shocking to kick us into touch – jolt us back into the land of ‘rational’ and ‘sensible’ and recalibrate our sense of perspective. Maintaining a good, healthy perspective when planning for and celebrating on the wedding day itself, is so important. It’s something that I’m continually reminding our blog readers about.  I know only too well from personal experience how easy it is to fall down the bride-to-be rabbit hole, fussing in frenzied fashion over every tiny aspect of detail and décor.

I spent hundreds of pounds and hours and hours sourcing  little glass perfume bottle favours for our wedding guests, more than a few of which were left behind at the end of the evening. Did it matter? Not one jot. I took them home myself – they made great personal keepsakes of our day. I also procrastinated for weeks about my wedding speech – winging it entirely script-free on the day.  But that meant I spoke from the heart and in a completely authentic fashion. I cried, everyone cried – the experience remains one of my strongest memories of the day.

I’ve been blogging about weddings for over six years now. I’ve truly found my calling and love my job with all my heart. Back in the early days c.2009/10, the weddings I shared boasted lots of detail and inspirational design features, but as each year passes, I find myself drawn more and more to the story and emotional aspect of the wedding photographs that we share.Don’t get me wrong, I adore a flower-topped naked cake, sparkly pair of heels and oversized floral crown just as much as anyone else, but these days, I’m more inclined to find the image that tells a human story; that tender loving glance between Father and Daughter as they reach the top of the aisle, that profound look of just-married joy as the newlywed’s are showered in confetti, the meaningful exchanges between generations as the groom stoops to chat to Grandma and the bride spends time with her beloved Grandpa.

From this wedding on Love My Dress
Photography by Caro Weiss

Such precious moments captured whilst the subject is unaware make the best wedding photographs, and trust me when I say that these ‘people shots’ will be the first you seek out when you receive your professional images. The wonderful #sharethehonestlove Instagram campaign has gathered together some of the loveliest of such memories I have ever seen. If ‘Share The Honest Love’ is new to you, then I urge you to read this incredibly moving post. You may not look upon wedding planning quite the same once you have.

Weddings are wonderful, and I encourage you to have the best fun ever planning for yours. Celebrate and be joyous. Go to town and have that party. Be creative and get your DIY on to your hearts content, but allow me, please, to impart a gentle reminder about keeping it all in perspective.

Stress not about numbers, and your choice of first dance song – take time instead to consider your vows and ceremony readings – they will serve as a powerful, future reminder of the strength that can be gained from your marriage when times may be more challenging. Stop and soak it all in on the day itself. The day will fly by otherwise. Hug and kiss all those there to celebrate with you on the day, and tell them you love them.

The words below are taken from a wedding we shared very recently on Love My Dress® and sum up my point perfectly;

Most important of all, the wedding is about the celebration of love we all have in our lives, and that’s what matters. All the worries, the logistics, little details, imperfections will just fade. All our family members took part and helped to make our wedding day happen, decorating the venue and going on food runs. By the end we were all exhausted, but the collaboration had made the wedding more special. Instead of just attending, everyone felt they were truly part of the celebration. (words by @hitchnstitch).

A designer friend of mine is creating a dress for a bride whose boyfriend proposed to her just recently. She is a beautiful young lady with a lust for life.  She also has a brain tumour with, at best, weeks left to live. She’s not yet 20 years old.

Embrace and cherish the opportunity to celebrate love. That, really, is all that matters.

If I were you, I’d pop ‘keep things in perspective’ at the top of your wedding to-do list without delay. And trust me, when the day finally arrives, you’ll be so pleased that you did.

Love Annabel xx

 

______________

This ‘From The Heart’ feature was originally written for and published earlier this year in Unveiled Magazine. From The Heart is our weekly Sunday spot where we hand Love My Dress back over to our readers to write about all matters of love and life. 

If you would like to contribute a From The Heart piece, we would dearly love to hear from you. It doesn’t matter what it’s about and it doesn’t have to be related to weddings at all – we’re looking for honest, authentic, personal, sad, happy, family, relationship, marriage, health, light-hearted, serious, baby, trying for baby, children, career, simple, complicated – real life issues.  We just need you to write from your heart. Keep it upbeat and witty, or share your thoughts anonymously on a more challenging or emotional subject.

Please drop me a line at [email protected]. Love Annabel x