I went to a wedding show yesterday-at Stanmer House in the Sussex Countryside. It's a beautiful old house that went for a song a couple of years ago and has been renovated to it's former glory.It stands in glorious, peaceful grounds and if you want to hire it for your wedding day it costs a mere£5,000 !! Rather steep I think but how much do you want to bet that people stretch their purse strings further than they actually reach to buy themselves a piece of their dream. Yes, it is a special day but special doesn't have to put you in debt or it starts to be not special and turns into a great big headache that brings on anxiety and stress.
I had a stand there to raise awareness of my unique Getting Married from the Inside Out coaching and mentoring service that I offer to those getting married and to let the brides know about my fab wedding planning workshop that I'm running on 13th October in Brighton.
Usually, these wedding shows are hard going. Manic, panicking brides to be, charging from stand to stand, cramming leaflets into their goody bags, getting too much information about too many suppliers and confusing and draining themselves into the bargain. Stress left, right and centre-not for me, for them.
Then there's me, explaining what I do, how I can enhance their wedding journey and all the already marrieds say, 'Oh, if only I'd known about you when I was getting married-I was so stressed and cried all through my wedding,' or 'it took me six months to get over the depression that I felt after the wedding,' or 'I was so nervous, I don't remember any of the ceremony.'
And I say, 'Well, that's why I'm doing this because getting married has gone CRAZY. People need to prepare themselves for the changes that they face, come to terms with things emotionally and psychologically and think about this most significant
Rite of Passage Get ready to get married not just on the outside but on the inside too.'
Slowly but surely I'm battering down the walls of resistance to show people a better way that will bring greater enjoyment and more desirable results. It's a lonely road but it will be worth it in the end.
The main point of this post is that this wedding show was quite enjoyable. Firstly, because of the non corporate setting and general ambience which seemed to affect visitors positively as they came in. Secondly, there was a limited number of stands and suppliers, so people really took their time to talk and find out about things instead of rushing around like headless chickens trying not to miss anything. Which brings me neatly to-less is more. Keep it simple. It always works.That could be a mantra for every bride to be. When fighting the temptation to include every tradition and ritual in to your wedding and every latest nuptial must have-repeat the mantra, breath and relax and step out of that hypnotic wedding zone.
Keep It Simple -simple and stylish- and make your choices based on what you really love and what matters to you. You'll end up with a wedding that has personal meaning that you feel belongs to you and that is a great goal to have for any bride to be.
Monday 8 October 2007
K.I.S.S.-keep it simple stupid
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1 comment:
Once again, we're singing the same song.
I never went to a bridal show when I was getting married, but I did get bridal magazines. I couldn't believe some of the things they tried to tell me I couldn't do without!
In the end, I put my efforts where they mattered to me. Yes, I spent a year making the lace for my wedding gown, but I find bobbin lace relaxing to do, was doing a lot of demonstrations and needed a good, simple pattern to work that I would have a use for in the end, and just plain loved the cool factor of making my own lace.
The other thing I put the most effort into was writing the ceremony, which all too often seems to get short shrift when people are obssessing about perfectly matched bridesmaids hairstyles and precisely how many orchids will be in each centerpiece.
Most of the rest of it fell simply and easily into place. I never picked a color scheme, but red seemed to pop up a lot and that was fine by me. The buffet menu was chosen so that it would be simple to prepare in enough quantity to feed everyone without breaking the bank in an area where we wouldn't have access to kitchen facilities. That meant picnic foods. We had a variety of salads, build your own sandwiches (to please both carnivores and vegetarians without fuss), and fruit tarts instead of a cake.
Any tradition we felt like honoring got honored, but anything we didn't care for, we ditched without qualms.
Result: we didn't break the bank, we had a good time at our own party, and fourteen years later, friends still tell us what a great wedding it was.
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