Bride + Groom = Engagement Stress

Mike & I may be back from Jamaica, but mentally we're still riding this whirlwind adventure.  There are so many boxes to go through, laundry to wash, and things to break-down, never-mind the thank you cards!  It's all welcomed though.  The wedding might be over, but the adventure still continues.  I can honestly say I'm having the best time of my life.  Pictures to come, promise, but first, one last guest post so I can get myself together!

Liz, from Next in the City, is another favorite B2B (Bride-to-be) planning her wedding and sharing it with the interwebs.  She wrote some great advice for others in the same boat:

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Well, gang this is my first guest blog post, ever! Very exciting, thank you Vicki – and congrats! I cannot believe you are married, now husband & wife! I thought the word fiancé took some time adjusting -- the next “title” might be harder, but way more amazing!

While Victoria unwinds, I thought I would discuss how wedding planning in general affects relationships with friends, family, and of course – your fiancé! Many of my friends are already married – I have been a bridesmaid once and a maid of honor three times in the past three years – and every time another friend walked down the aisle, I was warned about the heartaches of planning. I brushed them aside, hoping that I wouldn’t feel an ounce of those pangs. However, I have and now I am that girl telling people to prepare for the sometimes unpleasant, confusing, and tricky decisions and frustrations that go along with engagements.
Friends want rights to your wedding, family believes they deserve the same rights, but where does that leave the bride and groom? Often bickering about these people and coming up with no resolution. Tiny examples of these situations include, several friends asking if they will be invited to the wedding (eeek!!!) – my response for the past year and a half as always been, “we are still finalizing the guest list” and my brothers asking me for six months straight if they will be groomsmen (“ask Jared!”). I have heard that a wedding is truly a “family experience”, and I believe to a degree it is, but when you get down to it (or down the aisle, actually), it really is all about the girl and boy whose names are on the marriage certificate.

So, my advice? Actually I probably need some, but I will say I have tried to brush aside these friend and family unpleasantries as best I can and just focus on us. All the wedding blogs I read every morning and Jared, my fiancé, have been wonderful at helping me remember this motto. So, brides: keep looking straight ahead because there is a light at the end of the tunnel – or actually a honeymoon! I see sunshine, white sand, and blue waters at my end and a lifetime of funny yet crazy memories waiting to happen. Being engaged is stressful, but life is short and sooner or later, you will be married!