our wedding: the honesty

From the very beginning of our wedding planning, Mr. FP and I did our best to create an authentic and honest wedding. We always wanted something that was very "us".

But in the modern world of weddings, this concept can be tricky to come across. With couples on The Knot creating only slightly differentiating weddings from one another and the rest of the wedding industry telling us what our wedding should be, it's a rough situation out there for couples who want a truly authentic wedding. Early in our engagement, we spent time worrying about how we were going to pay for all of these things we "had to have". The wedding industry's words, not ours.

And aside from the subject of money, what happens when a couple simply doesn't want to include these things? What if the groom is really self conscience about his dancing skills and doesn't want to have all the attention focused on him during a first dance? What if the bride thinks the whole tradition of tossing the bouquet is a waste of time? What if they want to serve pie for dessert instead of wasting $600 on a cake no one will eat?

According to the wedding industry, those people are weird and their wedding will be lacking in one form or another. The more elements from the traditional wedding formula that a couple cuts, the more the wedding industry loses interest in them. Somehow, because they don't want to include certain elements, their wedding isn't as good as it could have been. If only they had come to their senses and done what they were supposed to do...

Let's face it, when we're planning weddings, we're surrounded by expectations. Even if we manage to escape the fiscal pressure of the wedding industry, we still experience the pressure of the expectations of others. Our friends and families have their own idea about what our wedding should be and they are infinitely harder to ignore.

This was the case for us, no doubt. After a month or two of being engaged, it was easy enough for me to flip the bird whenever the wedding industry told me what we needed to have at our wedding. But when it came to family and friends, the rough wasn't so smooth. In fact, it was down right bumpy.

Although some of the opinions we received came from the right place as our friends and family wanted us to have the best possible wedding experience (like when people told me to lighten my DIY load), it was still rough to deal with opposing opinions. And then, of course, we had tons of people who simply wanted to insert their opinion. Not to be caring or because they were concerned about us but simply because they wanted to say what was on their mind. And even though I knew these comments weren't constructive, I still spent time dwelling on them. More time than I should have. So much so that it's embarrassing when I consider it from the other side.

From the other side, the side of marriage, I can now see how ridiculous all the second guessing really was. I mean, it felt silly at the time, but now I'm flat out angry at myself for letting other people cause me to doubt our wedding. Because in spite of these opposing opinions, our wedding was perfectly "us". We dropped the things we were uncomfortable with and we kept the things that were important to us.

That meant that there was no first dance, no cake cutting and no bouquet toss.

Instead, it meant that our guests were surrounded by the handmade projects we'd poured ourselves into for months.

Instead, we were able to feel truly comfortable at our wedding instead of feeling constricted by a wedding formula we were obligated to follow.

Instead of following the rules, we followed what we wanted, and I could not be happier about it.

That decision, the one we made early in the process, that we do what we wanted, not what other people wanted for us, was the best decision we made the entire time.

Even better than the Mario and Peach cake topper. Yep, it was that good.