There's a lot society neglects to tell you as you grow up. Movies, televisions, books and the theatre all try to show snapshots of real-life, to tell stories that you may relate to, or that one day you may experience. The media in all it's forms—from oil paintings to 140-character social media blurbs—tries to portray human life in a certain, optimistic light. Also in a roundabout way, it tries to prepare you for the struggles ahead. I mean, it so obviously fails to do so as the media exaggerates and inflates stories into massive balloons so full of fantasy hot air that the original message is suffocated. The biggest example of this is the classic movie romp style of "rom-coms".

        Romantic comedies as of the last hundred or so years have told thousands of wedding and marriage tales, almost all of which end in the happily-ever-after myth. Now, I do not have the energy nor the time to touch upon the perils of that kind of story-telling. No, I'm here to discuss my troubles with one of the other, small parts of life that these love-dovey movies just gloss over: wedding planning.

        It was only in the last 20 years that Hollywood actually decided to tackle the lead-up and preparation for the most perfect (and expensive) day of any young woman's life. However, the movie directors did it in their usual superficial style (ie. Father of The Bride 1991, The Wedding Planner 2001, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2002, Bride Wars, 2009). Often an actual professional was hired to do all the hard work of planning (my wallet aches just thinking about this) while the bride and groom simply enjoyed their engagement. Or instead, the wedding plan fell entirely on the bride and her family where as the groom merely had to show up at the event to be considered 'supportive'.

        Growing up with these visions of weddings was not only unhealthy, it was extremely unrealistic. There's no way my fiancé and I can afford to hire someone to do all our planning (now referred to as a wedding or event coordinator). We have a small budget by modern standards as statistically average Canadian couples will spend $46,000 dollars on a wedding this year. We planned to spend less than a quarter of that, which means we'll have to be cutting costs by doing a lot of the labor ourselves. Also, note that I said 'we' and 'ourselves'. See, my fiancé and I are a team. That's what this whole celebration is about. So, when we tackle the most expensive and most extravagant event of our lives, you better believe that we do it together. I'm not planning this alone, my family doesn't have the final say, and my new life partner isn't going to sit back and chug a beer amongst the chaos of wedding prep. My story is going to be different from the whimsical and hilarious tales on the big screen.

        Once I put my engagement ring on, I was ecstatic. Then, after a couple hours of basking in the newly-engaged-glow, the reality of what lay ahead of me sunk in. Sure, I was engaged and so in love, but I also had to plan a party for all my friends and family, the biggest party I will ever throw in my lifetime. It was terrifying and I relayed this to my fiancé. As always, he was calm and collected. Together we made a few of the smaller decisions and I started to feel like the process wasn't so overwhelming. Those small choices lead to bigger ones, and now much of the event concept is solidified. In the coming weeks, we'll begin booking vendors for our February 2020 wedding. My fiancé has been a part of the process the whole time and, instead of being crippled by worry, I'm actually excited for what lies ahead.

        The movies were wrong about a lot of things when it comes to weddings. As entertaining as it was to watch the wacky love shenanigans and overwhelming bridal meltdowns, I'm very glad that so far reality is nothing like that.

-Dana.


"Have you ever planned a wedding? Did it feel as crazy as a movie wedding? Was it difficult to plan? Share your experience in the comments!"