Information Overload

staceylea123

Hello internet friends!

I am very new to this game and I feel like this experience is about to be incredibly overwhelming. My boyfriend and I are not yet engaged (although it's coming soon), and we want to get married in September. We are on a strict timeline because we don't live together and we want to time the wedding with expiring leases and job changes. I know it's possible to plan a wedding in 5-6 months on a budget, but what advice do you ladies have to keep yourselves from getting overwhelmed in information overload? I didn't grow up dreaming about my wedding (it was always dreaming about the guy) and now that he's here and the day is approaching, there is just so much to learn. 

This is supposed to be a time of love and excitement and creativity for one of the most important times in our lives... I don't want to become a bridezilla!

Thanks for the help!!

staceylea123

I just read the post that I should have read first before posting...

I've made a couple of mistakes already! Please forgive me for my newness and feel free to ask any questions for clarification. 

bethsmiles

Don't worry about it until you're engaged. Seriously, do not plan a wedding if you are not engaged. You can consider yourselves engaged without a ring. But there is no "unofficially engaged." You either are or you aren't.

Planning a wedding is absolutely do-able in a short amount of time. But you might also want to consider pushing back your time-table if you think you'll be too stressed out with a short engagement.

phira

I've gotta ask ... how exactly are you timing everything? Like, are all these three things supposed to happen within the same month?

staceylea123

You're absolutely correct. I've been fighting off the questions for a few months now and since I logged in for the first time today I just realized how much information there is and it overwhelmed me a little. It's always better to let it happen as it should! 

staceylea123

As far as timing goes, the thought was to get married in September and I move in with him. That will give me a month of overlap with my apartment lease to allow some time to move out. Job changes won't happen until Spring 2015 at the earliest. 

bethsmiles

I think you're stressing too much about the timing. Wait until you get engaged and then decide when the best time is to get married.

I'm curious though, what exactly are you overwhelmed by?

phira

Is there a reason you're waiting until after you're married to move in together? I know that some people have religious objections to living together before marriage, so this is totally a personal thing. But if it's a logistic thing and not a religious thing, I stroooongly recommend living together first.

cu97tiger

It sounds like you are already heeding the advice of PPs that said to relax and let it happen, so I'll just say that when the time comes, you'll figure out the right month to have the wedding. If you end up having to move out of your apartment, move your stuff into your marital house and live on a friends couch for a couple weeks, it will be worth it to not rush the wedding. But yeah, don't worry about that until the time comes. There will be plenty of time for anxiety AFTER you get engaged!

Dignity100

You can plan a wedding in 5-6 months, shorter time frames have been done.  You should not plan a wedding until you are engaged though (no ring required).  If you have a date & venue picked out (and a SO that is aware of both) - surprised you're engaged! 

If the reason for the rush is because your apartment lease is up, you could always look into doing a short-term-lease or month-to-month at your current apartment.  After you've been a tenant, many let you extend the lease on a shorter term bases.

As far as WHEN it's time to plan the wedding, there are wonderful checklists out there that can help get you and keep you on track. 

Blue & White

@dignity100 you are so smart. Our apartment lets us go month to month after our lease which is basically the whole reason we got it. Cause I mean really, can we predict the month we will buy a house accurately?

staceylea123

bethsmiles said:

I think you're stressing too much about the timing. Wait until you get engaged and then decide when the best time is to get married.

I'm curious though, what exactly are you overwhelmed by?

I think I'm overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information and choice. For every hairstyle there's 10 different veils. For every venue, there's 20 different themes to choose from. For every dress there's a million different accessories. And that's not even starting on the etiquette! I'm starting from the ground up- so I'm having to learn all of this information from scratch and then start to make choices. 

The more I read, though, the more I see that all of this is really very dependent on our style and what we want together. It seems to be all about personal style and keeping everything in  perspective. 

staceylea123

phira said:

Is there a reason you're waiting until after you're married to move in together? I know that some people have religious objections to living together before marriage, so this is totally a personal thing. But if it's a logistic thing and not a religious thing, I stroooongly recommend living together first.

It's a personal boundary of mine. Mostly religious-- the other part is some of the experiences that I've witnessed some of my friends go through. 

staceylea123

Thank you all so much for the help, patience and guidance! Perspective is going to be huge to keep the stress down and I really love the idea of going month to month if necessary! Silly me for not thinking of that!

phira

staceylea123 said:

bethsmiles said:

I think you're stressing too much about the timing. Wait until you get engaged and then decide when the best time is to get married.

I'm curious though, what exactly are you overwhelmed by?

I think I'm overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information and choice. For every hairstyle there's 10 different veils. For every venue, there's 20 different themes to choose from. For every dress there's a million different accessories. And that's not even starting on the etiquette! I'm starting from the ground up- so I'm having to learn all of this information from scratch and then start to make choices. 

The more I read, though, the more I see that all of this is really very dependent on our style and what we want together. It seems to be all about personal style and keeping everything in  perspective. 

Honestly, soooo much of that doesn't matter very much at all. A lot of people have asked us what made us choose our venue--was it the style? Does it go with our theme? How are we going to decorate it? We picked it because they offered us a great package at a discount so it would fit into our budget, and they handle catering, rentals, AND day of coordination. Theme? Decorations? Huh?

If you're feeling really overwhelmed, I highly recommend A Practical Wedding. They have a lot of great posts every day about wedding planning, as well as marriage, parenthood, divorce, etc. There's so much great insight over there.

As for your reasons, eh, whatever works for you. I'm sorry that your friends have had some less-than-great experiences. I've loved living with my partner, and it's a HUGE relief knowing that this is what it'll be like to be married to him. Not that "we're practically married already," but our domestic life will remain the same.

Dignity100

@Staceylea123 - as far as your friends having bad experiences living with their SO's, you have to remember that your relationship is different.  I'm not sure what went wrong in their relationships but if you're married and living together vs not married and living together - sure there are some differences, but you have to look at what went wrong.  I know my ex lived with me, he didn't help do housework because that was 'woman's work' - I came home from a 40+ hour work week and was expected to keep the house spotless while he played video games.  That wouldn't have mattered if we were married or not married.  In the end, I wanted an equal and not a child, so we split it off.

I am not endorsing you to plan your wedding before you're engaged:
As far as wedding vision - that can go in many different directions.  When I was looking at having the "traditional" style wedding, I was going to do a autumn-rustic wedding.  Now I'm doing a destination wedding where I will keep the autumn 'element' in my bouquet.  You know yourself and your partner and your relationship better than anybody.  So start with the basics - do you think you'd want a more princess look (this would be traditional ballroom/elegant type wedding) or are you more laid back?

I cannot really speak to most of the wedding planning.  I wasn't the girl who dreamed of my wedding either.  My FI and I decided neither one of us liked being the center of attention and that we only wanted immediate family there.  We knew his mom would not let this happen if we had a wedding here insisting were were being rude and starting to invite people behind our backs and so forth, so we decided to do a destination wedding.  It's not right for everybody - but our wedding is all package based - here's 5 venues, which one do you want; here's 5 cake choices, which do you want; this is the photography package we offer, these are some add-on choices, let us know; etc etc etc.  It's a lot easier and I'm finding that I didn't want to be the bride picking out meal choices and figuring out centerpieces.

phira

I was TOTALLY the girl who dreamed about her wedding and the difference between dreaming/pre-planning and actual planning is so different that pre-planning is totally a waste of time.

RWS2011

There is much wisdom here already, but I would just add the following: remember it is not just your wedding.  Some men don't have many opinions about the planning process, others want to be more involved.  After you are engaged, you will want to have some conversations about what kind of a day you both envision.  Are you outdoorsy, traditional, do you want a church wedding, large, intimate, etc.?  Through these conversations, you'll begin to have a sense about what your wedding might look like.

There are many options out there, because there are people of all manner of backgrounds and interests getting married.  Part of the reason you are overwhelmed is because you have not yet taken the time to think about what you and your BF want.  You will have plenty of time to do all of this after the proposal.  Rather than getting stressed now, enjoy this time before you have the very real tasks of planning your wedding together before you.