APW 2011 Reader Survey!

** Update: I’ve opened the survey for 250 more responses, so the West Coast can get in, so go, now. Side note: y’all always stay exactly statistically the same no matter how long the surveys are open (go figure), but I want everyone to be able to give me their two cents, yes? Yes! Go!**

You Guys!

It’s time for the 2011 APW reader survey! I’m saying this with a lot of excitement, because last year I learned that you guys like a good survey as much as I do. You want to tell me your opinions, and I like that in a person. So! This is the way it works. There are 1,000 responses for this survey. Last year Team Practical filled up those responses in 12 hours, and then people were pissed that they didn’t get to participate. So! To be forewarned is to have four arms (or something like that). If you want to participate in the survey and tell me all your opinions (and I hope you do), you might want to go ahead and do that, um, now.

Details. Since I know most of you read the site over your coffee, I’ve made a coffee length survey. It will take you about 5 minutes, 7 minutes if you think really, really hard about your answers. The first part is all demographic information, and the second is your feedback on the site (what you love, where you want it to go), and the future site… you know, the one that’s more about marriage and families, and that I’ll start working on once I’m done with the APW Book.

So tell all. And when you get to the one fill in the blank question, be nice, ok? Lauren, Alyssa, and I are real people and we’ll read your answers and think hard about them. And when you call us stupid c*nts, it makes us cry real tears. Just sayn’.

Thank you, the end. GO GIVE ME YOUR OPINIONS ALREADY.

Smooches,

Meg

Picture: Last year, Jamie of Cactus and Quail made us these amazing charts of all the survey data. This year she’s very pregnant (eeeee!), so don’t hold your breath.

Jocelyn & Scott’s Family Cottage Wedding

I love Jocelyn’s wedding graduate post because it somehow strikes the perfect balance. Jocelyn doesn’t tell you that your wedding is your day and you should do whatever you want (sigh, it’s not), but she does tell you to choose your heart. She tells you, really clearly, that in the stress of wedding planning, it’s easy to fall into doing what seems right for everyone else, and to stop listening to what your needs are, and what your partner’s needs are. She says, “So I say this to all the brides and grooms who are frantically trying to cater to others or trying to plan the perfect wedding according to the rules of tradition: I firmly believe that the two of you should be your main priority during the planning stages.” And I think this is spot on. Your wedding day is for everyone, but as you navigate the planning process, you’re slowly learning how to be a new family, and how to stick up for your needs. Be brave, and know yourself. And with that, I give you Jocelyn.

Through the process of planning our wedding, we learned everything we know now about weddings. How is that possible? Because we knew nothing (I mean nothing) about weddings before we had our own. The last wedding I’d been to before ours? It was my aunt and uncle’s wedding, I was 6 years old, and their flower girl. The term “wedding novice” was coined for people like us. I could sit here and tell you that that all changed when we got engaged; as if the presence of an engagement ring on my finger magically told me what weddings were all about. No such luck. It was a long process. It was a year and a half of learning what worked for us and what didn’t.

And for the first months of our engagement, that process was particularly difficult. I’d turn red in the face if I ever had to describe to you in person the way I behaved during the first six months of our engagement. If I had to use one word, I’d say it was ridiculous. If I use more than one word, I’d tell you how I got the idea in my head that our wedding had to be an expensive, elaborate, formal affair with a dress that cost more than a car and décor so fancy we’d need a line of credit to pay for it.

For six months, I thought that was the kind of wedding we would have. I thought it was perfect, just the way I’d pictured it. But eventually, I began to realize that I, in fact, hadn’t pictured anything at all. I could not remember a single time growing up that I’d fantasized about my wedding. Even after meeting Scott and realizing that I wanted to marry him, I still had no idea what our wedding would entail. I figured, hey, as long as we get married, it’ll be a success. I just didn’t care about a lot of the other stuff. Actually, let me try that again… I didn’t care until I was made to feel as though I needed to care. Websites, bridal magazines, television shows… all these things told me I needed a clear vision for my wedding. So I began to obsess over every single detail with the goal of making everything perfect according to the standards placed in front of me by magazines, movies, blogworthy weddings etc.

It took us (okay, okay, me especially) a long time to realize that we didn’t need a clear vision for our wedding. It could just be a wedding. It could be whatever we wanted it to be. We didn’t need a color scheme. We didn’t need a theme; Victorian, tropical beach, woodland themes? Not for us. Our theme was “wedding”. That’s it. It was a wedding. That’s the theme. End of story, goodbye.

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