Closing the Book

As the dust settles and we begin to approach the month mark, I think we’re finally getting used to married life by becoming members of society not focused on building to a 13-month goal. I’m closing the book on the wedding related posts with some of my final thoughts and advice for those planning a wedding in the future.

• Enjoy it and be a part of the process! Bethany definitely led Team Somerville, but I knew what was going on and tried to help out where I could. I know some traditions have the bride doing most of the research, but I urge the guys to offer to chip where they can and at the very least be prepared to give pep talks. Remember there’s no we in me.
• Control the wedding and don’t let the wedding control you. At times you will get flustered (especially in the final month) so be prepared to recognize this and steady the ship. Also, schedule date nights for yourselves to keep your sanity by dedicating two hours to have a nice dinner, catch a movie, or watch mindless TV. I have to admit we found it ironic we chose to see The Breakup on the Monday before the wedding.
• Your guests will make strange requests and no one will be an exception. From family members to friends to people who have recently planned or are planning a wedding you will get questions that have no thought put into them. At some point people need to behave like adults and if they can’t keep up, leave them behind.
• The guest list will be one of the most difficult tasks at hand and we recommend preparing a full rough draft before consulting parental approval. We tried to move a single person to a new table after our list had been completed and after one hour we gave up because we could not make it work. Also, we probably gambled a bit here, but we wanted to promote intermingling at the wedding so we intentionally separated groups to promote socializing. During dinner, Bethany and I peaked at how all the tables were making out and much to our surprise everyone seemed to be doing great.
• Think of your guests. Personally, I think everyone involved with our wedding spent a serious amount of time and effort to make things special for our guests. Our mission statement strived to make everyone feel loved in order to create a positive energy that would take over the wedding. To be more direct, people don’t want to watch a 20-minute speech, a weird entertainment act, or only listen to music after the year 2000. Sure, it’s your day, but if you want it to be a great day you will need anyone’s help.
• If you like something you saw somewhere else, steal it. I think the only place you may want to draw the line here is for your first song, but that’s my personal opinion.

I could go on and on, but we’ll wrap it up there. If anyone has any thoughts or questions on anything we did feel free to contact either of Bethany or myself. I will be offering a break dancing class in August.

See you next post.