I’ve been wanting to talk about this dreaded term “blog-worthy” for a long time, so when Marisa send me an email with the title, “I accidentally had a blog-worthy wedding… and that’s ok” I was ALL OVER IT. So lets parse this a little bit: the term blog-worthy wedding gives me HIVES. It’s about focusing on what someone else might think about your wedding instead of how it feels, it’s about judging your wedding and yourself by some sort of external standard that you’ve decided that you have to live up to. Do a lot of us bloggers personally like a quirky/ edgy/ slightly femme asthetic? Yeah. We totally do. Is that the point? No, it totally is not.
The worst is when people say that they can’t send me their wedding because their wedding is ‘Too ___ for APW.’ Which is awful. And, by the way, is almost never true. As Liz wisely said last week, “Every time a bride says, ‘A think my wedding is TOO___ for APW…’ the WIC wins, people.”
So when Marisa wrote me about her wedding being pretty, but that not being the point, it rang true to me. I remember when I got our very first pictures back from Heather & Jon, I was scared to show them to you guys. Because you know what? Our wedding pictures are pretty. In fact, our real life wedding was stylish. But what I learned getting married was, that’s not the point. The point wasn’t how it looked (though I’m grateful that our wedding aesthetic ended up reflecting who we are) the point was how it FELT. And I was scared that by showing you the pretty pictures, you might miss the whole point. But you didn’t, because you are amazing. So with that, I bring you Marisa. Her wedding is beautiful, but somehow? I think you’ll get the point this time too.
Dear Meg,
We got engaged over 2 years before we got married, so there was plenty of time for me to surf the internet and read magazines and attend other weddings picking and choosing what I did and didn’t want and figuring out what the whole thing meant to me.
I was never one of those girls who started dreaming about her white gown at 4 years old. It wasn’t something I ever thought about. But I LOVE throwing parties, and this seemed like a way to really go all out and plan the ultimate killer party.
I wanted it to be beautiful, I wanted the food to be good, I wanted people to dance until they had cramps and keep dancing anyway.
Not to impress anyone, not because I need it to look like something out of MS Weddings (although I do really love their aesthetic) but because I love it when people are just having a blast because of something I organized. It’s true at our Halloween parties, it’s true on NYE, and it was true at my wedding too.
At the last minute we had some great fortune in the form of free upgrades thrown our way from the rental company and the florist – the cheaper flowers we ordered were unavailable and so the florist just went all out with much more expensive pieces I could never have afforded at no extra cost.
The weddings before and after ours threw down $3k+ on a clear top and lights for the tent and chiavari chairs and the rental guy offered them to us at no charge so they wouldn’t have to take them down and set them up again.
We found a photographer (Photo Pink) on Offbeat Bride who was unavailable but hooked us up with their associate who is new to full time wedding photography (read: more affordable) but phenomenally talented. We got REALLY lucky. We had giant balloons. We had a photobooth. We had little string lights.
But above and beyond, we had laughter and and tequila and NO stress and speeches that made everyone cry.
We had a party so good people had to be thrown out at the end of the night.
When the amps blew and we lost the music for 5 minutes, everyone kept clapping along and then chose another song to sing and the dance party didn’t stop for one second.
We had cheers and light and love and now we’re husband and wife. And the fact that it looked so darn good is awesome, but it’s SO not the point.
So here are some pictures of my accidentally blog worthy wedding.
They’re pretty, yeah. But the prettiest things are the huge grins on everyone’s faces in every picture, the sweat stains from people dancing their hearts out, our families, intermingled, dancing with their arms around each other. THAT’S blog worthy.
Pictures: Amanda Borozinski & Will Wrobel of Boro Creative Visions
Note on the photos: So, an interesting thing about what you see on blogs, and what you might consider ‘blog-worthy’ (ew) is how the photos are edited. Marisa & Adam have a million great detail shots (like their flowers… whoa, pretty) But you know what? I think the emotion shots are the real story. The shot I care less about is the bridesmaids shoes (Great shot, aesthetically interesting.) What I’m interested in showing you is the pile o’ bridesmaids in a hug. Also aesthetically a great shot (talented photographer alert) but that one makes me want to grin and cry at the same time. And even I almost never show you what are arguably the most important pictures from a wedding – the rings being exchanged, the couples with their families… because I didn’t want those pictures from our wedding on the internet, so I try to build other couples that shield of privacy. So think about that when you look at wedding photos. Editing controls how the story is told. (And THAT, my friends, is my BFA in composition in action. Sighhh….)
