What you are about to read is based (cough, cough!) on a true story.
Raise your hand if you are one of those brides who had your whole wedding planned as a little girl. Guilty. Yup. Yenta Alison is that girl. As a very young child, I appointed my Barbies and their Dream House as the models and prototypes for what would become the best day of my life. So, 20-ish years later, the actual wedding was set to happen and my groom — my own personal Ken — was not made of plastic and his swim trunks didn’t stop mid-thigh. He was excited about the wedding, too, and trusted me to realize all my plans that previously existed in the world of Mattel.
I would have colorful, floral centerpieces with flowers that coordinated with my bouquet. “Yes,” he said.
I would include pink, pink, pink in all of the decor elements and favors. “Yes,” he said.
I would order chair covers and accenting sashes tied in knots and not bows. “Yes,” he said.
He would wear a black tuxedo, with a white vest and a white Windsor tuxedo tie. “No,” he said.
Did you hear that?
That was the sound of the Barbie Corvette coming to a loud, screeching halt as if it was about to intersect a train on tracks.
What? He wouldn’t wear a tuxedo with a tie? “No,” he said. He wanted to wear a bow tie.
From here began a series of heated discussions about how I’d always imagined my groom wearing a tuxedo with a tie because in every blog I was stalking, that’s what the other guys were wearing, and all the photos at the tux stores featured hunky models in modern long tuxedo ties! I pulled out every piece of ammunition for this argument and I insisted on winning. After a while, I lost sight of what I was actually fighting for and didn’t want to go back to my corner as the loser. I mean, did I really expect him to be catching up on what’s hot in wedding blogs or should I have let him achieve his classic, crooner look that’s an expression of himself? Obviously, looking back now, I should have answered the latter.
But it was too late. I was the loser. I was the loser as soon as I had assumed and then insisted my husband-to-be wear a long tuxedo tie. On his own body. On his wedding day.
And that’s when it hit me. Even though my groom had voiced his wardrobe preference, and even though he cared about one thing and one thing only to even voice his preference, I lost the battle before I even opened my mouth. It was my only bridezilla hiccup and it was not pretty.
There were tears. We said bad words that the ladies of The Wedding Yentas aren’t supposed to say. We experienced that awkward, touchy time as the dust settled. And then we talked. And finally, I told him to wear his bow tie and wear it good. That he could wear a potato sack on our wedding day and still be the most handsome groom. I realized that my man was not even close to being a groomzilla. The guy just had his own vision of what he wanted to wear. And that was okay. I was being a brat that day and I’m not normally a brat, but I let the wedding planning serpents get the best of me, and meanwhile, I was not my best me. I’m not proud of my tantrum, but it has since allowed me to find perspective in cases where there’s a difference of opinion.
Fast forward to the wedding day which featured a good looking group. The groomsmen looked like total studs in their black tuxedos, white shirt, black vests, and black Windsor ties. And their buddy, my groom, stood out in his white vest and bow tie, looking so dapper and coordinated. It all turned out beautifully and, looking back on it, my foot tasted horribly in my mouth.
So why am I sharing this? Why am I admitting this brush with an inner wedding-planning monster? Because it all works out. There may be a few bumps in the road and you might experience stress. You could flip out about anything from the chipped piece of paint on your otherwise perfectly manicured fingers or you may have a panic attack about the mismatched shoelaces in your husband’s rented tux shoes, but you know what? You still get married. You still leave that chuppah as a Mrs. and you still get a whole lifetime to love up your hubster. It’s okay to want everything to be right. It’s okay to have a blueprint for your wedding dreams. And it’s totally okay to have wedding nightmares and vent to your mom and girlfriends. But don’t lose sight of the final destination and let the speedbumps become cliff dives. Create and raise standards for your wedding, but do not etch your expectations into stone. A little “go with the flow” goes a long way.
Allow your groom to voice his opinions and open up the planning to discussion. I often dished about the wedding plans with my Mr., but his usual response was something like, “Do what you want, love. You’ll do a wonderful job and I don’t know anything about [insert detail here].” So the one thing he did care about, that actually had to do with him, personally, ended up being the right thing. And he looked better than Ken looks in any of his tacky 80s outfits in my doll box.
Today, we are married and my husband has granted me final say on the outfits that he chooses from the closet. And when we revisit that all-out discussion fight, I roll my eyes and we both laugh.
