Just When You Think Everything Is Under Control For Wedding...SURPRISE

I was just thinking to myself that things seemed to be running smoothly and right on schedule for the wedding in three weeks, when bam the floor dropped out from under me.  Family illness and two unexpected moves scheduled before the wedding have me freaking out again.  In addition to all of this, many people will be staying at my house due to the fact that bike week, spring break and St. Patrick's Day put a kink in anyone getting a room near the wedding location.  Got to love wedding planning.  Thinking of changing my career to party planner, NOT!!!!   If you are planning an event of your own, little piece of advice that I could have used to hear before starting the planning process, check the calendar for conflicting events.

Some Hard Learned Lessons From the Mother of the Bride

When I got married, my mother made all of the decisions with regard to the wedding.  That is the way it was done.  Now that my daughter is getting married, I have found that things have changed.  The bride is the one making the decisions.  In my daughter's case, she wants to make many of the decisions, but not all of them.  It feels like a balancing act, trying to figure out when she wants to make the decision and when she wants me to make the decisions.  In the last few months, I have alternated between hearing "it's my wedding" and "I don't care, you choose". 

The most important lesson that I have learned about wedding planning is do your homework on the internet before going out to visit vendors.  I wasted a few days making the trip to the wedding location before catching on to this one.  This is not quite as important if you live in the area where the wedding is being held, but we live about an hour to an hour and a half away. I searched for venues, bridesmaids dresses, rental companies, photographers and florists.  Picked out the two or three that best fit our needs and made appointments with them.  I even searched through pictures of hundreds of bouquets and floral arrangements.  E-mailed the top forty pictures to my daughter.  She picked out her favorites in each category.  I am taking these pictures to the florist which saves my daughter having to make the trip and saves me time as well since I don't need to look through all the florists pictures.  Some prep work has saved me hours and hours of time.

Finding A Place for the Reception

Picking Out a Site for the Reception was easier than I thought it would be once we found a good source for area information. Here is my wedding and party hint of the day: if you are looking for information about an area that you are not familiar with go to their information center. I know a groundbreaking idea or not so much. If they don't have an information center, I recommend that you contact the chamber of commerce or city hall for information.

When we talked to the people at the information center in New Smyrna Beach, they were not only very helpful but they handed us a packet that they had put together that had all the information needed to plan a wedding. Lists of local reception halls, photographers, DJs, caterers, cakes, flowers, etc. It has made planning ssssooooo much easier. If you are planning a wedding, I hope this tip makes your life easier. My only recommendation to you is that you get two copies of the packet, mine has gotten written over and nasty quite quickly.

Picking Out the Location for the Ceremony

Picking out the location for the wedding doesn't seem like it would be too difficult unless your daughter has decided to get married at the beach with 100 guests. I started out by trying to find a beachhouse right on a private, nondriving beach to have the wedding and reception at. After looking for hours on line, going to see about 20 houses and calling eight management companies, no luck. The funny thing is people don't want a 100 people in their rental property. Go figure. Then I moved on to asking friends and family if they knes of anyone who owned a large enough beachhouse, no luck. Next, I came up with the idea of the ceremony taking place at a hotel or resort. This posed a problem because the people staying their would be sharing the beach with us and she is getting married during spring break. Lastly, I came up with the idea of the national seashore. When I called them, I was told that they only allow 20 people at a ceremony but if I wanted to I could apply for a varience. I applied and got it. Location for ceremony found. Phew. Took a lot of man (or woman) hours to find the location for the ceremony. Now I only have the location for the reception, location for the rehearsal dinner, flowers, caterer, cake, DJ, bartender and centerpieces. Thankfully my daughter is not a bridezilla, but she is testing me with some unique requests. If you can afford it, I hear getting a wedding planner makes all of these headaches go away. I want her to have everything she has ever dreamed of in her wedding and then a few personal touches that she hasn't even thought of. I am not sure that someone who doesn't know her very well can do that. I'll let you know if I still feel that same way in a few months, after I have done more of the planning.

My Daughters Getting Married...Follow My Wedding Planning Experience

My daughter is getting married in March of 2012 and I am busy trying to plan her dream wedding. I thought that it might be fun to have a log of how the planning is going throughout this process. So I will be updating you about how things are progressing. I made the promise to her that it would be her wedding, not the wedding that I want. I am counting on you to keep me on that path. I think that all too often we, as the mother of the bride, plan the wedding that we always wanted and didn't get because our own mothers took over the planning of our wedding. My plan is to break that cycle in my family and give my daughter the wedding she has always dreamed of. This may be a tough promise to keep because she has some pretty unusual ideas. She wants a beach wedding for 100 people, sandcastle centerpieces and three bridesmaids who shop in three different departments to name just three of the challenges that her wedding wishes present. Keep checking in for my updates on how things are going.