wedding advice you didn’t ask for

Now that I have children, the thought of planning a wedding makes me want to curl up in a ball on the floor. Wedding? Who needs a wedding? Park me by a pool (in the shade of course) in a tropical location with a never-ending line of frozen beverages. How many nights at the Four Season Punta Mita and $17 daiquiris could I have bought with the bill from my wedding? Don’t answer that.

But there is a reason that we celebrate weddings with so much hoopla. Weddings are magical because they are the greatest hits of your life. All of your favorite people in one of your favorite places celebrating you and your favorite person. In honor of my sister-in-law’s upcoming wedding, I’ve pulled together some of my best, unsolicited advice and insight when it comes to the big day and how to enjoy it.

A wedding is a milestone. A threshold (there’s a reason the groom carries the bride over the threshold and it’s not just to test his back, or in this case hip strength). You’re passing from one phase of life into the next. Even if you’ve been together for years and live together and have already blended your lives beyond recognition. You’re still stepping over into something new.

A wedding is a public statement of a promise. And it’s a celebration of everything you are as a couple and everything you hope to be.

Your wedding will be the best you’ve ever been to. Your wedding will ruin weddings for you. You’ll never have as much fun as at your own wedding. But to truly be tapped into that joy, it helps to know the following things:

1) In the days leading up to the wedding, have yourself a good cry even if this requires slamming your finger in a door or dropping something on your toe. I know you’re not sad to get married. But you are shedding a well-worn identity and that isn’t easy. Let yourself feel the emotion of mourning your former self. Get the crying out of the way. Let it all out. Then on the wedding day there will be room for the joy, and you won’t be holding back a damn of emotions.

2) Be in the ceremony. Get really grounded in that moment. Take your time. Don’t rush because you’re worried about timing or that people are hot or bored or ready to get a drink. Let the world stop for 20 minutes and be present. In fact, for the entire celebration be in each moment without thinking about what’s coming next. This is the best wedding advice I received (from one of the 400 episodes of the Wedding Story I watched pre-wedding), but harder than I realized to put into practice.

2) Things will go wrong. Somewhere, something that you had envisioned, planned on, will get lost. Decide right now that you don’t care. You won’t get a chance to eat anything on the menu that you so carefully planned. I know it’s hard to imagine, but you just won’t feel like eating. Or even drinking. I know – crazy. And that raw bar planned just for you, it will be gone by the time you get over to it. Decide you don’t care.

3) Put someone else in charge. This is not a day that you want to be making decisions. Delegate someone you trust to handle all decision making. If someone tries to ask you a question about logistics or what needs to be done, you can say, Go ask ______.  Don’t take up your precious time or squander your joy handling things. Let someone else handle it. Along this line, let the photographer do their job and forget about the pictures. Don’t spend your wedding posing for photos you’ll never get around to ordering.

4) Stop thinking about the money. It’s already gone.

5) Say exactly what you need and expect. This is not the time for hinting around, hoping, wishing that the message gets through and people do what you need them to do and act how you want them to act. It’s time to be direct. With your family, your friends, the people you’ve hired, and yes, even your spouse-to-be. It doesn’t make you rude or demanding, because you will still be kind. But the best way to mitigate disappointment is to be clear about expectations. (This applies to just about all of life, but tends to flare up around weddings.)

6) If you are having fun, everyone else will have fun. If you are relaxed, you’re guests will be relaxed. You might not want to be the center of attention or feel comfortable standing up in front of people, but accept that everyone will be watching you and how you act will set the tone of the day.

7) Talk to every guest. Every participant in your wedding has invested in you, and taken time to be there and celebrate you and your life as a couple. Your job is to thank each one. You won’t necessarily have time to catch up or get into deep conversations but you should take a moment to acknowledge every guest.

8) Stick together. It’s hard to stay a couple when you’re being pulled in a million different directions (welcome to marriage!), but try to physically stay together as much as you can during the wedding reception. You don’t want the night to be over and you’re saying, Oh there you are!

9) Let it end – it will be over in a flash. A good party ends on a high note. You’ll want one more song, one more drink, one more chance to visit  But leave it. Nothing is worse than a wedding that won’t end.

10) Be ready for the crash. After it’s all over and the guests have packed up and moved on and the adrenaline is worn off, you will physically and mentally crash. You might even feel like you’ve been hit by a truck. You will feel some relief that it’s over and a little sadness that it’s over. Coming down from the build up of the last months, weeks and days isn’t always pretty.

Who knows? You might not experience one of these ten things in the least, and if that’s the case you’re a much more pulled together person than I am. But that’s my advice, just in case.