Wedding Planning

 It’s a tale as old as time: wedding planning is stressful. No matter how excited you are or how laid-back you claim to be, planning a wedding will always come with some amount of stress and anxiety.

 

In the beginning, I was excited to plan things because I’m a planner and love to be organized. I still feel that way, but that feeling is now accompanied by a constant lingering amount of stress. It’s so easy to get caught up in the world of wedding planning, and sometimes it can make you lose sight of what’s really important in this whole process: your love.

 

I had been so focused on booking vendors and building my wedding Pinterest board, that I began to feel burnt out and detached from the whole experience. I started getting in my own head and worrying about things that I hadn’t even thought of before. I was worried that I would get tired of my fiancé and that we would lose the spark of our love. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to handle spending all of my time with someone because of my introverted and independent nature. Panic began to set in, and my head was spinning faster and faster with each negative thought that crept its way into my consciousness.

 

But then I took a deep breath and decided to look back at some old journal entries from when I had first started dating the man who would become my fiancé. The girl in those journal entries talked about how her love for him was eternal, how nothing could break them apart because no matter what argument or problem got between them, their love was strong enough to overcome it. She said that he was her best friend, the person she had been waiting for her whole life.

 

Tears pooled in my eyes as I read about this love. Back then, we were in the honeymoon phase; everything was beautiful and seemingly perfect. As time went by, the real world caught up to us, and with it, the anxieties of life. But in that moment, I understood something very important.

 

Love isn’t a fairytale. Love is real. Love is not perfect; it’s beautifully flawed. Love doesn’t mean you have to have it all together and have everything figured out; it’s about the journey. Sure, there will be highs and lows, peaks and valleys, but that’s the beauty of it. That’s what makes it all worth it in the end.

 

For me, getting married is so much more than a ring or a piece of paper. I’ve always wanted not only a place to call home, but a person. It’s exciting to plan the Big Day, but when it’s all over, when the party ends and the guests go home, it’s just the two of you. The day will come to an end, but your love will last forever, and that’s what’s most important.