Tweet Tuesday - Not Thinking
The most jarring thing about planning a wedding is how much other people put into it - both in a positive and a negative sense.On the positive we have people who keep answering our calls for help, volunteering their time, flying on airplanes, taking time off from work, gifting us their services or even just gifting us money to support the whole event. I've been touched, baffled and feel quite indebted for and by all of the above.On the negative though, it cuts equally as deep. People have assumptions, expectations, wants and needs that I am so unaware of, I am caught grossly off guard each time. Speechless. Mentally slow to react, explain or smooth over misunderstandings. Honestly, nothing about my decisions or lack of communicating some detail was ever meant to hurt anyone. I mean, people have been in tears, myself included.Where do you start with this? How do you reconcile?I don't know if we can. Maybe it's part of the process of building your own relationship separate from your family and friends, of taking your commitment as the priority in matters, of hearing people out but then doing what is right for you and your significant other.None of this is written with a grain of salt. No matter how much you believe your wedding day is about YOU and your MARRIAGE, it is really about everyone else's expectations of their own involvement and how that measures up to your love of them and their place in your life. People do not do this intentionally, but they very much find themselves in this position as the planning goes on.Not once did I think my choice of venue, cake, invitations, songs or DJ would affect anyone personally, but I was wrong. Just because I see these items as logical and fun choices to cross off my To Do list - where intuition about what I like and what it says about "us" as a couple are taken into consideration - doesn't mean that someone else didn't think we'd do it differently.As in, "That's what you picked? But that's so.not.you." aka "That's not what I had in mind for you"Which in a sense can be equally as polarizing, putting you in a position to not only defend your choice, but also question if this person even knows you and, more so, if you really know yourself. Because if they're a close family member or a best friend, maybe their comment plants a small seed of doubt, and holy shit, maybe you're not a bird-cage-veil girl and instead you're panicking that you're showing up to your wedding as a complete fake without integrity.Marriage, and the wedding planning that may go into it, are not for the faint of heart. I now know why people elope (and why that probably would've put more emotional pressure, not less, on my fiance and I). I do not have the answers. I can't not read minds. All I can do is keep moving forward (18 days and counting) and hope that, once we're all dressed up and a few cocktails in, things will roll on as relaxed and happy as H and I truly are as a couple. Because that's what matters right? The couple?