After the thrill is gone

Now its time to plan and make decisions about your future wedding. What do you want? What does your partner want? Do you agree on this vision of your wedding day? Chances are you'll see eye to eye on some things, others will need to be compromised.
Not only is it about what you and your partner want, wish for, desire, but what does your family expect, envision, REQUIRE? This gets tricky. This day is really about you and your relationship and celebrating this right of passage, but this tends to get lost at times when family imposes their ideas and opinions about how it should be done. It becomes additionally tricky if their is money involved, who's fitting the bill usually means their are strings attatched. Here are some of my thoughts on how to navigate these often feisty waters:
-Be diplomatic, and sensitive that this is important to your family too, even though its not really about them, it sort of is.
-At the end of the day, what are you going to regret? If eloping just feels easier and more appealing, thats great, but when you look back are you going to wish you hadn't. What can you live with and what can't you live without?
-Consider a wedding planner to make your life easier, plus having a neutral party to help you make decisions is probably better than dealing with your parents or future in laws for various details.
-Just because someone is paying for the wedding, shouldn't mean they get to dictate what happens. Talk about this openly with your family, be clear with them about your thoughts and needs and talk with them about some of their expectations. Give a little, it will go a long way.
In the end, plan a nice relaxing honeymoon, because you are going to need it. Jeff and I went to the Amalfi Coast in Italy, although gorgeous and highly recommended, not really the pampering I needed after the year plus of wedding insanity. Additionally, Jeff was so sick after our wedding he could barely get out of bed; we ended up coming home a day early... (more on the honeymoon in another blog!)
Bottom line, get a notebook, check out www.theknot.com, and read The Consicous Bride(by Sheryl Nissinen), and try to have fun.