with a side of sewing...: love and marriage...

Today, my friends Laura and Jose are tying the knot! I'm so excited for them! Plus, this weekend is also special for the Boser and I.... a year ago tomorrow, we were tying the knot ourselves.


Photo via Carter Rose

We're really stoked to share our anniversary weekend with close friends. I'm a bridesmaid, the Boser is helping out a bit with music, and love is all kinds of in the air.

I'm not yet a wise enough or old enough sage to give strong marital advice (though I do think the Boser and I handle our life together with complete awesomeness about 98.7% of the time). However, having planned and survived my own wedding, and having a year to reflect on said wedding, I'd like to take this moment to share my thoughts on how to have a successful hitchin'.

Photo via Carter Rose

1. Know that, above all, you will not have the wedding you've always dreamed of. Now, before you write off the rest of my advice and claim me too cynical, hear me out. Think about all the people that are going to contribute to planning your wedding: you, your fiance, your mother, your father, your mother-in-law, your father-in-law, all your vendors, a wedding planner (if you go that route), and money (money's not a person, but it is a big decision-maker in your planning process). How could you possibly end up with everything being just as you imagined? The important thing is to remember why you're doing all of this in the first place: at the end of the day, no matter what you wedding looked, sounded, tasted, felt, and smelled like, you get to marry the love of your life. And that's all that really matters.

Photo via Carter Rose

2. Decide on your overall budget, then pick 1-3 things that are the most important to you. Splurge on those things; make the rest work. For me, it was the venue and the photographer. Old Red Museum was the perfect combo of historical, vintage, romantic, and modern. Carter Rose took absolutely fantastic photos and was just such a nice and professional guy. My dress was relatively inexpensive, my mom and I made the invitations and save-the-dates, our caterer was fairly priced and helped us plan table linens and dishes (Celebration Catering), the flowers were beautiful but just about as cheap as they come (Simply Bouquets), and I got a median-price DJ (Rod Baker) and cakes (Panini Bakery), both of which were more phenomenal than I could ever have imagined.

Photo via Carter Rose

3. Some things aren't going to go right, but chances are, no one will notice but you. There's dancing, there's drinking, there's food, there's cake, there's garters and bouquets flying through the air. There's a lot going on at a wedding. And chances are, unless you're on the inside of planning and making sure things go a certain way, you will have no idea that things did not go the certain way that you planned on making them go. Just relax, enjoy the day, know that like every other day in your life, things aren't going to go 100% how you planned. But it will be okay.