So the Crazy Bride had a good week this week....I was able to "let go" a bit, check my Type A personality at the door and have some much needed bridal moments.
The sounds track starting last Saturday was...tick, tock, tick, tock...just a loud internal clock reminding me how much wasn't done, late and left to do. With under a month and a half left before the big day, wedding invites were still waiting to go out...yikes, late...i know, but everyone is SUPPOSED to be saving the date...the lighting company still needs to be booked, songs still need to be selected...although if anyone has any good walk down the aisle songs, I am open to suggestions...really can't wrap my head around 'Here Comes the Bride' (it will be 'there goes the bride' if that starts playing..lol), catering menu needs to be finalized, so I can make menus and well I have a final count due in 2 weeks to my vendors...which, let me tell ya is pretty difficult when the invitations are in pieces on the kitchen table...and that is only items one through three on a laundry list of wedding related tasks that is about 30-40 deep and daunting.
But as I said, this ended up being a good week....so what changed?
Saturday night I got a Facebook message from an old co-worker saying a producer friend of her's was looking for brides-to-be (benefit of being an LA bride)...while my first thought was maybe she was casting for Bridezilla and wanted the Crazy Bride to be a spectacle, I wrote back and said that if there was anything I could do to help, feel free to give me a call. I got a call that night and what resulted was far from my initial Bridezilla thoughts, but an opportunity to appear on a sponsored segment called 'My Own Time' on OWN..Oprah's new network....yes please, sign me up! So it took me about 2.2 seconds to decide that this was brilliant and agreed to do it. Please note, that as I am on the phone on Saturday night, I am feeding DIY invitations through the printer....which unfortunately even though people were willing to help, sometimes you just to have to 'do it yourself'...type A kicks in!
After that, Sunday - Wednesday ended up being utter chaos. The show needed me to shoot some segments around the house, which at this point is a disaster of wedding stuff, so even finding a spot with no wedding do-dads in the background was tough. I had a incredibly busy week at work with tons of proposals and admin that NEEDED to be done and for the love of god...the bane of my existence at this point...the invitations NEEDED to get out...already 3 weeks late! Not to mention just day to day life and events during the week that we had agreed to attend were still in play. Emotions and stress had reached critical mass. I literally didn't have an ounce of the sanity and peace and calm that I so enjoy. I found myself sitting on the floor in our kitchen sobbing trying to move things in the cabinet around to try to restore some order to the disorder we were living in.
I knew I needed to delegate and take the help that people were offering, but I had been holding everything so close to the vest. Then my fella stepped in and in essence took over...didn't give me a chance to say 'I'll just do it myself'....which is kinda my M.O....thinking I can somehow handle it all. Thursday, came home grabbed the camera and shot me doing different wedding related planning things around the house. Then he and I attacked the invitations. NOTE: If you get invitations that required 100 bows to be tied, pay someone. Only 1 out of every 10 actually comes out how they look in the picture on the box. I went upstairs and just addressed envelopes. He assembled and tied bows and stuffed in envelopes. At this point, I had let go and trusted that what he was putting out was going to be fine. I just didn't have the capacity to care about bow tying and realized I just cared more about the help and was able to take a moment and feel good that we were "moving the needle".
Yesterday ended up being an amazing experience shooting the segment. For me it ended up being more about putting things in perspective, then being on TV. The host Kristin..if any of you remember the Lubiderm commercial with the alligator, she was the girl with smooth skin....was super nice and gave me an older sister pep talk that I was in desperate need of. I don't want to give TOO much away, as its supposed to air on May 20 at 4pm, but they did my hair and makeup and I slipped into my dress...which you may think is crazy to do before the wedding...but it was nice to take that moment and look in the mirror and look totally "bridal" and really realize...holy crap I am getting married!! There were no thoughts of, I hope I don't trip or I hope the centerpieces turn out ok, no bridemaids fawning over my super bridal awesomeness....just me looking in the mirror realizing that the wedding is just a day, a moment in time...a amazing moment...but that the marriage...what this is all about...is where my focus should be and stay. I was able to shed so much stress from the planning in that moment and what felt like first time in 2 months really....breathe.
Ah the realizations and epiphanies of the Crazy Bride!
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