“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.