On Planning a Wedding

If I were being totally honest, I think I would tell you that I'm sort of over the whole wedding thing.  Not because I don't want to get married - I have the world's greatest fiance, and I can't wait to get married! - but the whole planning process is such a massive undertaking.  In a way, I guess I look longingly at the days of yore when people would gather a few family members, head into town when the itinerant preacher was around, and tie the knot.  Think Laura Ingalls Wilder-style.  It seems a bit unnecessary to have this long, drawn out engagement processes that enables the betrothed couple to plan what feels like it needs to be the greatest party that anyone has ever planned, and heaven help us if all the of the details don't come straight from the world's most trendy Pinterest board.  Because that's not what a marriage is all about, right?  A wedding should be about two people joining their lives together in the sight of God, surrounded by witnesses.  Heck, in this case, I don't even think it needs to be a "great cloud of witnesses."  Just a few would be fine.

I suppose that I sound entirely ungrateful.  Do I want a nice wedding?  Yes.  Do I want to have dear friends there?  Definitely.  Do I want them to enjoy themselves and feel like the trip to get there was worth it?  Absolutely.  It's just that when I'm in the midst of how many tables will you need to have? and do you want white napkins or colored napkins? and if you want to spend $13,000, you could have the best catering service ever! and you need to read these 33 cool ideas for groomsmen, it doesn't feel like it's about joining lives together in the sight of God.  It feels like an industry.

[via my email inbox]

Maybe it's just something that comes with the territory, and I'm ranting about nothing.  I mean, I will admit that I sort of enjoyed looking through the 33 cool ideas for groomsmen (though I can't say I was into all the groomsmen wearing black tuxes while the actual groom wore a white one, or even groomsmen wearing jeans).  But something about the you-need-all-this-stuff-to-have-the-ideal-wedding just bothers me.  Why is it that I need to spend thousands of dollars to get everything just right?  Why should this period of life - preparing for marriage - include the undue stress of throwing the party to end all parties?

Conclusion: I'm a hopeless paradox.  The girl that looked at wedding magazines for years, but when it became real life, found out that looking at magazines is much less stressful than using the magazines.  The girl that wants a lovely wedding, but doesn't like the wedding industry.  A girl who loves shopping for a wedding dress, but doesn't like spending buckets of money on a reception.

Is this normal?