Wedding planning + indecisive personality = hell

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m losing my mind.

I am one of the most indecisive people on the planet, and all of a sudden I need to make a whole bunch of huge decisions. My guy doesn’t have strong opinions on most of the wedding stuff (he just cares about cake, and that we end up married at the end of it all), so most of the decisions fall on me. It doesn’t help that the wedding’s far enough away (April of next year) for me to second-guess all the decisions I have made.

Right now, the issue is photographers. We met with one a month ago, and she was really sweet and we liked her work, and her personality and attitude really impressed me. I loved her. My man said we should keep interviewing more people, just in case we found someone we liked better, and I agreed. So we met with another one last week, and she was also good. Actually, better. Well, her work was better, but I came away from the meeting thinking she was a little pushy and salesperson-y through the whole thing. But we met at a Starbucks, instead of at her home/studio (which is where we met the first one) so maybe the location had something to do with that. And my man didn’t get the same impression as I did. She’s also more expensive. But her pictures are more interesting and people look great in them. I keep flipping back and forth in my head about who we should go with. I try using the “pros and cons” lists to make the decision easier but then I don’t know that each pro or con has equal weight. I could go with my gut but I can’t figure out what my gut is saying.

Woman #1 - Better prices, excellent and flexible personality, good photos. She seems to be a more emotional photographer, focusing on the people (which I think I like).
Woman #2 - More expensive, better pictures, more detail-oriented (not sure I like that) and came off a little pushy in the interview.

Sounds like I should go with the first one… but then I start thinking that even if Woman #2 is more detail oriented, she’s probably professional enough that if I tell her to knock off taking pictures of my shoes and jewelry and get to taking pics of Grandma’s reaction when she sees me, she’ll do it.

How do people make big decisions? How do you live with the decision afterwards and stop freaking out about it? I’d flip a coin but I know I wouldn’t be happy with the result and I’d want to do best-of-three… then best-of five… sigh.

2

If planning a wedding sounds like work & angst, then don’t do it.

Go to Vegas, have the Moms pose with Elvis, and get the deed done. You can make yourself a nervous wreck and spend however much “a lot of money” is to you, or you can become married to your guy.

A woman (a 28 year old girl child actually) in our office just spent the last 18 months planning her wedding. Evertying had to be Peeererfect!!!1!!!1!. She’s been either totally preoccupied or a nervous wrecjk for the last 12 months.

By utter coincidence, Today as I write this is the Big Day, the culmination of a week-long orgy of self-centered consumption and hey-everybody-look-at-me parties for her extedned family and fairly close friends.

Tomorrow she’ll be just as married as if she’d gone to the JP 18 months ago. Think about it.
Setting aside the wedding, just talking about decision-making …

When I can’t decide, I flip a coin. But I pay attention to how I feel when I see the coin land. And decide on that, not how it landed.

For example: Set up that heads = photog #1, tails = photog #2. Toss the coin.

Say it comes up heads & I think “Damn!”. That means I really want #2, so that’s who I call.

If instead it comes up heads & I think “Whew!”, well #1 is my real choice.

3

I like that method. I’d also say, go with your feelings. You sound like you’d rather have someone who sees things the way you do. And in professional relationships as in marriage, they probably won’t change for you. Look for someone who will do the job you want, not the job they want to do.

And always remember, none of it really matters all that much in the long run. Twenty years from now, people will know you’re happily married, they won’t care that the centerpieces weren’t that year’s “in” flower. Do what makes you happy. You might want to spend a little time visualizing, to see what really matters. Walk through your wedding in your mind, and see what you really see there. If it’s not there, you probably don’t really want it that much.

And speaking of twenty years from now, do you want “interesting” pictures, or do you want to be able to look at them and remember how you felt?

4

I’d go with the first one. If you think the second one is more pushy and business-y, then IMHO she is LESS likely to take cues from you. She might be all “I’m the professional, I know what’s best, trust me on this one.”

Also don’t fret too much over photographers. I collected pictures from various family members and friends from my brother’s wedding, and they would have been plenty suitable as a nice pictorial to remember the day. They had a pro photographer too, of course, and he did a marvelous job. If you like the first lady, go with her. Two years from now you won’t remember what was NOT shot, and you won’t be disappointed with what was shot.

5

Decisions can be tough - but I’d go with the one you are the most comfortable with. Everything else is going to be stress inducing that day - you don’t need to be stressing out over this.

And the best piece of advice I was ever given - you aren’t getting weddinged. You’re getting married. Keep the really important stuff in sight. The rest is only details.

6

hm …

My brother, bridzilla with 7 months of planning hell, and $30K US. Divorced 9 months later [and a seriously heinous bridesmaid dress that can never be used for anything else no matter what they claimed]

Me and mrAru, 1 weeks planning, justice of the peace and $50US, almost 20 years.

Do the math=)

7

Thanks for the advice, guys.

And while I understand that years of married bliss are just as easily obtained through a tiny private ceremony with no “wedding”, we are having a wedding. Because we want to. We’re not having a huge extravagant affair, but we’ve got family coming from all over the place, and they mean a lot to us, and we want to throw a party to celebrate our dedication of our lives to each other. I don’t see anything wrong with that - we’re paying for it ourselves, and we’re not going into debt for it. Hardly an “orgy of self-centered consumption and hey-everybody-look-at-me” sort of event. So “forget the wedding and go to Vegas” suggestions are cute, but not helpful.

Frankly, we don’t care about most of the details. We got a lovely spot and a good caterer, but the decorations will be whatever the place provides, the invites are from Wal-Mart, and the DJ is our iPod. I’m not building elaborate goldfish-and-orchid centerpieces, and we’re not hiring calligraphers to make up place-cards. Some things, though, are important, and photography is one of the biggies. We want to be able to enjoy the day and then look back at the pictures later to see how it all fit together - since we’ll probably be in a blur all day.

But “comfort” is important with a photographer, you guys are right. I don’t want to spend the day watching the photographer, making sure she gets the shots I want, and I don’t want to feel bossed around, either. I will go think it over some more.

8

Just a suggestion - decide what shots you want and give the list to each photographer and see how she reacts. If either of them seem affronted, you don’t want that one.

I just came home from a wedding tonight. The photographer pretty much ignored the bride’s wishes and neglected to take shots that she wanted in favor of doing things the way he wanted. We advised her to get in touch with her inner bitch and not back down until he did things her way. I hope she did, because the last time I saw the photographer before we left the reception he had the bridal couple traipsing around a golf course. She didn’t look too happy.

And as far as price is concerned, you want the photographer to be affordable of course, but this is the one place I would not skimp if at all possible. Years from now the pictures will be all that is left of your wedding day.

9

I’ll give you another criterion to think about - we had friends who were horrified as their photographer/videographer backed down the aisle ahead of the bride during the ceremony. He literally had to be physically moved out of the way by the priest so that he could access the couple to marry them. He also stopped the recessional so he could pose pictures in the church door, allowing the recessional music to run out with us still standing helplessly in the aisle (I was a bridesmaid).

Look at the sample ceremony pictures again, and if there is any doubt in your mind, ask “where were you standing when you took this?”

We told our photographer the story, and he was absolutely horrified, and assured us that we wouldn’t even notice him - and we didn’t. He got pictures during our dance and the parents’ dances of every participant, looking into the camera and smiling - and none of us remembered seeing him while the dancing was going on. The videographers (whom he recommended - a married couple from his church) were almost as unobtrusive.

Without in any way saying that you can’t have a fabulous atheist photographer, I think it helped that all of them were deeply religious (and my husband and I are not at all - we were not married in a church, and the officiant was a long-time family friend). All of them had an attitude of respect for marriage as an institution, and for the significance of the wedding as an event in our lives, not just a photo op, that I think was very important. They took exquisite care to record the event without trying to make it anything we didn’t want it to be, and respected its importance to us. While I don’t doubt that you could find that attitude in a nonreligious person, for these people, it was clearly part of their religious beliefs about marriage.

10

The easiest way to deal with all the choices is to not really have a choice; find a photographer in your budget and hire them. Most will take the same shots anyways, with a few variations, and just ask ahead of time if they are willing to take some directions from you about what photos you want. They are just photos - you’ll remember the rest of the day, or the important parts at least, without having every last second recorded on film. We have 200+ photos that we rarely look at, 3.5+ years later. Our photographer was a newspaper guy, a friend of the family, and he gave us the photos on DVD and we chose later which ones we wanted printed, rather than a package deal from a wedding photographer. He was friendly and unobtrusive, but well all forgot to take pictures of us cutting the cake; it didn’t matter. We have candid shots from friends and family, and they are just as good and special to us.

Flowers: I told the florist my budget over the phone, that I wanted white/off-white and a “spiky” or loose bouquet. I never once met the woman, nor did I see the flowers she chose until they were delivered to me about 30 minutes before the ceremony. There was no point stressing about it, and I think itworked out fine.

Same for the cake: a magazine photo of something we liked, a bakery that would deliver to our somewhat remote wedding location (and a review of their work to ensure competency), a budget and a number of portions required, and restrictions based on known guest food allergies, and again, it worked out perfectly (sorry, no photo online at the moment).

Heck, we chose the reception hall based on a teeny tiny photo in a travel magazine. My father is in the hotel/restaurant management industry, and so visited with my mom, told me they knew how to organize and event, and we booked on the spot.

We chose the DJ because he was playing a wedding the night we went to taste the menu, and based on 3 songs we heard and seeing a bunch of people dancing, we figured he was good enough and we hired him. People still talk about how great the music was and how well he handled the evening, and he even gave us an extra hour of his time unpaid because people were dancing so much (even my grandmother lasted until midnight, with a ceremony at 2pm!)

What was more important to us, and I get the feeling the same is true for you, is that the people who we wanted there were there, and we did everything we could to ensure that. We arranged rides between family members, we accommodated all the food and dietary restrictions, and just made sure everyone had a good time. And it was the best day of our lives, despite the fact that it was 10C at an outdoor wedding, I only got a bite of cake before it was whisked away for dancing (I was making rounds of the tables during dessert service and didn’t even get a slice), two of my bridesmaid’s dresses didn’t even fit, and one of our loved ones couldn’t be there because he was hospitalized.

You are celebrating your love, not your organizational skills. Pick something, and go get married.

Oh, and I’d pick photographer #1.

11

The photographer was very important to me so I spent forever angsting about it-- so I understand where you’re coming from! Another vote here for photographer #1, which was our choice. Looking at our pictures I can tell they are not quite as good artistically as the other one we were considering, but they’re quite good in their own right, and much more importantly my husband was very comfortable around the photographers and so they had no problem getting him smiling and happy-looking… generally he comes out in photographs, even professional ones, as almost grimacing.

Mind you, if you really like #2’s photos a lot better, and you can spare the money if you’re wrong, you could try her out for an engagement session (a lot of photographers will credit it towards the wedding package if you book them for the entire thing) and see how it goes. If you still think she’s too pushy, and you have a hard time relaxing around her, then you’re out the cost of the engagement session, but at least you’ll know for sure.

12

My totally meaningless opinion.

If you are going to be miserable no matter what the choices you make, make the ones that will cost the least, be the least aggravating to employ, and be the least aggravating to others involved in the process.

13

Go with Photographer #1. The photographer’s personality really does make a huge difference in the tone of your day. They are with you nearly the whole day, taking shots while you’re getting ready, dealing with family members, etc. Having someone you like and feel comfortable with is very important. And you have a bonus in that this photographer has better prices anyway.

For my wedding I ended up going with a photographer whose prices where cheaper but whose personality I really didn’t like. I totally regretted it. I didn’t like our photos very much, and I think not feeling comfortable with the photographer played a big part in that.