Bride’s Perspective

Home > Real Couples >

Bride’s Perspective

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Wedding Planning

It’s time to talk about the good, the bad and the ugly of wedding planning.

Okay, except for the fact that the third part of this isn’t really ugly. It’s more…well, let’s just call it the “what I wish I’d known when I was planning my wedding” section. But that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

Anyway. I work with a woman who has officially entered the home stretch of planning her wedding. As in, the wedding is only two weeks away and she has everything pretty much taken care of (wish I’d been in that boat!).

Recently, we got to talking about weddings (which happen to be one of my favorite things…

The Satisfaction of DIY Details

DIY is everywhere these days. From Pinterest to the pages of this very blog, it’s hard to go anywhere on the internet without running across a DIY wedding idea or craft…or two. Or three.

But DIY isn’t new, especially not when it comes to wedding. In fact, it’s a huge probability that our parents and grandparents were DIYing weddings left and right when most of us were just barely twinkles in their eyes.

So what’s the big deal?

Well, there are lots of reasons to incorporate a little bit of elbow grease and home-grown plans into your wedding, but right now the focus is on the broadest reason of them all: when you DIY, you truly put your mark on…

Newlywed Perspective: A New Engagement in Anne’s Family

I have an announcement to make: last week, my brother (who I would generally refer to as “little,” but who is, these days, much larger and not much younger than myself) got engaged.

First of all: !!!!!!!!!!!!

And second of all: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He proposed on Christmas Day to his girlfriend, Danielle, who, as far as any of us can tell, is pretty much perfect for him – she’s sweet, fun, quirky and managed to survive not only meeting, but also charming every person in my extended family in the span of about 24 hours. Which means, as far as I can tell, that she’s brave, too!

I got to see the ring before he proposed, and I’ll admit that maybe…

Newlywed Perspective: Christmas Reflections

Christmas this year reminded me of planning a wedding. See, my family puts a lot of time, energy and preparation into Christmas. We plan and we prep and we build on traditions that we’ve already spent years creating…and then Christmas arrives and, in a whirlwind of wrapping paper and Harry Connick, Jr. and pie, is gone.

Just like a wedding. Although in a wedding, the pie is most often replaced by cake and the Harry Connick, Jr. by Louis Armstrong (or the Electric Slide). The wrapping paper remains, but has fewer angels covering its foil.

But that doesn’t mean that all the planning and the preparation isn’t worth it. No matter how much time we put into the days we make important, if we’re…

Newlywed Perspective: All About Lessons Learned During Thanksgiving

I know I’m a week (almost two!) behind the curve, but I can’t resist. I have to talk about Thanksgiving. And I have to talk about Thanksgiving because I want to talk about family. Which really applies on a year-round basis, right? Especially when we’re right in the middle of the holiday season and (this is my experience, at least) everyone is running around with gift lists and family plans on their mind.

So, yes, Thanksgiving. How were your Thanksgivings, by the way? Hopefully filled with turkey and apple pie and maybe just a teensy bit of football.

This Thanksgiving was Shayne and my first Thanksgiving (as married persons) together! We flew to his family’s home in Michigan and spent…

Newlywed Perspective: Anne + Excel = BFFs

I’m here today to talk about everyone’s favorite thing: money. Or, more specifically: budgets. Okay, so maybe neither of these things are really anyone’s favorite thing. But sometimes they’re both kind of an important thing…or so I’m learning.

I’ll admit, I have never lived on a budget before. I mean, I kept track of my money, had a general idea of where it was going and when it was going there, but I never really watched it – or held myself particularly accountable for it.

That, of course, changed with the wedding. We knew that the wedding would be expensive, no matter who was paying for it, and we wanted to make sure that we managed our money as responsibly as…

Newlywed Perspective: Anne & the Beginning of Holiday Traditions

Happy Halloween, Delightfully Engaged! I’ve been wondering, in light of the current holiday, what planning a Halloween wedding would have looked like…if it simply would have been a collaboration of fall colors and leaves (and pumpkin-flavored foods, which I seem to never have enough of these days) or if it would have meant a full-on theme wedding. Either way, there are some great examples of both Halloween and fall themed weddings on this very blog…and I am digressing.

I do, though, want to talk about Halloween. And holidays in general. And traditions in particular. It’s funny to think that Shayne and I both walked into our marriage (and our relationship from the very beginning) with very specific ideas of…

Newlywed Perspective: Anne Tries to Decide How Many Wedding Pictures to Order

A few weeks ago (okay, maybe longer. Time is somehow managing to move blindingly quickly these days), Shayne and I received a single CD carrying over 600 photos from our wedding.

The day they showed up in our mailbox, I jumped up and down, uploaded all of them onto my computer, looked at every single image, and then basically forgot about them.

Not completely, but basically. I showed them to my parents. I showed them to my parents-in-law (when they came to visit). I made an “album” in iPhoto of my favorites. And then I did absolutely nothing with them.

Shayne and I kept (keep) talking about printing them off, blowing a few up, framing them,…

Newlywed Perspective: Anne Goes Through Wedding Planning Withdrawal

Confession: I am going through wedding planning withdrawals.

It took three months (to the day) for this to happen, but happened it has. And I miss planning a wedding.

Want to know how I know? I have, this week, spent more time wandering nearly aimlessly around the pages of mywedding.com than I have on Facebook. In fact, I have only actually even gotten on Facebook once in the past seven days. And it was to look at a friend’s wedding photos.

This is a record for me. I am a Facebook fiend. I can handle the shame of admitting that.

I miss the brainstorming, the wealth of ideas to be personalized or run with, the daydreaming about lace and burlap…

Newlywed Perspective: Anne Tackles Her Thank You Notes

This past weekend, we received another wedding gift.

Which is awesome. And surprising. And still awesome. Awesome because these gifts make Shayne and I feel incredibly loved and supported by our friends and family. Surprising because we’ve been married for almost three months now.

Still, the real reason I’m telling you about this gift is that it has one very, very important item associated with it: a thank you note.

Ah, the thank you note. Such an incredibly small and still so crucial item, the thing that lets the people who are busy loving on you know that you are loving on them back, that you acknowledge their love and that you appreciate it.

But how, I ask you, are…