Brides Say the Darndest Things

Saturday I had the pleasure of helping a bride named Carolyn whose friend Jenn purchased her wedding gown from us last year. She brought with her two friends who had also shopped with Jenn for her dress. So we were all having some fun conversation while Carolyn was choosing which dresses to try on. Her friends were thoughtfully watching as she made her selections, and offering their opinions very diplomatically when asked. At one point when the conversation lulled Carolyn turned around and said, “Are you two going to help me choose?” they replied, “We’re enjoying letting you look and make your own decisions.” Carolyn immediately shot back, “It’s like I’m the groundhog and everyone’s watching me to find out if it’s going be an early spring!”

I feel like that is one of the most hilarious and absolutely accurate assessments of what it means to be a bride that I have ever heard! She put to words perfectly what I know many of our brides must be feeling. All the sudden you’re thrust into the spotlight and it seems that everyone is expecting you to do something, but what that something is you’re just not sure. Just remember you’re the same girl you were before you were engaged. Be true to your personality, try to enjoy the planning process as much as possible, and every once in a while throw out something interesting or hilarious so your “audience” has something to watch for! Carolyn’s groundhog comment certainly did that for us!

Alright already!

I can imagine that somewhere, someone might get tired of hearing about “Our Brides”, “Our Brides”, “Our Brides”. Tons of tweets, a multitude of Facebook updates, the special photo section on our website, stories told in conversation…etc, etc, etc. It’s possible that someone could get sick of hearing that term… I suppose. It’s kind of unfathomable to me because I never get sick of saying it…”Our Brides”, “Our Brides”… yep, still not sick of it. So, what’s the big deal about “Our Brides”? Ummm…everything! We love working with Our Brides! We have more fun than we should probably be allowed helping them choose the dress of their dreams, then jewelry, maybe a veil. Talking about how they’ll wear their hair, where the wedding will be, bridesmaids colors, how they met their fiancé and on and on. SO. Much. Fun! Seriously. We feel like friends of Our Bride by the time the whole process is through. We get a little sad when the day comes for her to pick up her gown and whisk it away to the wedding, knowing we may not see her again. Until….she sends pictures! Which is why we ask for wedding photos every five minutes. Wink, Wink.

So then we make Our Bride a special page in the “Our Brides” section of our website! A whole page named after her to show off the photos of her big day! We’re so proud of how she looks and feel like we got to be a part of the wedding even though we weren’t in attendance. Then, we think… “Wow, she looked so good her picture belongs on the homepage! Or the Bridal page!” Now all the photos on the Bridal page of our website, the one that lists the designers we carry, those are all actually Our Brides! Yep, you thought they were models. Yep, they make our dresses look good…really good. And all but one of the photos on our homepage are actually Our Brides! Yes, it’s hard to believe. No, none of them are professional models that I know of. Now you can see why we’re so proud of them! Why we talk about them every chance we get and why we’re always sending people to go see the pictures in the “Our Brides” section of our website. That’s the story on “Our Brides”. And if the person who may or may not be sick of hearing about “Our Brides” is reading this…you’re just gonna have to stop listening.

Ummm. It’s Thursday.

I know, I know. It’s Thursday. I’m supposed to post the new blog on Wednesday. Yesterday I gasped in horror as I realized (near the end of the day) that it was, in fact, Wednesday and that I had not, in fact, posted a blog. Immediately a productive thought popped to mind – this would be a great object lesson. Ready? Ready? Sometimes things are not going to go quite as planned or as scheduled. Now, I’m right up there with the best of you in detail oriented control fabulousness. (I prefer the term “control fabulous” to “control freak”.) However, I’ve learned… and I’m still learning that no matter how precisely and meticulously you plan every last detail some things are just not going to happen exactly when and how you want them to. I’d like to say I’ve always met such schedule misfires with grace and poise. However, that would be a complete lie. Like I said, I’m still learning.

What helps me personally when something goes awry is to first to start thinking about a solution. If you’ve overbooked or you underestimated the amount of time a certain task or appointment would take don’t start with beating yourself up over the mistake. Instead, think about rebooking or adjusting the timeline to compensate. Usually if one task takes longer than you thought another will take less time and it’ll all even out in the end. Another tip is to try and keep your perspective. Ask yourself, “What’s the worst thing that could happen and could I handle it?” If missing an appointment with your florist means that you won’t have any flowers for the wedding you’re obviously going to want to react pretty swiftly to remedy that situation. However, if you’re running 10 minutes late for a 1 hour appointment it’ll just mean that you now have 50 minutes instead of 60 to communicate your vision. Also, if I have a task on my list that I know I’ll have a tendency to procrastinate about, I’ll do that first. Whether it’s an unpleasant or tedious task, or just something I know I’ll tend to put off to the last minute, getting it out of the way gives a great sense of accomplishment.

Getting as much off your list as early as possible in the wedding planning process will help you free up time when you’ll need it most as the wedding approaches. Prioritizing and planning are definitely key words in the realm of weddings but flexibility is another important concept. It also helps to be understanding when others have a time crunch. Your vendors and wedding party can use your understanding when they’re running a few minutes behind just like you appreciate theirs. Hopefully with proper planning everything runs like clockwork, but when it doesn’t just take a deep breath and know that scheduling mishaps happen to the very best of us.

Use your words

Have you ever wanted to say something but didn’t know exactly how to get your idea across? You know what you’re feeling or thinking but can’t find the words you need to convey what you mean? Expression is extremely personal and sometimes it’s very difficult to find the perfect words to translate your thoughts and expectations to the person you’re communicating with. This can be extraordinarily important in the wedding planning process. Here are some key points that can help you communicate more effectively with your wedding professionals, your wedding party, and with others in general.

1.       What do you really mean to say?

What is the big idea that you’re trying to get across? When you begin it’s helpful to have an end in mind. When meeting with specific vendors it’s imperative to make your expectations known. I read recently that people can’t be expected to meet an expectation that they don’t know you have. Make a list. What do you want your vendor to know? Take that list when you meet with them so that while you have their full attention you can go over your key points and questions to maximize time and ensure that you’re happy with the outcome of that vendor’s work on your wedding.

2.       What is the other person “hearing”?

While you’re communicating take a moment to think about whether the person is “hearing” what you’re “saying”. Sometimes we’re communicating in a certain style because of our personality or natural inclinations but midstream we realize that the other person doesn’t seem to be “getting it”. I’m reading a book which says that it’s not what we say, it’s what other people hear that matters. Are you communicating in a way that ensures the other person is grasping your main points and expectations? If not, you may need to pause and take a moment to think of a different way to communicate your idea that helps the other person grasp your concept better. With many vendors pictures can also help in this area. Bring photos, magazine clippings, or internet printouts of what you like and what you dislike to ensure you and your vendor have the same mental picture of what you’re asking for.

3.       It’s ok to say, “I don’t understand. Could you explain that to me?”

Especially with vendors that are very creative or very technical you may hear language that you don’t understand. Or they may be communicating a concept that you’re not following. It’s ok to stop them and ask questions. I think many brides fear that they will frustrate a vendor by asking questions. On the contrary, it’s very encouraging when a bride takes the time to be excited, involved and inquisitive. Don’t be afraid to ask for clarification on a concept or process you don’t understand. Investing the extra time to make sure you understand will be beneficial to both you and your vendor.

I once overheard a mother speaking with her small child. The little boy was so excited about what he wanted to tell his Mom that he was having trouble stringing together a sentence. His Mom put her hand on his arm lovingly, looked in his eyes, and said, “It’s ok honey, use your words.” Sometimes adults are the same way, we get so excited that we might have trouble choosing our words to communicate a phenomenal idea. At Treasures it’s our goal to communicate clearly with you and help you understand the entire process involved in selecting, ordering, altering, and wearing your gown. It’ll be helpful to you to set a goal to communicate as effectively as possible with your wedding vendors, guests, family, and those you come in contact with daily. The key point: Use your words.

“It’s legit, commit.”

As a person who thrives on information I like to share with you important lessons I’ve learned through my interaction with brides over the years. Lately we’ve had brides visiting our store with only a few months remaining to their wedding. They’re still shopping for “the dress” and they’re frustrated with their inability to chose “the one”. Often times we hear these brides say, “I’m just really indecisive. I’m the most indecisive person in the world.” Or “I’m just really bad at making decisions.” I really don’t think that is the problem, though. I look at these intelligent, professional, put together women who I know make many decisions per day. They have jobs as teachers, who must make lesson plans and decide how to best communicate ideas in the classroom, or as doctors, who must decide the best course of treatment for many patients, or as professionals. They make decisions about fitness, about finances, about where to live, what to drive, and at the very least what their weekend plans will be. So really, in daily life they take decision making in stride.

So if indecisiveness is not the issue, what is? What makes them afraid to make a decision on a bridal gown? If this article describes you then the question I’d like to gently ask is, “What are you afraid of?” If you can pin down your hesitations about purchasing a gown then others can help you work through any objections, worries, or fears you might have. Clear communication is important. With yourself, with your family, with your bridal party, and ultimately with your future spouse clear communication will save you many headaches and heartaches in the wedding planning process and in life. If you’re worried that the dress you’re considering will look funny once it’s bustled at the reception… pose that question. If you worry that your idea to get away on a tandem bicycle won’t work if you chose to wear a ballgown… bring that up. No one can know what you’re thinking unless you tell them. Sometimes you might just need reassurance or you might need a really important question answered.

Time is not always the magic ingredient in decision making. Many brides facing this problem have been engaged (and dress shopping) for months, sometimes a year or more. If time was the answer to being able to make a quality decision on a wedding dress, they’d have put a checkmark beside “purchase dress” long ago. But more time does not necessarily equate to a better (or easier) decision. And if you run out of time then instead of having every option available to you, your choices quickly narrow to what is available in time and you end up sacrificing in some way. The dress you finally select isn’t really what you imagined, you have to settle on diamond white instead of ivory, or the designer only has a size up from what you really need available before your wedding. When time gets crunched, unfortunately a lot of times so do your expectations. I once read, “Failure to make a decision is a decision.” Such true words those are, along with the thought that if you decline to make a decision, something (or someone) will make it for you. Don’t be afraid to make yourself happy by capitalizing on the privilege of making your own decision.  Other people or circumstances rarely make the decision for us that we would have chosen ourselves.

So if you’ve done your homework, educated yourself on the gown purchasing process, gotten the approval of those closest to you whose opinions you value, and you ask all the questions you come up with then you shouldn’t be afraid to make that decision. Many of our brides tell us that there is no better feeling in the wedding planning process than looking forward to that day, wearing that dress, marrying that man. We see the smile on so many faces once the decision is made and all that’s left is to anticipate wearing that gorgeous gown. It’s beautiful, you feel beautiful in it… it’s legit, commit.

Don’t borrow trouble

Among the best pieces of my advice for brides is to choose vendors for your wedding that you are comfortable with and trust. Do your due diligence in educating yourself about the outcome you want. Choose vendors that have good values, customer service philosophy, appreciate your desired outcome, and make suggestions to help you achieve your wedding related goals. Then place that piece of the wedding in the hands of the professionals you have chosen and make your best attempt not to borrow trouble. Now you might ask, “What do you mean by not borrowing trouble?” Good question. Partly I mean refrain from worrying about outlandishly unlikely potential problems that could possibly arise at some point in time. For example: You probably drive home from work every day. Do you constantly run scenarios of things that could go wrong in traffic? “When I stop at a traffic light someone dressed in a gorilla costume could run up to my car carrying a mattress and fling themselves on top of my vehicle in an attempt to mattress surf when I resume travel to my desired destination!” That’s not a helpful thought process to engage in if your goal is to have stress-free drive time. If you’re gunning for a panic attack, maybe… but not stress-free drive time.

My point is that your florist is probably not going to love fielding phone calls regarding your impending feeling of doom that the country of origin of your dream wedding flower is suddenly going to completely run out of or have their entire crop of said flower demolished just in time for your wedding. That’s not a productive use of time. And honestly, if that happened your florist (if you’ve picked a true professional) will have a plan to save your bridal bouquet from unrestrained ugliness. So don’t spend your precious wedding planning time concocting absurd “what if” scenarios. A volcano most likely will not erupt at your desired honeymoon location, a herd of elephants will most certainly not break loose and ruin your engagement photos (cause face it, elephants would clearly enhance any engagement photo), and *if* you light a floral centerpiece on fire by accident your venue is required by law to have a fire extinguisher handy.

Granted, there are difficulties that may occur during the wedding planning process, but I have help for you there too. One of my mentors encouraged me recently not to waste time worrying because, “You’ll always worry about the wrong thing.” That was the most liberating philosophy about worry that I’d ever heard! You’ll probably have some sort of hiccup in the wedding planning process but if/when a problem surfaces it’s best to realize that every problem has a solution. Energy is best expended in finding a solution or finding the person or company that can help you create a solution instead of lamenting the fact that a problem presented itself. Often if you waste time focusing on the problem you’ll lose valuable time that would bring about a more speedy resolution and minimize your stress level. You need to enjoy the journey and not just the end result of your planning efforts. You only have the opportunity to plan your wedding once and being stressed out of your mind is certainly not the way you want to remember the process. So take a deep breath, curb the conspiracy theories, and remember the key point: Don’t borrow trouble.

“It’s only one day.”

You’re planning a wedding. You’ll get some really good advice. You’ll get some really not so good advice. You’ll get a lot of advice, period. And you’ll get some pieces of the same advice over and over again. One that we hear quite often, and we mean quite, is “It’s only one day.” So let’s talk about it. Most of the time when you hear “It’s only one day” it will be because you’re about to put more emphasis on, or spend more money on something that someone else deems less important than you do. (See our previous blog “Don’t sweat the small stuff, and what is the “small stuff”?” for more about what’s important to you versus what’s important to others.) The well meaning individual will throw in an “It’s only one day” in an attempt to bring you around to their way of thinking. This phrase is also sometimes used in an attempt to calm you down when you’re freaking out. It’s meant to show you that in the grand scheme of things you have the rest of your life to live and that this will be “only one day” in your journey. But seriously…. only?

We get the concept of trying to keep things in perspective. No one is going to die if the ink color on your invitations does not exactly match your bridesmaid dresses. If someone brings their invitation to the wedding and compares it to the bridesmaid dresses that individual has more problems than you can help them with and you should de-friend them… on facebook and in life. You should definitely make every attempt to realize that many decisions you make for your wedding will be preference based and that “life or death” usually does not factor into the wedding experience until it comes to the vows. But when you look back on your wedding do you really think you’ll see it as “only one day”? What about the day you met your fiancé? The day he proposed? The day down the road when you celebrate your 40^th anniversary? Are those just going to be “only one day”?  To us, those seem like pretty important days and your wedding is the foundation of the rest of your life… the beginning of your walk together as man and wife. So instead of dissecting the experience to its base parts, maybe try looking at it as an important piece in the puzzle of life. A day you’ll look back on with only photos and memories as its legacy. Keep your eye on the important overall picture, the wedding day is not the only piece of the puzzle, but it’s a corner piece. Ever lose the corner piece of a puzzle? It ruins the whole thing. So our advice would be, when the wedding starts to seem like the only piece, take a look at the front of the box for a big picture view. But be sure not to misplace the corner piece.

What’s the big deal about bridal appointments, anyway?

So glad you asked. A lot of our brides will schedule appointments (especially because we require them on the weekend and recommend them for weekdays) but some girls prefer to just “stop in”. Others think that appointments are stupid. So what’s the big deal, anyway? Here’s the key: Have you ever had a friend or relative just pop by your house unannounced? You love them and are overjoyed to see them. All the sudden you’ve got one of two thoughts going through your mind… 1. “Wow. They have perfect timing. I recently vacuumed the living room and we just went to the grocery store so I happen to have snacks I can offer them!” or 2. “Yikes. I have to leave in 5 minutes because I have plans with other friends to do dinner and a movie. I really would’ve liked to visit for awhile.” If it’s the first scenario, you’re perfect! Y’all pop popcorn, play Wii (or whatever you’re into), have a great time, and say goodbye feeling great about your relationship and the time you spent together. If it’s the second you’re in a quandary. How do you explain without hurting their feelings that they are really important to you, it’s just that you had other plans first… if they had called you could’ve set something up for tomorrow night… or the weekend. What to do? See what we’re getting at? We love all our brides and want all of them to feel special and not shorted out of the proper amount of attention. Appointments allow us to look forward to your visit, properly plan, and make the most of your time at our store. Now, if you pop by on a weekday we are not going to smack your hand with a ruler. We may just ask you to bear with us a little while so we can finish up with another customer, or we may ask you if we can set you up an appointment for a little later on that day. We enjoy what we do, and we look forward to helping you, so we just try to make your experience as smooth as possible. It’s not cause we’re meanie grump faces. I promise.

Don’t sweat the small stuff, and what is the “small stuff”?

We meet a lot of brides. They have different personalities, different interests, different venues, different dress ideas, different time frames, different *everything*. We also meet a lot of family members and friends of those brides and therefore we hear many, many opinions and pieces of advice directed at those brides. The most heartwarming part of this is that those people have the bride’s best interest at heart, they love her, and they want her to be as happy as humanly possible. Sometimes though, people will be certain that what makes them happy will also be what makes the bride happy. Not always the case. Surprised? Think… Do you and your sister have the exact same taste in shoes? Your best friend has the exact favorite food you do, right? Your mom watches all the same shows you do and you laugh at exactly the same jokes, huh? One or more of those could be true, but my point is that what makes others happy won’t necessarily always make you happy.

So I’ll give you a clue to de-stressing the wedding process. Try making a list (even if it’s a mental list, although I recommend putting it to paper or iPhone note) of what components are most important to you concerning your wedding. Break it down into “I’d basically cry if this didn’t happen”, “This is pretty important, and I’d be fairly upset if it was missed”, “This is reasonably important, but I wouldn’t be crushed if it didn’t come together”, and “I mostly don’t care about this at all but someone said once if you have a wedding in North America you must do this or bad stuff will happen to you… or something.” You can name your categories something different if you don’t like mine. But stay with me here… as things come up and loved ones make suggestions… as complete strangers make suggestions… as you are bombarded with opinions from every direction… put those components into your categories. This will prioritize your decision making and also help you with budgeting. If your dress is really important to you (cause clearly I think it should be) then put that in your top category, make the decision on it first, and give it the attention it deserves. If having a clown tie balloon animals at your reception is at the bottom of your list… on second thought… we need a whole other category for that… unless you’re into it, then put it in the top category.

Do you see what I’m saying? Other people can make a really big deal out of elements of the wedding that aren’t important to you at all. If you don’t know where it falls in priority of importance to you, then you could get sidetracked and your focus could be stolen by something you don’t really care about. That stinks. Especially if it makes you miss doing something else you really cared about. Keeping your categories and referring back to them as you get overwhelmed will keep you focused and on track. Your list will look different than anyone else’s and so will your wedding. That’s what interjecting some personality into the process is all about. The key point: What’s important to *you* is important, what’s not important to *you* is the “small stuff”. Don’t sweat the small stuff.

Don’t blog me down!

If you’re paying attention you can see that we’ve had a blog for awhile but haven’t made much of it… until now. It’s our goal to change our ways and keep up with our blog. Our number one focus is serving our customers and that keeps us quite occupied. We enjoy spending time visiting with you in our store, helping you find the dress of your dreams, and walking you through the process from beginning to end. So our blog has been on the back burner. But recently a friend helped us realize that our blog is actually an extension of our service to you. It’s our intention to provide you with helpful information that will ensure your wedding planning process will go smoothly and hopefully provide a little entertainment along the way! If you have suggestions of topics you’d like to hear about or questions you’d like to ask we would love to hear them! We’ll attempt to keep it simple and not ”blog you down”!