No, it's not just about the bride

I don't think I've blogged much about my upcoming wedding reception. For those of you who don't know (practically everyone), I got married at a little civil ceremony last year, which is why I refer to my husband on occasion, but we are having a big reception for friends and family this September. Currently we're less than three months out and it feels like I haven't accomplished anything some days. Luckily that's not entirely true.

My theory going into this experience was that if you're not having fun planning and just getting stressed out by the experience, losing sight of the actual reason you're having this "party" (celebrating a union with the love of your life in the presence of friends and family... no, it's not just about the bride), then what's the point. I've tried to live up to this ideal, while planning a wedding on a very tight budget. My plan: get as much help as possible from other people and then let them run with it. This works incredibly well for relieving stress, since it means you're not worrying about every last detail.

One friend, who is an amazing amateur baker/cake decorator, is making our cake. Free of charge, it's her wedding present to us. Another friend, who takes amazing pictures and has several weddings to her name, will be our official photographer. Again, it's her wedding present to us. My mother and mother-in-law are growing all of the flowers for the wedding (I told them colors and that the flowers needed to be hardy enough to withstand the kind of punishment meted out to wedding flowers, and they're doing the rest).

I told my bridesmaids what color dress and shoes I wanted them to wear (red dress, black shoes) and told them to get whatever they wanted. This led to quite a bit of debate on whether or not I was sure I didn't want to specify hem lengths of sleeves v. no-sleeves (and no, I didn't, thank you very much). I turned the honeymoon planning over to my DH (it's done, we figured everything out in one day of serious planning). My dad rented the venue (I think he got tired of waiting for me to make a decision on which one I wanted), and I'm pleased as a peach with his choice.

Considering all this, I often feel like I'm not doing anything at all. But that's not true either, I'm just not stressing out about it. I created and sent out the invitations, made hotel reservations for out-of-town guests, put a deposit down on all the rentals, figured out and made the cards for the "guest book" (I am going to be glueing the cards into my wedding scrapbook), almost finished the ceremony decorations, made jewelry for the bridesmaids and myself, ordered supplies for the scrapbook of the civil ceremony I want to display and for the table runners and placemats I want to make myself, etc. The only downer seemed to come the other day, when I got in email in response to a craigslist ad I had posted asking for culinary arts/hospitality students to help out at the event. I won't repeat here what it said, but it definitely left me feeling down in the dumps.

Not stressing out about this hard-core, is making this whole experience so much better. I'm looking forward to throwing a great party and saying my vows to my beloved in front of family and friends. But all the legal stuff is already dispensed with, so there's no reason to stress out anyway.

Did you stress out about your wedding and was it worth it?