Your wedding day, as we all know, is a day to celebrate love and happiness and, you know, get married and stuff. But let’s face it, for the duration of the wedding itself your heart and soul doesn’t only belong to your partner, an awful lot of it goes in to making everything look absolutely perfect for you and all your guests. But why do we put so much effort into making everything look so beautiful? Of course we do want to remember it forever as a perfect day and it is the couple’s one chance to have a day that’s all about them, but if that’s the case why do we care so much about what the guests think? Why do we spend hours finding the right meals, worrying about whom sits next to whom and choosing wedding favours for everyone? Is it really to preserve a perfect memory or is there just a little (and entirely subconscious) element of showing off?
I must confess, in attending lots of other weddings recently I’ve started to become worried that our own wedding isn’t going to be able to match up. I’ve seen some amazing ideas at other people’s weddings and been to some incredible venues. One wedding I attended recently had probably the best firework display I’ve ever seen, all choreographed to music and started as part of a spectacular first dance routine… but then the Groom did work for one of the biggest pyrotechnic companies in the UK and there are certain benefits that come with the job…
The last wedding I attended really was spectacular all round. Set beside Lake Garda in Italy in one of the most stunning castles I’ve ever seen followed by a boat ride along the lake and a reception in a michelin star restaurant with astounding views… it was absolutely incredible, a truly fantastic day for every one of the guests, so just how the heck are we going to top that?! Are our guests (including several of the Brides and Grooms whose weddings we have attended) going to judge us for not having a 40-piece orchestra riding into our 1200 acre marquee on the back of a herd of tap dancing elephants? (Ok that one may have been a dream, but still!)
But then when I thought about it I realised something. I don’t WANT a huge castle, I don’t NEED a huge fireworks display. Don’t get me wrong, they were amazing weddings and absolutely perfect for the couples whose weddings they were, but they’re not me. Your wedding should be a reflection of you, of who you are, what your style is. We’re not the sort of people for whom a castle would be fitting, it’s just not us; it’s not what we want and it’s not what our guests would expect of us. If you allow oneupmanship to take over you can end up with a wedding that the guests remember for it’s spectacular elements but not for whose wedding it was.
So our wedding will be founded in who we are and what we like. It will be the celebration of our friends and family and the ways we enjoy spending time together. It will be the wedding that we want it to be, not the one that’s more elaborate than the one we’ve been to before. It will be, quite simply, Matt and Dom’s wedding.
Top that? I don’t believe you can.
