If you listen to the popular mythology of wedding planning, every bride is exacting about every single detail of the wedding, no matter how small, no matter how insignificant to everyone else. Her most pressing problem is that nobody in the world cares so much about what she’s trying to do for them.
But if there’s one thing I know about popular mythology, it’s that it’s not everyone’s reality. In fact, it’s rarely anyone’s complete personal reality. Chances are there’s at least one aspect of planning your wedding that you honestly don’t care that much about.
Look, it doesn’t matter what it is that doesn’t matter so much to you. The important thing is that you recognize the fact that it isn’t a matter of life and death to you. Then you can choose whether it’s best to ignore the question entirely (and really, how often do programs make or break a wedding?) or delegate the question to someone who cares more than you do.
For instance, the other evening I was watching a new episode of Say Yes to the Dress. The theme of the episode was daughters who want their fathers involved. One bride’s father was unable to come with her to Kleinfeld because he is a quadriplegic, so the store set up a live feed for him to watch the appointment and comment on the dresses.
As the bride tried on dresses, she began to be unhappy because she didn’t seem to care much about any of the dresses she’d tried on. Finally, she asked for something that was more like what her father had suggested for her. She tried it on and still didn’t seem to care very much one way or the other.
When she walked out, though, and her father started telling her how much he loved that particular dress, suddenly she got excited. You see, for her it wasn’t about the dress. She honestly didn’t care what dress she wore to get married in. What she cared about was building a special memory with her father. By choosing the gown he loved, she actually delegated something she didn’t care about to someone who really did have an opinion and everyone was happy in the end.
It doesn’t matter whether the thing you don’t care about is the color of the napkins or the venue, the font on the invitations or the reception menu. What matters is that you don’t let yourself be guilted about it. Pass it along to someone who does care, giving them any information they need to do it properly. After all, you don’t want the nasty surprise of discovering at the last minute that your new sister-in-law doubled your flower budget or your cousin didn’t take your vegetarian college roommate into consideration when choosing the dinner menu.
You don’t have to care about every single thing connected to your wedding. It’s okay. It doesn’t make you a bad person or a bad bride. As long as you make sure all the important parts are handled somehow, you’re doing it right… for you.
I just did not care about the cake, at first i tried to care because you have a cake right. But then i thought about it i realised i really dont care, then suggested doughnuts to the family, they got a bit excited about it so doughnuts it was.
@Blossom: You know what? I didn’t have a cake, either. Mr. Twistie just couldn’t get excited about cake, and I knew that food was one of the few things he really did care about for the wedding, so I asked him what he did like. He said fruit tarts. I got excited about that, too, because I love pies and tarts all to pieces and back again. So we had individual fruit tarts in half a dozen flavors. Sometimes finding what will excite you as opposed to what’s expected makes the wedding all the more interesting and unique.
Ooh, I cared about cake, but there were definitely details I didn’t care about! Like what the reception chairs looked like – we had some kind of white folding chair – or having real linens – I’m pretty sure the caterer provided cloth-esque paper napkins with the buffet. Thinking back, what I didn’t care about was mainly the things that no one other than pro party planners every remembers when they attend a wedding. I’ve been to a ton of weddings, and I don’t think I can remember what I sat on or how I wiped my lips at any of them.