A Few Things That Annoyed Me About Wedding Planning
If you could change anything about the planning process, what would it be? Looking back on planning for my big day, there were a few things that annoyed me a bit. Thought I'd share a few with you.
1. Wedding information overload.
Wedding stuff is everywhere on the web... but you still have to piece it all together like a puzzle. I had no idea what I was getting into when I began planning my wedding. I was disappointed with the lack of concrete and comprehensive resources available online. This was a serious problem for us during our planning.
I didn't really take to the wedding portals (ie. The Knot, Wedding Wire, etc.) as I would have liked to. They felt limiting. I tried them all out, but preferred blogs over portals. Thing about blogs though, there were only a few in 2008. Plus, you have to dig into their archives. Also, most blogs are about inspiration and not so much about the planning process itself.
2. Preferred vendor lists.
I know I know, everyone is doing it. But I'm not a fan of preferred vendor lists. I understand why lists like these exist and have become popular, but the issue I have is, it's often unclear how the recommender is benefiting, thus seriously compromising the trust factor.
3. Bride-centric everything.
Bride bride bride. They say it's all about pleasing the bride, but you know, it's really not. I think bride-centric days are numbered. I'm not saying grooms will start tweeting 'Dude, check out these mason jar cupcakes!" but, I think grooms are becoming much more involved in the details of the day.
4. Keeping everyone up-to-date.
I hated this, but boy was it important. We created a wedding website using Weebly. It was alright, but I probably would go with another service (Wedful!) if I had to do it all over. Our wedding website was just one more thing to remember and-- I seldom remembered to update it.
What worked best was, I created pdf newsletters to introduce our wedding party to each other and to keep them all informed. It was a big hit. But keeping family updated and answering questions all of the time... it was tough. I'd probably use Facebook to communicate with everyone now.
5. Wedding websites using flash and music.
Why is this still happening? There's nothing worst than opening up a page that has a random song blasting. It's distracting. I usually just exit immediately.
As for flash, you can't right click and save details from the page. Boooo! We're all about saving stuff for later these days!
6. Wedding services provider websites missing phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and prices.
Come on now...
7. The follow-up.
I was shocked at the ratio and quality of follow-ups in the wedding space. Some people followed-up, some didn't. Some called. Some emailed.
I noticed though, there is a HUGE quality gap. There's the top and the rest. We were really focused on quality of service and didn't mind paying a premium for it so we gravitated towards the top. Who knows how things would have turned out if we'd done otherwise.
This should serve as motivation to the really good service providers who get it-- keep it up! You guys really stand out! It's evident right away when you have it together. When it was time for us to decide, we chose the service providers who were more professional, more polished, and had great communication and follow-through. Our wedding planner was awesome!
8. Wedding professional egos.
Okay, so you've been featured a few times on X- blog and Y- TV show, awesome, happy to hear it's all working out for you. But ummmm, let's keep in mind my wedding isn't for you to showcase YOUR vision for my day.
9. Gift registries.
I hate gift registries. You have to dedicate so much time to selecting and choosing and yada yada yada. Since we were in Tokyo and there were no international registries I just didn't want to deal with the hassle of it all. We tried Amazon's wedding registry, it was a joke and it seemed broken or something. We ended up going with Target and some department store.
10. RSVPs.
Something that really annoyed and amused me was RSVPs. I was excited to receive them, but before long, I noticed a trend. His side RSVPd quickly and the return rate was like 80%. My side, however, didn't do it quickly and the return rate was about 15%. My side either emailed me, told over the phone, or assumed I knew they were coming. Seriously!
I was warned by a friend, "Black folks do not RSVP". Ha! In our case, it was so true. And to make this even funnier, after I shared this with my side, all of a sudden, I started receiving RSVPs from them. WTH?
Tell me, if you could change anything about the planning process, what would it be?
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