Project Wedding or Project 'What?'..

You’re supposed to be the captain of Project W, but before you can make a plan, you need to know what you’re doing. Yes, you know you’re getting married, and yes that means you’re planning a wedding but how?

You haven’t done it before, people are bombarding you with questions, ‘are you having roses or tulips’ and you haven’t even set a date... ‘are you having your hair up or down?’ – You don’t know!!! All you know is that you want your wedding to be yours, unique and chic, but what does that mean?

So, being internet-savvy, you googled ‘unique wedding’ and it came back with a gazillion images and blogs,  and you’re sure you’ve seen them all already on The Knot/Martha Stewart/Style Me Pretty, so they can’t be that unique can they.

You’re still confused. You googled ‘latest wedding trends’, just to get ahead of the pack, but alas you saw that someone else has ‘done’ a ferrero rocher tower at their wedding! Whatever will you do?! You can’t have cupcakes because your sister had them 5 years ago, you can’t make your own biscuits because embarrassingly, you can’t bake! Ok, so how will you make your wedding 'unique' ?!

I too was on this nonsense spiral, until I realised (just in the nick of time) that it’s not about making your wedding unique but it’s about personalising it and making it yours... not so that every guests will say ‘wow, I haven’t seen that before’, but so that they can say ‘that is SO Mr and Mrs O (replace as appropriate), how fabulous’.. right? 

I suppose the 'uniqueness' of your day depends on how unique you really are... are you bit quirky, a bit of a fashionista or a simple conventional gal?! There is no right answer!

Just for a few moments, back away from your wedding tv/big fat fabulous addiction, log out of the wedding forum, where you are called ‘excitedb2b’ and step away from CosmoBride... heed this little bit of advice...

GET A BRIEF...GET A GOAL and figure out just WHAT it is that you’re doing?

In my humble opinion, planning a wedding is just like ‘finding your beau’, it wont work until you know yourself. Your likes, your dislikes, your must haves, your ‘could survive without its’... you know what I mean.

I have a small exercise up my sleeve that Mr O and I used during our wedding planning. I’ve also recommended it to a few couples and have had positive feedback. 

Here it is:

The first step is to sit down and think about what your wedding means to you and your beau. I’d recommend sitting in separate corners of the room and answering the following (no conferring):

If I asked you to sum up your beau’s personality in 3 words, what would they be?

Tell me 3 interesting things about your beau – any interesting hobbies/achievements/goals?

Tell me 3 things that you love doing with your beau.

Tell me about the best wedding you have ever been to, using the following categories:

Ceremony:

Venue:

Food:

Atmosphere:

Music:

Highlight:

I would have changed...:

Imagine you are a guest at your own wedding and the next day, a friend says ‘I’m just about to get on the tube, but quickly, how was the wedding – 3 words go...’ What would you say:

This is essentially what we did, and the rest just seemed to flow...we worked out what we wanted individually and looked at where it matched up, and we came to some fabulous decisions (even if I do say so myself)! Our wedding was definitely not to everybody’s taste, but for us it was perfect. In case you’re curious, our words were ‘friends’, ‘family’, and ‘fun’!

Get a brief, get a goal and then you can get a plan. Sure, the goal may change as you go along, but it’s better to have one in the first place! : ) If things do change, it’s all part of the fun!

Let me know how you get on with the exercise! Would love to hear if it is useful!

Mrs O

x