May 16, 2018

Beyond the wedding: why I'm more excited about what comes next

My wedding day countdown app on my phone informs me that there are exactly 30 days, 2 hours, and 22 minutes until my wedding. I feel like I should be more stressed out and nervous. But we've been engaged for one and a half years, and I've spent some time planning this thing every week, so the vast majority of the work is done.

What's interesting is that after all that time dreaming and planning, though I'm really excited about the wedding itself, I'm incredibly excited for the time beyond the wedding…

1.3k
  March 21, 2018

I didn't bother to hire offbeat vendors and now I regret it

As time as gone by, my priorities have changed (I loved the post on how it's totally fine to have a cookie cutter wedding) and I am having a fairly traditional wedding in about two months. For this reason (and also budget limitations), I ignored the wise advise on this site to seek out vendors whose wedding style fits my vision. But what I am finding as I get deeper into planning the wedding, is that I weirdly am worried about living up to my photographers (and others) expectations and I worry about not being a "hot" enough bride with a "pretty" enough wedding. How do I keep the wedding day focused on what my fiance and I want, even though some of the people around us have different expectations?

2.3k
  March 14, 2018

The challenges of planning a straight wedding as a feminist queer bride

Planning a straight wedding as a lifelong feminist and member of the LGBTQ community was a challenge wrought with emotion, guilt, and confusion (in addition, of course, to all the blissful feelings of being engaged and in love).

I was a feminist way before it was cool, when it was decidedly UNCOOL. I realized that I liked girls as a teenager in the nineties going to a Catholic school, where the only openly gay teacher was a female gym coach who wasn't allowed in the girls' locker room. Gay marriage would not be a reality until nearly 15 years after I realized I might want to marry a woman. At different points in my life, I've hated both men and straight people; not out of malice, but out of fear, rejection, and really bad experiences.

Then I decided to marry a straight dude.

2.2k
  March 5, 2018

Wedding dates to avoid in 2018, 2019, and beyond

I'm compiling this list of wedding dates to avoid in 2018, 2019, and 2020 in case you want to avoid holidays where family and friends might have conflicting events, holidays where vendors might be especially busy and/or expensive (think Valentine's Day for florists), or religious holidays where places might be closed or guests might have other plans.

Does this mean you CAN'T book your wedding for one of these days? Hell no!

1.1k
  January 24, 2018

Wedding venue search tips from the wedding ninjas: wedding planners

Newly engaged folks: have you started your wedding venue search yet? Are you ready to pull your hair out or just the beginnings of a breakdown? Either you're in a town with so few offbeat options or you're in a big city with WAY too many options and no way to narrow it all down or find the perfect weird and wonderful venue for you between all the banquet halls. I decided to reach out to some of our favorite wedding coordinators to see what sage venue search wisdom they could impart on us to make the arduous search easier.