K.I.S.S.-keep it simple stupid

nuptial bliss, originally uploaded by kelebek.

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.

Beautiful Couple....Shame about the wedding

First I read about the couple who won a competition for a £13,000 wedding to be paid for and arranged by the Lincolnshire Echo and then the couple who won a competition in the US called 'Today throws a Martha Stewart Wedding Contest.' Their original personal, home made $5,000 wedding was cast aside for a half million dollar lavish television wedding live on The Today Show.

Everything was chosen for them by the public -there was no personal input apart from the minister from the brides home town was chosen to marry them. They had a wedding that was remote from who they were as people, which was held outdoors at The Rockerfeller Centre with the traffic zooming by in the background. (Good job they were mic'd up)

The fact is that the majority of these competition weddings are bad karma for want of a better expression. The marriages seem to never quite get of the ground. The radio comp weddings, breakfast TV ones -all of them commercial traps that exploit people searching for what they perceive to be a dream wedding. The biggest winners in these charades are the broadcasting companies that profit greatly form the publicity.

That couples $5,000 wedding would have been gorgeous-all about them, full of love and intimacy and relevant to who they are. Instead they have ended up with a public, commercial extravaganza that they may well have difficulty coming to terms with. Watch the video clip-no sooner have they been pronounced husband and wife then tele people are in their faces for an interview. I feel that they have been robbed of a day of personal, private significance. Course, they may feel quite, quite different.

Hold it flash, bang, wallop what a picture!

Cutting the Cake, originally uploaded by LilRonGal.

I went to a wedding last weekend.(Not this one above-I chose this shot for the fabulous, un-posed cake cutting.) I most loved the spontaneous moment during 'the wedding breakfast' when our Frank Sinatra soundy likey belted out his finale number 'New York New York' and the entire top table rose to their feet with arms aloft. It was heart-warming, funny, unexpected and really and truly in keeping with the vibrant, energetic personality of the bride.

This was a mostly formal, formula wedding which I felt sat uncomfortably with the couple in question. It restrained them instead of setting them free. The ceremony was I thought quite heavy and down beat until the bride spoke her own vows with such honesty, joy and confidence that I began to feel some real moving emotion. It was like the person inside was bursting at the seams to break free from this self imposed conventional wedding structure.

I most disliked the endless, endless photographs. The staged setups, the groupings, the uneccessary moving people from room to room, breaking up the natural flow of the day, to get a good shot when much better, interesting snaps were being taken by everyone else.

Why oh why does this happen. WHY? Some photo sessions go on for two hours or more-it's complete madness! If you like those awful photographs that appear in Hello with groups of celebrities in their best clothes and french manicured hands all smiling their brightest whitest smiles, then you will be in stark disagreement with me.

I understand that people want great photos to look back on but the best I have seen come from the guests being given throw away cameras to capture the day as it really happens. There is no need for formation, perfection or a long list of set ups. Give yourself a break. Let go of the reigns and let your horse gallop wherever it needs to go!

Last Rites or Wedding Rites?

I came across this today-Virginia Ironside wrote in The Oldie:

''But I have to say that, on the whole, I now far prefer funerals to formal weddings.
Why? I always think of people on these occasions as like a group of marbles on the floor. Have a wedding, and dozens more marbles are introduced and everyone gets pushed further and further out; have a funeral and, when one marble is removed from the gathering, the others all move in to close the gap. Funerals are full of compassion, forgiveness, comfort and kindness. Weddings are often places of fear and irritation, as strange people with sometimes opposing views confront each other.''

She's not wrong either. I have been to weddings that have tension positively hanging in the air and it's usually the more formal ones that have done everything by the book, spent all the money and are set on having the day running like clockwork. Somewhere along the line, in the need to impress, prove status and attain perfection, the point is being missed.

The best weddings are the ones that are personal, come from the heart and where the couple involved are surrounded by love and support no matter what other family dramas lay beneath the surface. When people can just forget themselves and enter into the spirit of the day, there is nothing quite like a wedding for warming the cockles of your heart.

Having said that, funerals cut to the chase. They are humbling and often disarming and generally everyone knows what's what. They provide an opportunity to think deeply and contemplate ones life and often , it's true they do bring out the best in people where weddings, sometimes bring out the absolute worst. Ooh, it's a tough call! What's your preference?!!

What is Authentic?

People sometimes look at me blankly when I talk about an authentic wedding. Perhaps it's the context that I am using it in. 'Authentic' means genuine, honest, true, real;of undisputed origin. So, an authentic wedding will be something that has comes from the core of who you are. It will express aspects of yourself, your personality and what matters to you in your life. It will reflect your style, convey your intentions and represent who you both are as people and as a couple. Most importantly, it will be a day that you feel connected to and a wedding that is related to you.

An authentic wedding is a creative act and not a commercial endeavour. There is great pleasure to be had from putting it together and I want to help and inspire people to take this route when they are on the precipice of planning it for themselves.

Lets push aside this idea that wedding planning must be a nightmare turning the majority of brides into emotional wrecks unable to remember huge chunks of their day as the wedding nerves grip and take over completely. Why do people settle for that?

In order to be authentic, it is necessary to know yourself and increase your self awareness so that you can confidently and clearly make the choices that come from within you and not from outside of you; yes, from the Inside Out! It is only when you begin to apply this approach that you realise just how much it can give you in terms of enjoyment and fulfilment and if more people were to go about it in this way it could begin to be seen as something to look forward to and not something to dread.

Surely, life is about getting the most out of these great experiences that make up the stories of our lives-otherwise, really what's the point?