#110: Pre-Ceremony Awesomeness (Plus a receiving line alternative!)

All of you who tune in to watch red carpet interviews just before the Academy Awards begin, and all you sports fans who love pre-game coverage will agree:

The hour before a big event can be a pretty darn cool experience- maybe even equally as hands-down amazing as the big event itself.

How did Brian and I spend the hour just before our wedding ceremony? We accidentally spent it with our guests. And it. Was. Awesome.

You see, it was 9 am and we were screwed. We were supposed to be at our reception venue (a farm) to take the professional candid family photos I had long been fantasizing about. But after the last bit of hair spray was applied, and all of our family members' cars were packed with supermarket flowers, 250 cans of soda, our honeymoon bags, and all of the STUFF that must be hauled to a DIY wedding reception venue, we were running super late. (Runnin' on Filipino time, as we say.)

...And it was off we raced to the ceremony venue (the historic Quaker meeting house pictured below), figuring that we could just take our photos there instead of at the farm.

Now this was not an ideal situation. It would mean: (1) that we would be photographed in front of guests as they arrived for the ceremony; (2) I'd be losing the incredible farm backdrop for our photos; and (3) I would not have the traditional "grand entrance" in my dress during my procession down the aisle.

But screw all of that. Those minor issues paled in comparison to what our plan B offered us. Here's I loved doing a photo shoot at the entrance of our venue (as guests arrived!) just moments before the ceremony:

• In between portrait shots I was able to greet guests as they trickled in. What's cool is that it wasn't one long receiving line of hand shakes, hugs, and kisses, since there were several minutes in between the arrival of each group. Instead it was more like little pockets of time for small talk, hugs, jump-up-and-down-with-your-college-buddies kinda joy, with posed portrait shots in between. It was a receiving line, photo shoot, and party, baby, all rolled into one-- it multitasking at it's finest.

• We got some sweet candid photos that captured all of the pre-game excitement, the greeting of those who traveled across states to celebrate with us, and the look of delight on people's faces as they first stepped foot onto the beautiful historic grounds. These were all special moments that we otherwise would not have captured on camera.

• It made me feel relaaaaaaxed before the ceremony. I was focused on simply being with the people I love -- not nerves, or coordinating, or hiding out in a bridal suite making sure everything looked perfect every time I'd pass a mirror. It kind of felt like your family's annual holiday party when you excitedly await for guests to arrive, and how every 5 minutes the door bell rings and you find another awesome group of people at the doorstep to hug and kiss and high-five and chat up a storm with.

Engaged people: What pre-ceremony activity could you do to help you feel joyful, relaxed, and "yourself"?


Newlyweds: How did you spend your pre-ceremony moments? 

 

#74: What Happens When You Don't Like Your Wedding...

                                                 Me, stressed.

Four weeks after the big day, I'm finally beginning to have warm and fuzzy feelings toward our wedding. So I guess you could say that I loved that day. But let's be clear - I didn't like it. And there's a big difference.

Perhaps you were hoping that I would say "It was a beautiful day - everything I imagined!" or even "It wasn't perfect but it was perfect for us!". Well. I don't have those feelings, which is probably both startling and uncomfortable to hear.  But this kind of thing happens to brides more often than you'd think.

On our second day at our honeymoon timeshare in San Francisco, I found myself crying. I realized that I hated our wedding - that I spent a year planning it, months blogging about it, and thousands of dollars to execute it only to be sorely disappointed.

What triggered these feelings? On the honeymoon I was on Brian's iPhone looking at all of the wedding photos that my friends had posted on their Facebook walls. Photos that made me feel like a turd. Photos like this:

Why did these photos make me depressed? Because I realized that I was not nearly as happy as my friends were on that day. I don't recall laughing with people, chowing down on second helpings of BBQ, taking silly photos, or dancing by butt off (which was one of the 3 major things I had hoped and expected to happen).

What was I doing during our reception? Wishing I had hired a day-of coordinator. A person who could have:

• Handled the caterer's Oops-we-ran-out-of-food-1-hour-into-the-BBQ dilemma. 
• Arranged the carpools for the several guests (non-drivers) who needed to leave early.
• Made sure that the drinks were mixed properly so that we WOULDN'T run out of alcohol 20 minutes into the reception.
• Insisted that I not leave the party for 30 minutes to take photos.
• Went off to find the people and items I needed when I needed them.
• Made sure no one accidentally got stuck at the iPod all day taking song requests. (Sorry, Joe.)
• Run around like a crazy person so that I wouldn't have to. 

Because yup...I did ALL of that.

 

That day I was also wishing I had hired a bouncer. A big, brawny bald dude in a muscle shirt and dark sunglasses who could come between me and any person who wanted me to run and fetch Brian at the other end of the farm so that they could take a photo of us. A bouncer would have said something like: "Sorry, Kim has to get her groove on. No photos until the end of the reception. Meet in front of the barn at 5pm for further instructions."

But with no day-of coordinator, no bouncer, and no balls to say "No, I'm not doing that!" or "Sorry, you'll just have to wait," or "Can someone please take care of this for me?" or "Would you mind finding a ride home yourself, or perhaps waiting until your designated carpool driver is ready to leave," I ended up feeling like this for about two-thirds of the party:

But I'm not just writing this post to moan and complain. I'm writing this to share with all of you what I learned from not liking my wedding so that we can all come away from this a little bit wiser. 

You see, guidance came to me in the form of a DVD rental during the honeymoon. There is a scene in the film Avatar when a character notices signs from nature instructing her to act in a way that was contrary to how she wanted to act. And this got me thinking:

What lesson was I supposed to learn from my wedding day? What was God trying to show me? I wanted to be aware of the signs and trust them, much like the Avatar character did.

What I've come to realize is that I still have so much to learn about setting boundaries with people, saying no, and not feeling responsible for everyone's feelings. I thought I had already learned these things, and I was proud that I had improved in those areas. But...

The universe has a way of putting a challenge up to your face just to check and see if you really got the lesson. And what better way to shake some sense into me than to teach me a lesson through an event that I would pay such close attention to?

I've also come to realize that I was my best and worst self on my wedding. I was silly, warm, funny and grateful for the first half of the day, but throughout the second half I was wishing I could say no, worrying too much about what others were feeling, and mentally beating myself up instead of being *present* and aware of the good things that were happening right under my nose.

We are always our best and our worst selves at any given time. And that's all we can be, really. Because no one can escape from who they are, not even if they throw down 10k and put on a fancy white dress. All we can do is accept who we are and strive to be worthy of the love we receive in our lives.

But as I said at the start of this post, I loved my wedding. No...actually, I choose to love my wedding. It's not a special day because you get everything you want; it's a special day because it's all yours. And your partner's.  

The events of that crazy day will never happen again. It is as it always will be. And I choose to love it. Because it's like loving the house you grew up in - it's not where you'd choose to live now, and it's not decorated the way you'd want to have your current home decorated, but you love it because it was once YOUR home. I could also say that loving our wedding is like loving the child that Brian and I will hopefully one day raise - he or she won't be perfect, or be able to poop gold, or have kick-butt mutant powers with bionic senses, a genius mind, and angel wings so that he can fly us across town to get to Target before it closes...but that lovely little thing will be all OURS to care for.

And that's how I feel about our wedding; I didn't like it through and through, but I love it through and through. And I think I'm cool with that.