Thinking of a wedding? We talked to MrsMaqC about hers and what advice she has for anyone thinking of making the big step.
MaqC (my husband) and I share a story of faith, love and friendship. During our dating and courting time, we knew when we wanted to get married, we had picked 10.10.10 (an amazing date because it happens once every 1000 years) so all our energies were geared towards this date.
During our courting, I had to leave my job…this was a deep-end moment for me…but MaqC understood. We had been friends for around 5 years he knew my happiness was more important than anything else. We openly discussed our state of finances and it played a big part in our plans for the big day.
Instead of going for 5-star dates in large restaurants we downgraded to more creative dates picnics and we even discovered cheap quality places in town that hold great memories even today.We only had one source of income, yet he still had bills to pay, school etc. I am sure it really stretched him, but never at one time did we fight about money or how we would spend it. He trusted me and I trusted him. I believe this period taught us valuable lessons lesson we carried to our marriage and money issues are easily discussed and we actually look forward to budgeting together.
The challenge was sometimes sticking to the budget, there were some times everything looked like an emergency or a priority,but luckily we had good friends who we were accountable to.They would poke our budget, critique it (with love of course) and give their opinion regarding what we needed to do. We also had a working committee (not those ones that people have to remove money to be part of the committee as a way of fund raising – These were our friends who also helped us out during the wedding day) They had appointed a treasurer-so Mr. Money Bags helped us in knowing who to pay first and by when.
We also had amazing suppliers, I had previously worked with some of them before while some were referrals from friends and they were very understanding when it came to payment. In particular I remember Muthoni – our baker. She did such an awesome job in keeping us updated on the progress of the cake, we tasted samples of it. She even made a mock presentation of the cake for the day. On the wedding day she was there on time and she ensured that my cake generously fed 1,000 people.We even had some left after the wedding. She was just simply too amazing.
I had previously heard that: All the single girls want to have their dream wedding through you and all the married ones want to rectify their wedding mistakes through yours. So we were wary of the advice we got. What helped us from following everyone’s advice is that we had a theme for our wedding. We wanted our wedding to be one of Hope (for anyone going through a heart break) a time for restoration, (for the married ones almost giving up) all our thoughts & planning was geared towards this. It made it easier to sift through advice others brought. The question we all posed to all of them was ” Will it portray hope and restoration?” That is why we didn’t have goldfish center pieces:-) It also helped that I had previously planned and coordinated a couple of weddings so this helped in just narrowing down advice we received.
Before you begin the journey, one needs to remember there is life after the wedding. Your wedding is just one day,so beware of turning into a bridezilla (or groomzilla) and destroying friendships, burning bridges and all. You may find that people will help during the wedding day but disappear after that since they don’t want to be associated with you. Marriage is a lifetime, this makes it important to watch how you treat your spouse to be during the wedding planning process. It is a tedious, hectic time so it’s important that you are speaking honestly to each other even when things are thick. What helped for us is that we had a non-wedding day. From the morning text to the good night call-we would not speak about the wedding even if things were falling apart. It was to prepare us for the marriage and it helped to calm us and ground us in the middle of the hectic, crazy times.
My greatest advice to anyone planning a wedding? Write your own story, don’t try and and copy someone else.
The writer is MrsMaqC find her on twitter or tell her what you think below.