For years I’ve been joking that, despite working for APW, I basically never get to go to weddings. Maybe one a year? So obviously the universe is paying me back for that joke by giving me four super important weddings to go to in 2017, two of which I’m a bridesmaid in. Which means that I’ve spent the better part of the last year or so playing wedding therapist to people in my inner circle. Why is this part of wedding planning so hard? Why is my mom trying to ruin my sanity? Why can’t I find a goddamn makeup artist who won’t make me look like a clown?
And what keeps surprising me is how everyone’s problems run the gamut. There’s the friend who accidentally printed the wrong wedding website URL on her invitations (#whoops). Then there’s the one who is pretty sure she needs to fire her wedding planner (except the wedding is only three months away). And the one who can’t, for the life of her, find a local hair and makeup artist for her wedding. Other issues I’ve fielded include:
- Will a traditional hair stylist know what to do with my semi-androgynous-but-still-feminine undercut?
- Will our venue look too rustic when all’s said and done?
- Is our coordinator too flighty to figure out our table decorations?
- One of our vendors is trying to get extra travel fees out of us, after we already signed a contract.
- Will we have enough booze, or are we going to have to make an emergency run in the middle of the reception?
- The weather, omg, the weather.*
So sure, sometimes the biggest frustration in wedding planning is your family acting like fools or the made-up problems of someone else. But it also might be something a little more straightforward and just as stressful.
So tell me APW, what’s your biggest wedding planning headache right now? There’s no point in me hoarding all this advice for just my nearest and dearest. And if you’re already married? What was your big planning headache and how did it turn out?
*Maddie’s therapy services do not include acts of God.
