Tell me if you relate.
You’re planning your wedding (congrats!) and you’ve been doing some research. You’re no longer a guest at other people’s weddings; now, you’re a sort of auditor, gauging what works and what doesn’t. You’re all over Instagram and Pinterest. Your moodboard is a work of art. You lurk on every wedding planning group on Facebook and you know all the drama. You bought every wedding magazine in WH Smith and every edition is tabbed and colour-coded. But, now, comparisonitis is creeping in.
Comparisonitis: the urge to compare yourself to other people. In this case, compare other people’s weddings to your plans. The saying, comparison is the thief of joy, is practically a cliche by now, but it’s true. It’s easy to lose yourself in the planning process of a wedding.
Real weddings are a great source of inspiration, as are Pinterest pins and Instagram posts, but, too easily, they can make you look at your own wedding through a jaded lens. What you see on social media and magazines are a stylised version of a wedding — a showcase of every supplier’s best work. Even the real weddings that make it onto blogs and websites only show the bits they want you to see. You never see the hard work, tears and failures that went into those photographs.
When all we see are the glossy highlights, it’s easy to look at our own plans and feel flat. Comparing your wedding to the ones on social media can suck the passion out of those plans that once excited you.
So, what’s the solution? I have a few suggestions:
Take a break
From social media, from wedding planning, from comparing yourself.
Mute those wedding accounts on Instagram or step away from Pinterest for a week or two. Ask your friends to avoid talking about your wedding plans for a few days. Log out of those wedding planning forums. Spend some time with your partner and do something completely unrelated to your wedding day! When you come back to it, you’ll be refreshed, and you’ll have reminded yourself of why you want to get married in the first place.
Seek help
I know, asking for help is difficult. It’s also necessary. While you and your partner could plan a wedding single-handed (wait, is it still single-handed if there's more than one of you?) but you don’t have to. Reach out to friends, family and wedding professionals. Get guidance from creative people and help you find yourself in your wedding plans again.
Embrace your uniqueness
When you’re one-of-a-kind, there is no comparison, so be yourself.
As your wedding celebrant, I start every ceremony with a blank page, then I fill it up with you. Your personalities, your quirks, those adorable anecdotes that you think are boring but will make your guests cry with laughter. I create your wedding with you, about you. It’s a celebration of your wonderful, memorable love story.
Whatever you do, remember that your wedding will be unlike any other wedding you’ve ever attended or seen because it’s yours. When it’s all over, your wedding guests won’t remember whether your outfits were better than Beanie Feldstein and Bonnie-Chance Roberts’s, or that your bouquet was bigger than your cousin’s. They’ll barely remember what they had for dinner or what order the speeches were in. All they’ll remember is how much they enjoyed themselves and how happy, relaxed and in love you were.
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