3 Weeks to plan a Wedding. GO!

I remember getting back to LA and feeling so much love for Patrick it was overwhelming. I had never felt so much love for anyone before in my life! I thought, wow so much freedom comes when you just make a choice! Anytime we were on the phone those couple days after I had all those giggly feelings and insane amounts of love for this guy. But by the time Monday came, reality sat in and I realized. I have a 200 person wedding to plan in 3 weeks. What. The. HECK?!

The week I got back was my last week at my job during VBS. I was so stressed because I wanted to relax before the wedding. For the first time in years I was going to be without a job and it was conveniently the month before I got married and really wanted to rest before I threw myself into such a life changing event. So Patrick had a wild idea. He suggested "Well, if it's your last week in the office why don't you try to plan the wedding this week? Then you can still have those two weeks off"? I thought um, what? Who plans a wedding in a week? That's insane. But you know what. I like it. I'm GOING TO PLAN THIS WEDDING IN ONE WEEK!

I had already told a friend of mine who is a wedding planner that I would love to have her run my wedding on the day of as the coordinator. So check. (If you want to plan your own wedding I say YES and AMEN. But I do recommend that you still hire a coordinator for the day of event to talk to your vendors and make sure everything goes smoothly. It's SO WORTH the stress free day!) Invitation are so yesterday so how about text, facebook, and emails? Plus we are saving paper aka the planet. Done, no invitations. (Again I highly recommend this process! I would still get peoples mailing addresses incase you want to send individual thank you cards! Or at least have a guest book, we had a guest tree but not everyone signed it so we don't know who all came to the wedding...crazy) I was using my dad's church as the venue for free, so check. (If you can get a free or cheap venue AMAZING! otherwise I say go for a garden so it's already decorated!) Let me mention I used to work for an insanley incredible wedding planner when I lived in NYC so I am quite familiar with wedding planning and have a gnarly detail oriented brain naturally. But the biggest help was truly God's Favor. The Lord pulled so many people onto our team that made it incredibly smooth. A friend from church offered to do our flowers for free, we just paid for the cost of the flowers. (If you can buy flowers whole sale and have friends you trust to do them, I say go for it!! We only spent about $500 on flowers for PERFECT florals). The secretary of the church worked as our venue coordinator going to great lengths to help us, and my mom gifted us with a wedding budget for everything (literally couldn't have made this happen with our her help). Patrick booked our DJ and our videographer, our engagement photographer was still available so we booked her, my engagement make-up artists was available so I booked her. (Multiple friends advised spend more money on a videographer and photographer and less on food!! I couldn't agree more! I would even say spend those extra dollars on having a girls sleepover at a hotel the night before, it was one of the most memorable parts of my wedding!) I Booked a Bungalow at Terrenea for the Girls the night before and then for our wedding night. He booked us Tickets to NYC for the honeymoon. A friend reccomended a coffee company to do a mobile coffee cart instead of alcohol (also a money saver and body poison saver), a gluten-free vegan bakery took us as their last available client to do all desserts, Bucca Di Beppo gave us the cheapest rate out of all the "cheapest" caterers to make us an all vegan menu with some gluten free options for dinner, and an event planner was available to do catering for our cocktail hour! My friends who were musicians I asked to play about a 45minute set a long the way throughout the night. As I kept booking, all these little details just poured into my brain as I threw various items into our cart on Amazon. I got my dress with some friends the end of that week by literally walking in the store, trying on a dress that was under $1,000 and said, "yeup this seems good" and bought it. (But I did go and look at dresses about 3 times prior to that moment, so I knew what was out there). Planning was crazy fun! It was like a fresh cup of coffee!

However, it was not giving Patrick energy. He started freaking out. From trying to figure out what to wear, to what his groomsmen should wear he started panicking. His stress made me stressed and soon all of our conversations turned into wedding planning conversations. We started fighting. A LOT. I got anxious, AGAIN. I started doubting because there was too much stuff on my plate, I was freaking out about this life changing decision but not giving myself the grace to freak out. I kept telling myself, you are about to make the biggest decision of your life you should feel happy and peaceful and excited and so in love! But instead I was stressed, fearful and unsure. I should have given myself that safe space to say "feeling doubtful is so natural, you are under a lot of stress and pressure. You are quitting your job, your fiance has been gone for 2 months and is still gone for 3 more weeks, you guys have been fighting a lot from stress and aren't connecting, and your love language is physical touch and quality time which isn't happening daily, of course you feel crazy". But I didn't have that gentle spirit for myself. I was too overwhelmed by what I thought I should be feeling instead of offering myself the love of God.

The next week a friend reccomended Patrick and I do a "movie date" long distance and not to talk about our relationship, the wedding, work, or anything stressful. We wanted to watch OKJA but thought, well that movie is supposed to be intense let's do something light hearted. One of his guy friends reccomended Midnight in Paris, we hadn't seen it so we said sure! The night starts off with my dad inviting me to go salsa dancing with him 30 minutes before our date. I really wanted to go but I knew Patrick and I had been so disconnected and fighting so much so even though I wanted to go I said no because I wanted to invest in our relationship. Right when we get ready to watch the Movie, Patrick's boss calls a dancer meeting. So he has to go. Now I'm super frazzled, I gave up dancing with my sweet dad to wait for my fiance to finish a meeting. About 45 minutes later he's back. I'm already in a bad mood, as is he due to this meeting. We start watching the movie, but the signal keeps breaking up which creates more stress and frustration. PLUS the movie is literally about an engaged couple the breaks up?! What the heck kind of movie reccomendation is this? PATRICK'S FRIEND WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!?! By the end of the movie the couple breaks up and I'm left feeling even more doubtful about our relationship than before the movie starts.

I get off the phone and act like I had a good time speaking with him and call my mom to share my thoughts. "Mom I don't think I can do this. I can't do this relationship it's too hard". My mom starts sharing her thoughts about feeling uncomfortable with us going through with this wedding and me not giving her a lot of confidence in the relationship. But the more she spoke the more I just wanted to talk to Patrick. I realized that even when I'm mad at him and disconnected form him, he's still the one I want to talk to. Even if he can't help. I ultimately wanted to stay with Patrick I just needed help understanding what love was and what love was not. I think we are all so trained in validating one another's feelings that we forget sometimes our feelings are rooted in fear. We try to give advice to symptoms instead of looking for the root cause. So, I call Patrick back and was honest with him.

"Hey Patrick, I know that you said this was fun for you and you were glad we got to connect but I don't feel the same way at all. I'm feeling really unsure and nervous about this relationship and this movie didn't help". Whoa- I know super direct. But this has always worked for us. I just say straight forward what it is that I'm thinking or feeling so then we can actually get to what's happening and not talk around the subject. I'm trying to get better at saying things straight forward but also in the kindest way possible, still direct, just kind. You know, I don't remember what he said, but I do remember by the end of the conversation feeling better. At the very least we were both being honest with one another building our relataionship on transparency.

[I don't remember exactly what I said either, but it went something like this: It makes sense why we feel far apart, we are spending so much time worried about whether or not we are connecting and are judging every single moment, hoping that a feeling will heal our hearts, dampen our fears, and encourage us to persevere. It hasn't been fun! We are keeping ourselves from having fun because we are judging our interactions rather than accepting them as they are and finding beauty in them. I'm pretty sure we just need some space! Let's take some time apart to just seek God and heal. -Patrick]

It was a terrible date for me. Not fun at all, but pretending to have fun didn't work for me. I can't trick myself into pretending everything is okay. I've spent too many years acting like everything was okay when it was not. But when we actually address what is wrong truthfully and with love, a freedom comes that is only possible with complete honesty and surrender. There's a deep joy that comes from honest tears. When we let go of wanting to be right or wrong, we can be open to creativity, forgiveness and the possibility of change. I believe God loves to bless this place of deep surrender and humility. I believe God saw our eager hearts to be honest and vulnerable with one another and desired to heal our hearts from past hurts during our engagement process. God is always after healing, not torture. But, I've noticed that he doesn't numb us like we desire to do in our western culture. God invites us to be more present. When we workout we create micro-tears in our muscles that build them back stronger. I think sometimes we need to endure micro-emotional-tears as well instead of just going through the motions. There are lessons we can only learn in struggles that are hidden in moments of happiness. Every season is worth exploring, there's always hidden treasure wherever we are in life. And I promise you, God has led me to a lot of treasure during this relationship.