The Plan So Far…

We’re getting married in a small, country ceremony next August.

You’d think that would be enough to know for the next 6 or so months… Wrong!

So far, we’ve set the date, wedding party, church, wedding dress, reception, band, caterer & rehearsal dinner!

And the wedding is over 10 months away.

A little aspect of the wedding industry that most everyone accepts:

It’s become de rigeur to make most of your wedding arrangements a year or more ahead of time. Within a few weeks of getting engaged in June, I swear that I heard the horrible phrase, “These places book up fast” from at least half the people I told about the big news. Ew! Nothing takes the bloom off the rose (is that the phrase?) faster than feeling like you have to sprint to the churches, reception halls, caterers, etc so that “your” date, site, florist, dog groomer doesn’t commit to some other LESS DESERVING, MORE ORGANIZED couple.

If there was one thing I could change about the entire state of affairs I would make it so that none of these places even took reservations for dates more than 6 months down the road. That’s the way lots of fancy restaurants do it! Why not go the same route with weddings?

Outcome: It’s certainly contributed to the extension of engagements, since now people feel like they have to get a 12-8 month headstart on the actual wedding. It also creates weird, frantic behavior: people who immediately warp into planning mode the morning after they get engaged, booking reception sites before you even get engaged, etc…

P.S. I looked it up - the phrase “takes the bloom off the rose” ostensibly stems -no pun intended ha ha- from this cheery poem by (presumably non-feminist) Robert Herrick:

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may for ever tarry.

Hmm… “And while ye may, go marry.” Screw off, jerk!!

I presume that Mr. Herrick didn’t have much success with the 17th century ladies. Just checked on Wikepedia: “Herrick was a bachelor all his life, and many of the women he names in his poems are thought to be fictional.”

Please take my reaction to this horrible poem as a promise that I will do my best to not make this an irritating, mushy wedding blog.