No Pissing Contests

So I've got a lot of issues I want to talk about over the course of this blog, the most pressing of which are outlined in my first post.  They're issues and common themes throughout weddingverse and nothing original to me or my life.

That said, my experience is my experience.  Everybody has to deal with their own life in their own way and maybe reading about others is helpful and maybe it's maddening.  My number one goal is to avoid Wedding Judgement.  Which will be difficult for me because I've got a big old wedding-shaped chip on my shoulder and I'm good at resenting people for no good reason.  So I've got to work through that.  Okay, so I may continue to have engagement/wedding resentment but please, no one take this personally.  I'm fully aware that I've got my own screwed-up notions of "should be" while I rage against what others tell me "should be."

The only way things really should be for everyone is right for you.

Part of the reason I stopped wedding planning was this overwhelming feeling that I was planning some other person's wedding because it was the wedding I should have.  And while everyone kept telling me that they just wanted me to have a "nice wedding"--that I deserved to have the "wedding I want"--issues arose when my idea of a nice wedding and the wedding I wanted didn't mesh with what I should want.  If I wanted a simple, no frills wedding that was only because I was worried about money and that wasn't fair to me and I should have better than that.  I kept hearing that the wedding that I really did want wasn't good enough for me, that I must be settling.  In the end, I realized that I'd never even stopped to consider what kind of wedding I really wanted and everyone else just assumed that deep down in my secret fairy princess heart I wanted a big, fancy traditional wedding - I just didn't want to admit it because I didn't want to rock the boat.

Three problems here:

1. I didn't (and don't) know what I want.
2. This whole bride-centric wedding thing makes me really uncomfortable.  Where's the groom?
3. Everyone was talking but no one (including me) was communicating.  Communication FAIL.

Hard feelings all around.  And I don't think that's fair or right so I don't want to be a contributor to hard feelings out there on the interwebs.  I don't pretend to know better if I pretend to know anything at all.  And no one else should be making you feel like shit about your wedding either.  If they do, tell them to shut up.

Leave the "shoulds" and "oughts" at the door please.  I am not a fan of the wedding pissing contest.  This game is hard enough as it is without being jerk faces.