Ok, I’m at the phase of wedding planning where I genuinely want to quit – but I can’t, because, you know, multi-thousand dollar deposits and shit. While I always thought weddings were dumb, I still had my heart set on throwing a big party, wearing a pretty white dress, and being whisked away to some exotic destination for a honeymoon. Blah blah blah. Weddings are ridiculous. Well, they don’t have to be – small, intimate gatherings with close family and friends are exceptionally smart. Doing what I’m doing – dumb, de dumb dumb dumb.
There are way too many things to decide on for a wedding, and it’s all wasteful. Eventually, you just end up throwing money at things to make them go away. You end up over budget by far and you aren’t sure how that happened – except that every decision ended up costing you more than you expected. And because of all those costly deposits, there’s no turning back now.
But – on top of the craziness of the actual wedding itself – you have to do these nutso things such as PLAN THE GREATEST VACATION YOU’VE EVER TAKEN IN YOUR LIFE (and pay for it) and PUT TOGETHER A “REGISTRY” OF ALL THE KITCHEN SUPPLIES YOU MIGHT EVER NEED WHILE WORRYING IF YOUR GUESTS WILL THINK YOU’RE CRAZY FOR PUTTING NICE THINGS ON YOUR LIST THEY CAN’T AFFORD.
If you haven’t guessed, I’m on the registry part of this adventure right now. Registries are bullshit. I don’t understand them at all. First of all, they’re supposedly for the SHOWER, not really the wedding, because people give cash gifts at weddings, unless they don’t, in which case they may give from the registry, or they may not. Well, the registry is supposed to be filled with things for the home that you need – but those things can be quite costly. It may make sense for someone at the wedding to gift you a $100 saucepan, but unless you have super wealthy friends that’s insane to expect at a shower. Meanwhile, that $100 saucepan can be found on sale for a much lower price if you were to buy it yourself, but you can’t exactly buy yourself a gift and ask your guests to reimburse you.
The whole idea of “here’s a list of shit I want now buy it for me” is absolutely ridiculous, but so is getting a bunch of shit you don’t want or need and can’t return because that’s rude too. You can’t fucking win.
I’m currently researching cookware. It so happens at 32 I’ve never invested in decent pots and pans or anything kitchen related (though I’ve managed to collect a large collection of cheap steak knifes for some reason, hmm.) Researching every single item you may want for your kitchen to select the best ones for your registry that people will likely not end up buying anything from anyway seems like a big joke. The biggest joke of all is asking for things that are part of a set – so if you get a few items from the set, you have to go out and buy the rest of the set on your own, which ends up costing you more than not having the set in the first place.
Of course, I’m grateful for any gifts that my friends kindly give us for our wedding. It’s more that I just think the whole idea of a registry is silly and I’m afraid no matter what I put on it I’ll offend people – but if I don’t have one then we’ll get who knows what.
On top of planning for the wedding itself, I’m starting to think about our honeymoon. I really would like to take a honeymoon because after 10 years of dating my fiancé and I still somehow haven’t been on an international trip together. Which. is. crazy. I want to take a significant trip but the timing just isn’t working out. I’m still so new into my job that I’m afraid to take that much time off, even if I asked for it when I started. Unfortunately because my wedding is on the other coast, I am going to miss a few days of work just around the wedding itself (I was hoping to work remote a week in advance of it to get on the right time zone and hopefully get over any sicknesses I might pick up on my flight since I often get sick when I switch coasts.) Before that, I need to get to the other coast for my dress fittings (twice) and so that will take a few days as well, even if I’m working remote I won’t be at the office so people won’t realize I’m working. I’m also hiring a team of employees who I can’t just leave for weeks at a time…
The original idea was that I’d take a brief trip right after the wedding for a week and then come back and take a longer one two months later. I just worry that it looks worse to come back from my wedding after a brief mini moon and then to take another two weeks off a few months from the time I get back. I don’t really have time for a honeymoon at all this year. We could wait until next year, but hopefully I’ll be pregnant by then. We could just do a week honeymoon which I know is more than most people get to take and would still be nice, but I see this as my last international trip until my kids are, like, 10 years old… so it’s important to me. I have a bunch of frequent flier miles saved up and I’ve been looking forward to this for a while. But time just isn’t working out. I guess I can just go ahead as planned and hope work is ok with it (I can definitely clock in a few hours while abroad) — I just don’t know if it even makes sense to go anywhere at this point…
I mean, I don’t even have time to plan this trip. I have some ideas – but, planning a 2-week international trip takes time. Time that I don’t have. Time that I’m spending on the wedding finding a last-minute florist and figuring out who will be doing makeup and hair for the bridal party and trying to sort out how to get to the other coast for dress fittings and a bridal shower and all this stuff that honestly I want no part of. I knew a wedding would be challenging to plan but I had no idea about the amount of stress it would bring. I realize I’m a particular sort of person and at some point I just need to let go, but god help me if I can actually manage to get through the next four months of my personal life while remaining a high-value employee at work (my number one priority) and planning a trip of a lifetime (and figuring out which stainless steel cookware is the best for our future cooking needs?)
Being stressed right now feels so ridiculous and yet – weddings — ugh.
