Wedding Ideas & Tips

So pleased to welcome back Lisa Marie from Orange & Blossom to chat with us one last time this month! And enjoy a peek at Lisa Marie + Rikky’s engagement photos shown below, too! The floor’s all yours, Lisa Marie:

I’ve really enjoyed sharing the details of our elopement-honeymoon trip this summer. Thank you, Sarah! I want to send best wishes to everyone planning their wedding at the moment. Whether you have no guests (like us) or hundreds upon hundreds, may you create a day that reflects the two of you above all else, and never let the planning come before your own relationship. There are no rules—you create them. That’s what my final post is about…

One of my favorite poems applies to weddings of any size as well as it does to life in general. It is by Spanish poet Antonio Machado (1875-1939):

None of us had instructions on how to fall in love, and getting engaged certainly doesn’t include instructions on how to plan a wedding! That’s why I remind myself often: There are no rules. We make the road to our wedding day, just as we will create the road long after it. No one else’s will be the same as ours. And we have to embrace every choice.

My best advice from years of being involved in weddings: Keep your decisions simple and confident. Don’t be swayed. Set expectations with everyone so feelings don’t get hurt and your ideas don’t get compromised. Don’t get to the point of saying you just want to elope instead of having a wedding. The stress isn’t worth it. And if you really, truly, want to just run off and say your vows at City Hall like we are, you absolutely should!

I look back over the course of our relationship and we have certainly created a road for ourselves that doesn’t exactly follow tradition.

Meet => Start building a life together => Discuss matching tattoos => Get engaged => Wear wedding bands => Buy a wedding dress => Start thinking about having a wedding => Decide to elope => Book a photographer for our San Francisco City Hall ceremony => Keep building our life together…

You need your own road that has nothing to do with what other people want your big day to look like. Only you two will know. If you have the right person in your life, there is no real “right” order in planning a wedding or “right” ways of going about it. Everything IS right after that. (You wanted to know if we got the matching tattoos? I can’t tell all my secrets on a blog!) Congratulations on your own road, wherever you choose it will lead you.

Fabulous advice! Thanks for stopping by every Friday this month, Lisa Marie - It’s truly been a joy having you and please know you’re always welcome back! ;o)

{All images by VP Photography}