Bride-to-be Blogger Kristy: Trying to Find Balance While Wedding Planning


Bride-to-be Blogger Kristy: Trying to Find Balance While Wedding Planning

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This week and throughout the upcoming year, my main focus is finding balance: in my schedule, my finances, in happiness, and in so many other areas of my life.

Since the six-month countdown has begun, I’ve had difficulty finding balance between life and wedding prep. Free nights are spent adding items to our registry, researching tuxes for the guys, and brainstorming ideas for our escort cards. Eric and I use to enjoy making dinner, going for walks after work, and meeting up with friends on a random Wednesday. But I guess our priorities have slightly changed, and because wedding planning isn’t the only change happening in our lives right now, the search for balance has been a difficult one.

To add to my search for balance, there will be many additions to our lives in 2013. Eric and I will start a life together as husband and wife, and we’ll also become an aunt and uncle (times two!). Eric’s brother and sister-in-law will welcome a baby girl at the end of February, and my sister and brother-in-law will be welcoming a baby around St. Patrick’s Day. I recently received a promotion at work, and have been elevated to a project coordinator with more responsibilities, work, projects, and management. So the addition of wife, aunt, and boss are new titles and roles that will need to be properly balanced throughout the year.

I remember reading wedding-planning websites and magazines that encourage couples to keep one anti-wedding night a week; no discussion about the wedding, no wedding research, just the two of you being you. I kind of laughed at this thinking, There’s no way I’m letting this consume my life! Sadly, though, this past week I caught myself asking Eric to repeat himself for the fifth time at dinner, as my brain was preoccupied with thoughts of wedding invitations and where I could find grey envelopes.

Even on anti-wedding nights, my thoughts occasionally drift to wedding thoughts. Luckily, though, I have a dedicated crew who do help to alleviate these constant wedding thoughts by helping me cross off items on my to-do list and constantly asking, “How can I help?” My bridesmaids (who are amazing and constantly helping with solutions and suggestions), my mom (who will get a quote from just about anyone in South Jersey and Pennsylvania), Eric (who has found himself addressing envelopes, making decisions on cardstock weight and color, and constantly asking how he can help), and countless others have allowed me to at least sometimes let my thoughts focus on the rest of my life and the main objective: marriage.

I still struggle with finding a balance between enlisting help from others and handing out too much responsibility to volunteers—more like a balance between feeling guilty and relieved—but I’m starting to realize that as much as I enjoy wedding planning on my own, it’s actually a large group of helpful people who will help me achieve a well-balanced, beautiful day—and eventually, marriage.

What was the best assistance to you during wedding planning? What allowed for ease and balance between your everyday life and wedding planning?

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