A little background on
the Sulla Tips... The Sulla Tips grew out of my experiences as a regular on the
Knot's message boards while planning my 2002 wedding. Each day, the boards are littered
with posts from brides beside themselves over wedding planning issues that
don't even have to cross their radar screens in the first place, from the woman
who needed confirmation that it was ok that her wedding colors didn't include
her favorite colors, to the one who worried whether serving New York strip at a
rehearsal dinner is "somehow wrong?" ("I'm pathetic for worrying
about this, but I'm needing your opinions," confessed the strip steak
bride.) There was the bride who was seriously concerned about whether she could
still order white chair covers if she wore an ivory dress and the one who asked
in all earnestness whether her cake needed to match the interior or exterior of
her reception site.
There's such an overload of wedding info out there - they don't
call it the "wedding-industrial complex" for nothing! -- that it's
easy for women who've been prepped since childhood for "the most important
day of their lives" to worry and obsess about the trappings...moreso than
they obsess about what it actually means to get married. Bridal tunnel vision,
it seemed, had spiraled completely out of control...and so, the Sulla Tips were
born. And here they are.
The Sullatips:
Straightforward Rules for Keeping Wedding Planning From Sapping Your
Common Sense, Squashing Your Sense of Humor, and Sucking the Joy Out of One of
Life's Most Joyous Occasions
By Jennifer
Mendelsohn
My best piece of wedding
advice? Its a party, its a party, its a party. Don't let your obsession with
making sure you do and buy all the stuff you're "supposed" to suck
the joy out of your very joyous day. Just let it roll and make sure that your
wedding is, at heart, a celebration, not a staged production. We've somehow
gotten so crazed about all the stuff we're supposed to do and have and buy,
that IMO, too many weddings have lost that carefree sense of celebration that
the old-fashioned, simple VFW Hall events had in spades.
In other words, it's all
about feeling, not stuff. (One of my favorite weddings ever was in a backyard
and planned in about three months.) If you want to make your wedding better,
make it richer in feeling, not in stuff.
Let me say that again.
If you want to make your wedding better, make
it richer in feeling, not stuff.
Too much
"stuff" can actually sometimes bog it down and make it less enjoyable
and meaningful. Plus, you're front-loading your day with anxiety if you must
have every single little thing controlled and coordinated and (God I hate this
word) perfect.
You really don't have to obsess about matching the bridesmaids' earrings and
hose, or coordinating the groomsmen's ties to the frosting and the bow on the
flower girl's dress. Do not give so much as a second thought to your uneven
bridal party (this isn't a military parade, it's a wedding!) and think about throwing
a great, memorable party to mark your marriage.
Why? Because it's really
not about whether the sash on your dress matches the favor boxes and the ink on
the save-the-date cards, or about finding the absolute perfect cake serving set
to match your theme. (We didn't even have favors, STDs, a serving set or a theme.)
It's about the look on the face of the woman wearing the sash dress and cutting
the cake, even if she uses a rusty old knife someone found in the back. As my
caterer likes to say, your bridesmaids' dresses do not need to match the linens
unless you plan to use the bridesmaids as centerpieces. (Hey! It could cut your
flower bill.)
Ponder this for a second:
why are second weddings almost always so much fun? Because their metaphorical
hearts are in the right place. Second-time brides seem much more willing to
dispense with all the wedding-y "stuff" and focus instead on throwing
a meaningful, relaxed celebration - a party. So try to plan your wedding like
it's your second...even if it's really your first.
I'm not saying it's
intrinsically wrong to match everything and obsess about the details if that
really makes you happy and that's a natural instinct for you. But it seems like
I've seen far too many brides make themselves miserable trying to match
everything and make all the little details perfect because they think they're supposed to,
like the Knottie who was worried about what color limo would look best against
her dress. (Puh-leeze!) Or they think that the skies will rain fire and their wedding
will suck if they don't get crazed about having the font on the save-the-dates
match the cocktail napkins. It won't. If it's something you don't care about,
but you're all uptight that you're supposed to care about it, or worried that you
see other people caring about, it's probably not something you should care
about.
I'm also most definitely
NOT saying that elaborate, fancy weddings can't be wonderful ones. (As a matter
of fact, I had a pretty elaborate, fancy wedding.) But if you're going into it
thinking that it's the fancy, elaborate stuff that's going to make the wedding a good
one, think again. Wonderful weddings are the ones that feel wonderful, regardless of how much
or how little "stuff" is involved. It's a question of emphasis: if
you make sure you're aiming for a great feeling wedding first and foremost, you can
have as much or as little matchy matchy "stuff" as you want. But the
problem I see so many brides encountering is that they seem to have their
priorities backwards, and they're investing the "stuff" and the
details with way too much importance, thinking that the only way to have a
great wedding is to make sure all the "stuff" is perfect. But they
end up shooting themselves in the foot because the obsession with detail
becomes so overwhelming and anxiety-producing (totally understandable, btw,
given what we all see in the magazines and tv shows and on the web) that they
get tunnel vision and completely forget the joyous celebration that this is all
supposed to be about. It's a party, it's a party, it's a party!
My brother, a very
well-regarded wedding photographer, very smartly says there are only two kinds
of wedding, regardless of size, budget, location, style, or anything else: fun
weddings and stressful weddings. Aim to make yours fun and the rest will fall
into place.
In short, nobody ever
leaves a wedding saying, "Yeah, it was soooo great! The mother of the
groom's dress was the SAME EXACT SHADE as the bridesmaids' shoes!" People
leave a wedding thinking it was great because it felt great - because the bride and groom
were in love and happy, and the party felt appropriately joyous, even if
there's not a single Martha Stewart-ish detail anywhere in sight.
MORE SULLA TIPS.....
* Psst! You're in charge.
Not the wedding industry. I'm so tired of brides asking "Can I do
this?" or "Would it be ok if I did this?" When it comes to your
wedding, YOU are the ultimate authority, not Martha Stewart, and not a chorus
of anonymous women on the Internet. Of course there are protocols to help guide
you, but that's all they are: guidelines, not legal doctrines written in stone.
Don't be afraid to deviate from them and follow your gut. The only way to make
your wedding truly memorable is to make it truly yours, not to make it a carbon
copy of every other bride's.
While we're at it, this
also means that asking "Is [insert wedding detail here] worth it?" is
kind of a meaningless question. We all have a budget, and you have to assign
priorities within that budget. If having the most fabulous Vera Wang or Reem
Acra gown is the most important thing in the world to you, and you are willing
to serve your guests on paper plates to achieve it, then it's worth it to you.
(Of course, I can't really condone that one in good conscience, but I'm just
trying to make a point!) Maybe having the world's best live band is more
important to you, and it means you can't have a couture gown. Whatever the
specifics, I see this getting asked all the time on the Knot and the answer is
that there are no absolute values assigned here: wearing a couture gown (or
having a live band, or engraved invitations, or a video, or whatever) is
"worth" something very different to every woman, so no one can make
those decisions for you. Sure, get some input. Find out how others made these
choices. But know that ultimately, you need to trust your gut and your budget.
* Don't let the reception
planning overshadow your ceremony planning. It's really what the day is about.
And besides, nothing puts guests in a better mood to party than witnessing a
meaningful and personal wedding ceremony. I remember a very very fancy over-
the top country club wedding that must have cost $100,000. But they had an
incredibly mediocre, "insert-bride -and-groom here" kind of ceremony.
And to be honest, when I think back on that wedding, what I remember most is
the crappy ceremony, not the vodka shot bar.
* This is tough, but I
believe that money does not equal control. Just because your parents (or
whoever) are paying, does not give them the right to steamroll you. That means
that if you want a small intimate wedding, your mother doesn't get to invite
100 people just because she pays for it. Your husband's grandfather does not
get to have a polka band just because he pays for it. (By the same token, if
your mother is paying, and she wants an all broccoli menu, that's her right,
right?) Think about if you were going to throw your parents an anniversary
party. And you picked the menu that YOU liked, the flowers and music YOU liked
and a guest list of all YOUR friends. You'd be a pretty thoughtless host,
right? Well, though it's controversial, I believe the same is true of hosting a
wedding. Your parents already were the bride and groom...now it's your turn.
They don't get to go again. ;-)
*Remember that it's all
good. Wedding stress is undeniably real. There's no getting around it. Believe
me, I've been there. Weddings hit many uncomfortable hot button issues, and
we've all had moments where we just want to kick it all. But you're planning a
wedding, not a funeral or a fundraiser to help your dying child get a new
heart.
Which is to say that it's
really hard to feel sorry for someone overwhelmed by planning a wedding, and
there's nothing, and I mean nothing, more unattractive than a bride who whines her
way through what should be an exciting, happy process. Because in truth you've
done the truly stressful part already: you've survived the dating scene and
found the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. And you're
stressing over planning the ceremony that will bond the two of you and the
wonderful party that will celebrate that bond and perhaps even the fabulous
vacation you get to go on when it's all over? Poor you. I don't want to get too
maudlin here, but I just had a 35 year old friend with three little boys under
the age of five die of cancer. His wife's website about their daily battle with
his illness and her attempts to keep it together for the boys should be
required reading for every bride who's complaining about how stressful it is to
plan her wedding.
Sometimes it helps to
take a step back and remember why you're a wreck: You're planning a joyous
occasion, and if you're letting it make you miserable, you're doing something
wrong.
*Guests only see what's
there, not what isn't. I actually learned this one on the Knot when planning my
own wedding in 2002. People will never know that you didn't choose the most
expensive entrˇe, or that you opted for the trio instead of the quartet to save
money. I desperately wanted the ridiculously expensive Chiavari chairs for my
wedding, but ultimately realized I couldn't stretch our budget to fit them. And
I stressed and stressed over it. We had plain white wooden folding chairs
instead. Do you think anyone came away from my wedding saying, "It was
nice, but she should have had better chairs"? If you focus on making the
most of what is there, nobody will ever be the wiser about the options you
turned down.
*You're having a wedding,
not a photo shoot. A wedding is an event involving real people that will also
be photographed and often, filmed. You're not staging an event just to be
photographed and filmed or costuming actors to play a role. Which means that
you really shouldn't stress about whether your father-in-law's ivory tie will
clash with the bridesmaids' champagne dresses in the pictures or if your
fiancˇ's shirt needs to be the exact same shade as your dress, unless you have
a Raggedy Ann and Andy theme in play. You're having a party for people to
enjoy, not a photo shoot with models. Make it your priority to focus on doing
whatever it takes to make the actual event wonderful, and the pictures will reflect that. If you
find yourself asking, "But how will it look in pictures?", think
again. "Is this what I want for my wedding?" is a much healthier
question. In other words, aim for a great wedding, not just a perfect-looking record of
one. Besides, you should banish the word "perfect" from your wedding
vocabulary unless you're talking about your spouse. (And a special footnote
about the eternal white shirt/ivory dress "crisis": a man in a crisp
white tuxedo shirt can never, ever be out of style, no matter what the woman
standing next to him is wearing.)
Having been through the
entire wedding process, I now heartily recommend that you don't get stressed
out about what anyone else but you is going to wear to your wedding. That means
no dictating your mother-in-law's dress, or picking shoes or hairdos for the
bridesmaids unless they're asking you to. Whoever it is you're worried about
could wear a Hefty bag and a lampshade and I promise you you won't notice
because you will be so blissfully happy that day. All the people involved in
your wedding are presumably adults and what they wear reflects on no one but
them. It's just not worth it, because the net result (bridesmaids in matching
shoes, for instance) will really not make your wedding more enjoyable or
memorable or special, but bridesmaids who are happy and relaxed and feel good
about what they're wearing really will. Just my .02. I guess I understand the
matching bridesmaid dress is very important to some people, but I have a
general rule of thumb that no one over the age of, say, six, should have their
footwear chosen for them.
*I think part of the
"photo shoot syndrome" is that too many brides think their wedding
will take place in a fantasy zone that bears no connection to their day-to-day
lives. You think you will arrive, butterfly and princess-like, on the wedding
morning, to discover your friends and family will somehow be more attractive and
caring, your own manners will be better, and all normal human impulses will be
stifled. You think you will be whisked from moment to moment on a sugarcoated
cloud of good will and tulle, as if the wedding zone exists outside the
space/time continuum. Annoying Aunt Edna will miraculously be transformed into
your cool best friend and mosquitoes won't bite and you won't sweat when you
dance or snort when you laugh.
As special and important
and meaningful and remarkable and splendid as it is, it's really just a day of
your life, the one after the day before and before the day after. I would
recommend you don't have expectations that it will be this fantasy perfect day
that has nothing to do with your real life. It's this fantasy expectation that
can breed bridezillas who won't allow pregnant bridesmaids or uneven bridal
parties or (I am not making this up) a bridesmaid in a wheelchair because of
how it might look. I think the best weddings are those that reflect, respect
and celebrate the reality of your life, even when that reality is a little
imperfect, not those that feel completely removed from reality, like you're
watching a perfectly scripted movie. You're a bride, and that's very special,
but you're not a Stepford wife or a Kabuki performer. Keep it real.
*Let's talk about
photography. If your preference is for that very natural photojournalistic
look, I urge you to use a REAL photojournalist, not a wedding photographer who
shoots a few candids and calls that a "photojournalistic style",
which is all the rage lately. How can you tell? Real photojournalists will have
worked for wire services, newspapers or magazines. If you don't hire someone
with that kind of background, chances are your wedding pictures will not look
that way because they haven't been trained to shoot that way. When people ask
what the difference is, I say that traditional photographers create perfect
"moments" - not necessarily ones that actually happened -- and
capture those: they fan out the bride's dress in a perfect half circle. They stop
the bride and groom in the middle of the cake cutting and tell them when to
smile. They have the mother and father stand a few steps away and gaze
lovingly. In general, they direct the action. Photojournalists are trained to
shoot news, not set up shots ...they capture the day as it unfolds, good, bad,
ugly, (well hopefully not too ugly), but most of all...spontaneous. War
photographers don't head into battle with a "must take" list, and
neither do sports photographers going to cover a game. They just shoot what
they see. So you won't get a parents-gazing-lovingly shot from a
photojournalist unless that moment actually happened.
This doesn't mean that
photojournalists won't take some beautiful posed portraits for you, or won't get
the obligatory picture of you with your parents. But their posed portraits just
tend to be much more natural looking, and they will probably be less willing to
do the 900 different family constellation photos. (Here's Bob and Jane with
Mom. Here's Bob and Jane with Mom and Dad. Here's Mom and Dad with just
Jane....) Photojournalists tell the story of your wedding in pictures. Period.
(And for the record, that has nothing to do with pictures of your shoes!) I
also laugh when people say photojournalism is just a "trend"; tell
that to Civil War photographer Matthew Brady, whose battlefield photos can
still rip your heart out 140 years later. Timeless, beautiful photogaphy will
never, ever be out of style. Trite, contrived pictures will look dated almost
immediately.
While we're on the
subject of photography, nothing irks me more than people who say they want
really unique pictures...and then ask people to post theirs so they can copy
poses. The only way to have really unique pictures is to have pictures that capture what
happened at your wedding and your wedding only. And once again, after many
years as a regular on the Knot message boards, I don't think I've EVER seen a
bride say her favorite wedding photo was one she copied from someone else's
album. They're almost always something that captured a unique moment that could
never be replicated. Please, please, please, just stop with the "must
take" picture lists - especially when so many of the pictures you're
trying to copy are candids and therefore really un-duplicatable. It's almost
embarrassing to think your wedding album is going to be filled with pictures
you "borrowed," copying what happened naturally at someone else's
wedding. What should you do instead? Hire a photographer you trust who'll have
creative, imaginative ideas of their own. I beg you. It's fine if you want to
show your photographer a few pictures you like to give them an idea of the
style that appeals to you, but replicating them exactly? Yikes. If you're
somebody who wants and needs all the "traditional" poses, by all
means, use that checklist they give you on the Knot, but this whole idea of
recreating creative poses is, to me, (as someone whose completely candid photos
have appeared in others' bios on the must-take list) bordering on, um, creepy.
I've also heard it
(incorrectly, IMO) said that the bride and groom somehow need to be camera
savvy to be properly captured by a photojournalist, or that not every wedding
is a good bet for photojournalism. I heartily disagree. Do you think before
publications send photographers out to shoot a feature story, they first
investigate whether the subject is "camera-savvy?" It doesn't matter
who you are or where your wedding is or what you look like: every single
wedding - a sacred event where two people in love commit their lives to each
other in the presence of friends and family and (often) God -- is going to be
filled with countless beautiful, inimitable, heartwrenching moments ripe for
capturing, as long as you have a photographer who knows how to do it. You
shouldn't need to "borrow" from anyone.
My Wedding Day advice: After all my months
and months of planning everything in meticulous detail, one warm summer morning
I woke up and it was actually my wedding day. I had done everything I could to
make sure it went off as seamlessly as possible. Now all I could do was
actually enjoy the fruit of all my labor. The day was going to unfold as it
unfolded and it was basically out of my hands at that point. The only thing I
could control was making sure I got down the aisle, said the vows, and got the
ring on my finger.
My take on the wedding
day? You won't remember 20 years from now if they messed up and served broccoli
quiche instead of spinach, but you will remember it if you freak out over it
and cause a scene and hide in the bathroom in tears over the quiche, the wrong
flowers, the wrong chairs, the missing organist, or whatever it is. Just let it
all roll off your back that day, no matter what. You can deal with suing your
baker when you come home from the honeymoon, but nothing kills a party more
than watching the guest of honor be demanding and/or stressed, barking orders
and snapping at everyone. (Think of some of those Bridezillas from the Fox
show. Shudder. Shudder.) Guests take their cue from you, and you should be the
happiest guest of all.
In other words, you set
the tone of your own wedding and that IS something you can control, even if
every single one of your vendors flakes out on you. Which won't happen, by the
way. The wedding isn't in the flowers or the linens or the cake or the DJ. It's
in the feeling. So even if none of those things is right, it can still be the
best wedding ever.
Just in case, DO assign
someone to deal with snafus. Under no circumstances should you be involved with
figuring out why the hors d'oeuvres are late coming out or the cake has a bash
in it. You should do nothing but laugh and drink and dance because you just got
married, which should make you happy regardless of what kind of flowers are
on the tables or what color the rosettes on the cake are. I'm not saying you
have to be superwoman and you won't be disappointed or shaken if things go
wrong, but you have to deal with them appropriately. Which means AFTER your
wedding. You'll never get that day back, so why ruin it pouting and
complaining? I'll confess that I got a little bit upset when I realized that
the light-strewn trees I had paid extra for as a ceremony backdrop had been put
all around the room instead, and our ceremony backdrop was going to be an ugly
screen that my brother had specifically told me I should cover. But when I
began to make a little fuss about it, I could see the unflattering way people
were looking at me, and I could tell I was becoming that bridezilla I swore I
wouldn't be. I immediately backed off. What-ever with the trees! Were they
there? Were they not? I couldn't even tell you. Look in my bio and tell me if
my day was ruined by the placement of the trees.
You know what else
happened at my (August) wedding? The air-conditioning wasn't working in the
cocktail hour room. What was I going to do about it? I don't know how to fix
air conditioning. (Besides, I was a little dressed up to doing hard labor.) I
knew the venue was trying to fix it, and making a big thing out of it wasn't
going to get it fixed any faster or better. None of my guests was going to
assume that I was somehow responsible for the broken air conditioning. So I
just pretended it didn't happen. The guests were, well, probably a little warm.
But they didn't complain to me. And they didn't form a posse to find the bride
who had allowed this Terrible Thing to Mar Her Perfect Wedding. Everyone had a
great time because they were celebrating the fact that my husband and I had
just married each other, a fact whose worthiness of celebration was not
dependent on whether they were in an air conditioned room, or anything else for
that matter. I have mentioned this fact to several guests and I swear
that not one of them actually remembered that the AC wasn't working. Now had I
made a big deal and confronted the caterers angrily or run off to a private
room in tears, I'm sure they would have remembered that.
Here's what one knottie
(I'm sorry, but I forget who) had to say about her wedding. I saved it because
I thought it was such an important lesson. "The only thing I regret [about
my wedding] is not being able to enjoy myself," she wrote. "I was TOO
worried. TOO stressed. TOO everything. I pretty much was a nervous wreck and
didn't enjoy my party. Everyone told me it was the best one they ever
been to but I was too stressed to enjoy it." Could there possibly be a worse
ending to the months and months of planning? Don't let it happen to you.
My take is that you're
allowed to be particular - but not neurotic ;-) -- about as many wedding
details as you want throughout the planning process. It's a big job and not one
to be taken lightly. But the morning of her wedding, as soon as you open your
eyes, you must let it all go. Stop. Basta. Enough. You're there. You made it.
Have fun. As long as you end up married to the right guy, the day was a
success. Everything else is just details...Got it?
For those who came to
this link independent of my knot bio and want to see pictures of my wedding or
read some other wedding-related articles I've written, the link is
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