Wedding Day - The Ceremony

 

 

It's been a few months (err 8 but who's counting?) since our wedding and though I totally meant to do a recap soon after, married life simply got in the way :) But I'm finally ready to spill some details. Though it's incredibly hard to sum up how I felt throughout our wedding day I'll try, so here goes..

So the morning of the wedding I woke up pretty early, around 6 am and it felt kind of like the first day of school. I was excited, nervous and anxious all at the same time. My family greeted me warmly and force fed me breakfast which was great considering I didn't eat again till hours later. lol. I then felt this calm buzz, I felt at ease and everything was happening on time but also anxious looking forward to the day's events. I mentally tried to keep reminding myself to be in the moment and savor every second. Hair and makeup went smoothly with me laughing and joking trying to keep my mood light. And then before I knew it, it was time to put my dress on. Eek!! That's when reality started to hit and I began to process that I WAS GETTING MARRIED THAT DAY.

We're Married!!

First dance as husband and wife :)

On June 9, 2012 me and my man finally got hitched!! I kinda abandoned my blog the last few weeks as wedding madness really caught up to me and we quickly left on our honeymoon, but now that I'm back I will be posting details about our day very soon :)



Photo Credit: Allie Bell — taken during our first dance :)

Marrying Your Best Friend

"Umm you like what??"

After reading this post on A Practical Wedding, I got to thinking. Do we really marry our best friends? In the post, the author writes how her and her now-husband don't think of one another as best friends, but simply as husband and wife. In fact, she even writes that if they weren't married they probably wouldn't even be friends! You often hear the saying "I married my best friend" and her post strikes a nerve in a sensitive area.

When I first met my now fiancé I thought we were the same person. In fact, I even wrote to some friends how he was "the male version of me" haha. It was amazing how much we had in common, all the topics we could talk about, etc, etc. Fast forward to the present and I realize how different we are.

I love to read. Love, love, love to read. In 8th grade I read more than 150 books during the school year. (And not just the easy stuff, War and Peace, Anna Karenina..yes I was a dork ;)  His one completed book in recent years is The 4-Hour Workweek. I'm a music lover, but especially love hip-hop, reggae, rap, etc., whereas his most enjoyable tunes fall into the euro-style, techno category. I love to eat. I'll try pretty much anything you put in front of me and am always open to sampling unique cuisine. Whereas Patryk prefers his rotating repertoire of favorite meals and cringes at the thought of trying something new. We have different political views, different tastes in design and furnishings, and other things on which we "agree to disagree."

But as the author points out, differences in music and food are peanuts if you share the same core values and morals in which you want to begin your family unit. It is this type of heavy stuff that will determine the success of your marriage, not who likes to eat this or that. This is definitely the case for us. We share the same beliefs, values and have common goals that we want to achieve as a married couple. We have plans for our future about the way we want to raise our children, who will manage what in our household and most of all the type of life we want to build for ourselves. However, despite all our differences I do think my fiancé is my best friend; he's my closest confidant, my biggest supporter and the person I turn to for pretty much everything. That being said, I think it's our differences that make us who we are, and give a zest to our relationship that wouldn't be there if we were exactly the same person. Just imagine what a boring life that would be ;)


Photo via Jason+Anna Photography

The Name Change - A New Life as Mrs. G

Along with all the choices you have to make when you decide to get married, changing your name is yet another one. There are tons of options out there today. You can change your name to your husband's, you can keep your name as is, you can hyphenate and combine both your names, you can both change your name altogether or your husband can change his name to yours! (Pretty cool dude in my book.) Luckily, there are many options for those that wish to change their name, whole websites have even sprung up streamlining the fairly complicated process for you! (missnowmrs.com).

However, sometimes the decision to change your name can be a challenging one. Maybe you love your name and simply don't want to change it. Maybe the thought of having a new identity and a new name is just too strange of an option for you. Or maybe you want to keep your name for professional reasons. Every person's reasoning is different.

The whole name-change conversations bring back some old memories when back in our elementary school days we'd doodle on our notebooks with the last name of whatever crush we had at the moment. (C'mon ladies you know you did this! hehe) For me, it was definitely Mrs. DiCaprio (I had an ahem slight obsession with Leo to say the least.) You would imagine your life together and potential children's names that would go well with your new last name. Well fast forward about 15 years and this is the reality I'm facing as I get ready to embark on my life as a married woman. I was raised in a traditional home where my mom took my dad's last name and everyone around me was in the same situation. So for me, though I certainly support feminism and a woman's right to make her name-changing decision, the traditional route is what I opted for. This certainly wasn't a decision I made overnight but I can say that for me and my future husband, this option works best.

I had many personal reasons for doing this. For one, I like the fact that my husband and I would share a name and we'd be taking the first steps in building our baby family. And number two, my name is long as hell. Like longer than the alphabet, 30-letters, mostly-consonants-long. (It's Katarzyna Agnieszka Marciszewska, I wasn't kidding lol) Needless to say, as much as I love my name I am looking forward to paring it down a little. Patryk's last name still isn't the easiest to pronounce for people, but it's certainly easier than mine!

I'm still unsure how I'll handle the professional transition (as a writer your name is everything) but I do plan on embracing my new identity. It will be a bit weird at first but after speaking to women who have been married for many years, they laugh and say sometimes they forget their maiden names. As all these other aspects of my life change in married life, this will simply be another one to add to the list. Here's to my future as Mrs. Grobelny! :)

When DIY isn't always better..

My original DIY wedding planning vision has been altered a bit

When I embarked on this whole wedding planning journey, I swore to myself that I would be different. I wouldn't cave to the wedding industry pressure and do things our way. I swore that I'd spend money only on the things that matter and put in the time and effort of doing the rest ourselves.

It was a pretty logical way of thinking, especially since DIY weddings are all the rage nowadays — and for good reason. Wedding costs are at astronomical heights and I totally get why there are entire websites and communities of dedicated DIY-ers who swear by this method. I think it's a great and sentimental way to truly make the wedding yours, but I also think that it depends on the bride and groom, wedding guest count and a whole slew of logistical, time-management and practical aspects that have to be considered.

So although I have a soft space in my heart for DIY weddings, the reality train hit me. I realized that sometimes it's better to spend money on the professional and sit back, relax and enjoy your day. Yea, that's right I said it. Cave into the industry and hire the pros, in the end it will be soo worth it. (At least this is what I've heard and what I've been repeating to myself.) In my case, that meant deciding to hire a professional florist in lieu of doing the flowers on our own. I realized that there literally wouldn't be enough time to get it all done and opting for a trusted professional really put my mind at ease.

Of course this doesn't mean you have to give up your vision of a wedding with a homemade touch, but prioritize what you realistically can accomplish. For me, it came down to wanting my guests to feel like guests and not workers. I definitely still plan on making a lot of items myself, but turns out sometimes leaving the big stuff to the people that do it daily is the way to go :)

Photo via www.diyweddingresource.com

When Eloping Starts to Look Very Tempting

So I'm at that place in wedding planning when I'm starting to understand why people elope. Planning a wedding is tough, with a lot of emotions, money, family dynamics and decisions involved. Some brides may have a better knack for this stuff, but I'm definitely feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all. Then again, I think eloping wouldn't necessarily be the answer to our problems (just imagining our parents reactions terrifies me a bit) but when I see beautiful elopements like these I just can't help but wonder...

Images via the superbly talented Nick Radford

Disco Polo Friday: Another Gem

the things that really matter

A compilation of some great advice I've picked up from real brides and my own thoughts on keeping perspective during wedding planning.

Remember...

Just marry the one you love, all the rest doesn't matter

Plan for the marriage not the wedding! 

Things WILL go wrong and it's OK
Don't sweat the small stuff

No really, don't sweat the small stuff

At the end of the day, don't stress about making everyone happy,
just BE happy

Relax, smile & drink wine

Resolve to be content

Don't focus on the wedding but rather on the life you'll share together
Stop worrying, everything WILL be OK because you're marrying the one you love ♥

decisions, decisions

So you're engaged, you're excited, you're happy! And then reality sets in when you realize you now have to plan a WEDDING. Deciding to spend the rest of my life with my man was the easy part (love you babe!). Choosing a place where we'd get married on the other hand was an incredibly daunting prospect! 

Let me back up a bit, you see my fiancé and I are from different states. He is a California native while I've bounced around between Poland, NY, NJ, AZ and finally joined him in the Golden State. Per Polish tradition, the marriage usually takes place in the bride's hometown. But where was my hometown? I felt a connection to all the states I lived in for different reasons but didn't feel especially compelled to get married in any of them. And who says you have to follow these traditions anyway? (Your mom does, that's who.) Of course, I forgot to mention the option of getting married in the Motherland itself. No shortage of decisions, that's for sure! 

Bottom line, for couples who are from different cities, states and especially different countries, this can be a tricky decision. For some, it's a no-brainer, for others (like myself) it's a decision you agonize over, rationalizing and comparing one over the other again and again. In the end, I hope wherever we do decide to have our wedding, our family & friends will be there to support and celebrate with us. After all, it's not about where the wedding is taking place but the fact that we're getting married, right?! :)

P.S. Not to worry, we promise an awesome party no matter the destination. I mean, at least that was an easy decision, eesh.