hindsight bride: what i'm glad i did

Over the next few days, my friend over at Hindsight Bride, will be sharing some of her wedding details...things she liked, things she would have done differently, and lots of goodies about mountain weddings.  Thank you for sharing these tidbits with this community...while I'm off moving across the country with my new husband!!

Preparing for this guest post has brought me on a wonderful trip down memory lane. There are so many things--little things, big things, almost forgotten things, and life-changing things--that go into and come out of a wedding. Here is a few things I wanted to share:

THINGS I’M GLAD I DID

1)  Shopped for my wedding gown with the Hindsight Groom: 

 

Shopping with the ladies is one tradition I’m glad we ignored. D. and I enjoy shopping together. Like a best girlfriend, D. gives perfect advice on what looks good on and what doesn’t. So when it came time to shop for a dress, he and I stole away to the city one snowy afternoon, and made a day of gown shopping. It was sweet, and fun, and intimate. I can think of no other person I wanted to get teary-eyed with when we found The One.

2)  Stopped stressing about what people would wear.

My FMIL bought a Maxi Dress with a busy print. I told her the print would look bad in pictures and asked her to exchange it for something else. Then she came back with a white linen dress suit. I freaked out. I didn’t want her white linen to make my ivory gown look dingy. She was just trying to make me happy, and my constantly encouraging her to return her dresses was frustrating for everyone. In the end, I just let it go. My mom ended up wearing a cute black and white polka dot dress, my brides maid was in a cream and orange linen dress, carrying blue irises. LOL, no one really matched, but we all felt beautiful, comfortable, and happy with our outfits. What more could I really want?

3)  Made my own wedding cake.

 I wouldn’t recommend this for most brides. It doesn’t really save money unless you are already a professional cake baker and have all of the equipment. However, I personally come from a long line of cooks. As an Italian-American, my childhood has been steeped in food-based traditions. And my grandmother used to make the most fantastic, elaborate, multi-tiered cakes when I was a little. It meant so much to me to make my own wedding cake, to honor my family, to cook for my guests, and to remember my grandmother. My mother graciously gave me grandma’s cake pans. Thanks Hindsight Mom!

4)  DIY-ed together 

D. and I are both creative people so it made sense that we would hand craft much of our wedding. He played art director, being closely involved with most of the design decisions, as well as doing test arrangements for our DIY flowers, sewing our bunting, and creating our fabric-wrapped vases. It made tackling the enormity of a DIY wedding fun and manageable. Go team Hindsight!

5)  Had both parents walk us down the aisle 

This was one of my favorite parts of our wedding, and I’m tearing up writing about it. Hindsight Mom called,and casually asked who would walk me down the aisle. It’s a valid question given my feminist sensibilities and the fact that my brother is my best friend. I think my mom was wondering if my father or my brother would walk me down the aisle. My brother was already my Maid of Honor, and I wanted my mom to walk me down the aisle, but also couldn’t imagine slighting my dad in that way. “Both of you!” I announced. Well, D. is very close to his parents as well, so we decided to throw out tradition completely and had both sets of parent walk both of us down the aisle. It was so incredibly wonderful.

6)  Hired a day-of-Coordinator.

The week before the wedding, I hired a day-of coordinator to manage the wedding day schedule, serve as the iPod MC, organize key players such as the servers, photographer and wedding party, and mitigate any disasters that would invariably arise. I gave her a checklist, a timeline, and list of contacts. I told her that as soon and my gown was on, she was not to come to me with any questions or problems. I didn’t have to keep track of the schedule. I spent my wedding day in blissful ignorance that my videographer left before our first dance, or that there was no salt and pepper for the S&P shakers. Good deal though; I was able to enjoy myself.

I asked the Hindsight Groom the Same Questions:

7)  Glad our wedding was outside: He likes being outside and we’re both outdoorsy people.

8)  Liked that we put our wants over tradition. He’s glad I had my brother as my Maid of Honor and did things our way rather than let tradition dictate what to do.

9)  Glad we bought a suit instead of renting a tux. While he was excited about wearing a tux for the first time in his life, he’s glad to now have a nice suit.

10)          Happy we made own cake because the tasty.