Why I sometimes need to shut up

Beth Helmstetter, one of my favorite planners in the industry & my dear Angela wrote a great post on
'How to reduce stress from planning' and I thought I would also pitch in my two cents.

As a planner, it's a blessing & a curse that I have an opinion about everything. I spend countless hours making my clients' weddings oh-so beautiful within the budget that I often loose sight of telling my brides to 'enjoy' & make it about just the two of you, not about the details or what will be captured on camera. Sure, this is the reason why brides hire me in the first place to tell them honestly which direction they're headed, where they should go & what will look better and fitting but I sometimes just need to shut up & respect their decision. Yes, I said it. I need to shut up.

The fact of the matter is, unless there's something out of the ordinary and spectacular in the wedding that I haven't already seen in the blog world, I don't get impressed too easily. With all these 'inspiration to reality' photoshoots with great inspirational wedding blogs by planners and wedding professionals, it's hard not to look at the details and define a great wedding by just looking at the photos. It's so wrong for us to judge/define a great wedding based on who their photographer is, which venue they decide to go with & what kind of rentals & florists they use when weddings are all about celebrating their first chapter of husband & wife to be. At the end of the day, who cares if the couple decides not to use chiavari chairs as long as they solely vowed in front of all their guests.

I've seen brides make a choice and then get confused and doubt their decisions when they see something prettier & better on a blog. They're not able to fully embrace what they have and envy after all the pretty things around the blog world. Too much of prettiness is not always good. They can either make you doubt your own decisions and not fully embrace and appreciate your own wedding & your budget. Do keep in mind that your decision is the right one for you and not everything out there fits every wedding. And also note that there will always be something more beautiful & better in years to come. The vintage trend right now will soon go away & who knows when chocolate brown as a complimentary color will come back? :)

Lisa of Anderson Green Events wrote a great post and I couldn't agree more!
"If you keep changing your mind about choices or decisions - you've lost the confidence in that idea. You've lost the confidence to believe that that idea is appropriate for your wedding.... Use the important ideas / thoughts / feelings to guide you in your decision making process. Then, use your budget as a guide so that you don't overspend, lose your confidence and then panic. Then stick to your guns."

My piece of advice for soon-to-be brides who are spending countless hours online for inspirations: Limit what you see online & don't listen to everybody. There's no way you can please everyone-not even your planner. :)

Who cares if your wedding photos are not published in a magazine?
Who cares if your photos don't float around in the blog world? Our main goal for having a wedding is not about that.

You can refer back to my post I wrote almost 2 years ago about 're-defining' a perfect wedding and let's once again, 're-define' what it means to have a perfect wedding by focusing on our couples & their sincere love for each other which is the main reason why they're getting married.