#FirstWorldProblems
I’m definitely a walking cliché. Since I was 5 years old, I dreamed of the day when I would walk down the aisle in a beautiful white wedding gown and a tall and handsome man would be waiting to give me a magnificent sparkling ring and tell me he’d love me forever.
Reality hit me last spring when I started to plan my wedding, which was supposed to be in NY in June. It was my first time navigating the tacit social etiquette that exist for a wedding – who has to be invited, who can’t be invited, who can’t sit next to whom, what is the correct wording for an invitation, what food people can and can’t eat, yada, yada, yada. The one good thing I did learn from the experience is that when people say “you should do whatever you want, it’s your wedding” the real translation of what they’re saying is “you will do what I think is proper social etiquette, but I’m going to pretend like you have a say in this to be polite since it’s your wedding”. Once you know what they mean, you can stop fighting the uphill battle that you’re going to lose anyway and save yourself the energy. I had the epiphany that becoming a Bridezillas isn’t so much about being crazy about your wedding, it’s more about keeping control of everyone else who becomes crazy about your wedding. Since my dad had his heart attack right before this wedding, all those hours of planning were thrown out the window as we had to cancel and never saw it come to fruition.
For the next wedding in September (second attempt, first actual!), I was so consumed with all of my visa issues and being kicked out of Switzerland and filing all the correct paperwork that I didn’t even have time to think about planning a wedding. I guess I chose the right family to marry into because Florian arranged for my sister Rachel to come and witness the ceremony while his mom planned all of the appetizer and dinner events to celebrate. All I had to do was show up and bring the rings with me! Hilarious story sidenote: Since I hate when people ask me questions that I feel are insulting to my intelligence, I feel it is my obligation to make them suffer a little with me. When Florian called me to ask if I had the rings for the ceremony, I told him “no” and pretended to panic with him for a few minutes until he turned his car around to go back to the apartment and I finally admitted that (of course) I really did have them. And he still wanted to marry me after that!
So now I’m here, in the midst of planning my third wedding, but hello, I’M ALREADY MARRIED. It’s a bit of a sham, really. Hello friends and family, please pay $2,000 to fly to Switzerland to watch me walk down the aisle as my father gives me away to this handsome gentleman. You know, the guy who has been my husband for the last 9 months. Yep, that’s the one.
Don’t get me wrong – I seriously couldn’t be more excited to finally have my dream fancy-schmancy wedding in my beautiful European castle with all my closest family and friends! The venue we picked is gorgeous (see the pic below and check out the website!) and I just got my wedding dress 2 weeks ago with my mom and my sister Elana!!! The thing is this: now I’m kinda lazy about the hard work and planning for the wedding because, you know, we’ve already done this twice before. It’s much like how my parents raised me – I’m the 4th child in the family and I could basically do whatever I wanted because they were well past the point of being overbearing and scared that something bad was always just about to happen. See, laissez-faire attitudes can pan out!
And it’s not that I mind hard work, it’s just that wedding planning is miserable for the sole reason that nothing ever goes smoothly and nothing can ever just be done quickly. Take, for example, the menu for the dinner portion. In my mind, I’m thinking a chicken option, a beef option, a vegetarian option. Done. But last night Florian and I spent an hour poring over the 17 pages of menu options (after getting it translated into English) because we weren’t sure if people would prefer the filet steak or the filet of beef as an entree option. Just out of curiosity, does anyone even know the difference or care?? Thought so… So now we have to call the Grandhotel (it’s so much cooler calling it that than just calling it a regular hotel!) to get a sampling of their food items but they’re closed in the winter so we may not be able to sample until spring. Of course, obviously that is impossible because we can’t order the invitations without knowing the menu options for guests to select. And we need to get the invitation proofs in time to leave two months for printing and arrival of the invites before the wedding, meaning we need to have the tasting this winter. What a fun conundrum.
Did I mention that my travel agent just simply stopped calling me back? I never imagined a travel agent would so blatantly give up 30 customers traveling to Europe – seems like a lot of profits to be made with the hotels and the tours and the flights, etc. But apparently Tracy from Liberty Travel isn’t all that interested in our business since she last called a week and a half ago to say that she didn’t have any new information for us. Oh wait, no, I called her so she could say she didn’t have any new information for us. And I haven’t heard a peep from her since. Now, I would be understanding if she had a lot of research to do for the trip, but the ONLY thing I asked her to do was recommend a hotel in the town of Brienz (where the wedding will be held). Here’s a dirty little secret – there are a total of about 4 hotels in the entire town. The research should take all of 7 minutes so her ROI on the time she spends researching should be astronomical! Tracy from Liberty Travel’s boss, you should investigate!!
I really, really, really can’t wait for this day that will be by far one of the most memorable in my lifetime, I’m just trying to avoid all the un-fun parts about it. Anyone find stress fun and want to plan for me?? Or at least know a good travel agent, or the difference between filet steak and filet of beef?