When I first started reading blogs I knew that when I got engaged I wanted to use my blog as a way to record the planning process and gather inspiration. I fantasized on weekly wedding updates with inspiration boards, the planning, and my thoughts and feelings of this entire engagement.
Now, two weeks before my wedding and in the midst of way too many DIY projects, logistical nightmares, and rereading vendor contracts, I thought it was as good a time as any to write my first wedding blog post. I mean, what better way to procrastinate than doing something completely non essential during the business time of your life, right?
The past year of my life has been a whirlwind, to say the least. As I've mentioned in many posts before, last fall was a crazy time with getting engaged in August, attending a working in September and traveling a ton, photographing my second wedding in November, and traveling and celebrating the holidays in December. And then, in May, I decided to quit my part time desk job and completely focus on building my photography business. I thought that making that decision would free up more time to build my brand AND plan for the wedding. But, of course, as soon as I decided to focus full time on photography my business grew exponentially and I ended up booked almost every weekend with weddings and shoots, photographing families, traveling to Puerto Rico to photograph a president's club trip, and spent the majority of my week days editing and communicating with clients. I kept saying "as soon as things slow down, I'll be able to focus on ____", continually pushing things back until I had "more time". Well, as I've quickly realized, I'll never have "more time" and will always have a ten page to-do list. So this past year has been full of prioritizing between wedding planning, building my business, and spending way too many nights drinking my 10th cup of tea at 8pm and hunkering down to edit/email/attempt to plan our wedding.
I thought that I would LOVE wedding planning. I have been obsessed with wedding blogs for years and my favorite pintrest boards are my wedding boards, but as soon as I had to sit down and focus on what I wanted for MY wedding, I freaked. There are so many good ideas, so many creative, unique, beautiful ideas, that I had the hardest time narrowing down what I wanted and what fit US. I've seen so many things through my own weddings and blogs, so it was hard to think up something unique that I haven't seen a million times. When we finally did decide on a theme/ ideas/ venues, I second guested EVERYTHING, and I'm still second guessing my decisions today. I guess it's the pressure of hosting 150 people and being in the industry and wanting it to be perfect. I had a few months where I would freak out for a few weeks and be so focused on wedding planning, and then get so over it and freak out and not do anything for the wedding for months and focus solely on my business. And then a few months later the whole process would start again. As I said, it's been a crazy last year.
The weird part is, I keep forgetting what the whole point of the wedding is. I keep forgetting that the details don't matter, the schedule doesn't matter, the logistics don't matter (well.. they kind of do... ) but the whole point of having this whole celebration is that Jack and I are getting married. I've been so far removed from the ceremony part of the planning, letting Jack and his dad (who will be our officiant) handle the ceremony planning. But when I feel super stressed or overwhelmed, I keep thinking that in two weeks Jack will be my husband. HUSBAND. After 10 years of being together, we will be married. Ten years ago we were just kids, driving out to the beach in West Marin, snuggling under blankets and star gazing, dreaming of our futures and planning out our adult lives. We'd go to college, either together or apart, and meet back up after college to live in a big city together - probably New York or San Francisco - then I'd be a traveling photojournalist and we'd get to travel the world for a few years - then we'd settle down on a ranch somewhere with a white fence, a barn, and a rope swing from a big tree out front for our kids to play on. These dreams were always just that - dreams - but now that we are getting married I keep thinking back to those dreams and realize that we're making those childhood fantasies a reality. It was always a given that we'd get married and have kids, but that always seemed like such a distant future. But now, it's a reality. We are now living those childhood fantasies and living out our dreams. It's a surreal feeling and one that I am so grateful to be able to have.
The next two weeks are going to be spent finishing up (or starting...) DIY projects for the day, gathering last minute decorations, finalizing schedules and timelines, and finishing building projects in the backyard. My parents have completely transformed their home into the most amazing wedding venue, completely with a gorgeous, buzzing garden, a grapevine arbor that we get to dine under, and beautiful flowers and plans to line the yard. It's truly amazing what they've done to make this day exactly how I imagined, and I'm beyond grateful for their tireless hard work and commitment to making this day amazing. Plus, after the wedding we're going to have a SWEET backyard!
And my amazing fiance - what can I say. We've definitely struggled a bit with finding balance between wedding planning, business building, traveling, family and friends time, and finding time for us, but all of the arguments and stress we've felt has only brought us closer. I'm beyond excited to marry childhood sweetheart and be his wife. I'm so excited to be able to plan our lives together for reals, to be one unit forever and always, and to build a beautiful family together. Plus, we decided last minute to book a 10 day honeymoon in Kauai for right after the wedding, which I'm pretty excited about too.
And with that, I'm out. Time to go stamp and cut and tie and assemble until my hands are bruised.
0 comments:
Post a Comment