Lessons in Wedding Planning...the Hard Way

Just to be clear, I am not a “I-loved-planning-my-own-wedding-so-much-I-started-my-own-business” event planner. I have worked in meeting and event planning for both corporate and non-profit entities. However, just as classroom learning experience doesn't always sink in and you have to learn it on a "field trip," I also learned a few things in the process of my planning all those years ago. In order to save you a bit of wedding planning grief, I share these lessons with you:

In my hometown, a wedding reception was pretty much cake and punch in the church fellowship hall. No other food, unless you count butter mints or Jordan almonds in pastel colors. And of course, no dancing – ever! After all, we were Baptists. My mother had stirred things up with my older sister’s Very Peach Wedding by having cheese and fruit and *gasp* decorating the fellowship hall with rented plants.


Note the the copius use of carnations and baby's breath at the VPW, not to mention the synthetic lace-like table cloth. I think all images of my peach quiana gown have thankfully been destroyed.

We decided to have my wedding at his church because its traditional dark wood pews and traditional architecture matched our color theme better than the burnt orange tones and modern design of my home church. The Orange sanctuary worked well with my sister's Very Peach Wedding, but clashed badly with my burgundy and mauve one. And those paper bells and crepe paper streamers? NOT happening at my wedding. With my fiance working in the Netherlands for the summer before our wedding, I was on my own for planning. So I merrily planned my version of an evening wedding with the reception on the church patio.

My husband’s family, however, came from a more upscale tradition. His church was founded by Dutch dairymen and his grandparents were founding members. As far as I can tell, the California-Dutch dairyman’s tradition was “I can top that wedding.” More often than not in stylish hotel ballrooms, hosted bars, and shockingly enough, dancing.

His church was much more architectually pleasing, and certainly less Peach. This was his younger sister's wedding. You'll note that there was also the use of considerably more non-carnation flowers, and a larger budget for the bride's ensemble. While she did use Peach, we bridesmaids got to wear minty green moire tafetta.

Needless to say, the future in laws were more than a little surprised at the lack of a band and a proper meal and graciously offered to pay for both.

Lesson One…. Do talk to your future in laws and find out what their expectations and ideas might be for your wedding. His parents might want to help out & they might have an idea or a connection or two that you don’t know about. A wedding is about the joining of you two, certainly, but it can be more than that. It can be the joining of two families and two (or more) traditions. Be respectful of this as you plan.