 There are certain mistakes that even smart couples might make while planning their wedding. Inadvertently making them can cause no end of anxiety and distress before the wedding and even during it.
For example, if you are planning your wedding, are you absolutely clear as to who financially owns the event? If you and your betrothed are covering the cost completely, you can call all the shots. If someone else, usually one or more set of parents, is footing the bill, you will need to gather all your diplomatic skills and negotiate so that both you and the "event owner" are satisfied with the wedding. This may mean saying, "Aunt Jane, as long as everything is buttercream yellow and I carry roses, I don't care who you invite or what we eat." Or, "Dad, we are paying for this and it will remain a vegan, gluten-free, and alcohol-free wedding, so just deal with it." Just make sure you get this kind of clarity early in the process. There's no worse wedding guest than a festering family resentment! In some ways, the wedding ceremony is the smallest physical part of the wedding day. It usually doesn’t go on past 40 minutes (unless a church service is involved), a far smaller allotment of time than the reception, the preparations, or even the picture taking with family. And in terms of financial cost, the ceremony itself is usually tiny compared to such things as feeding all your guests, hiring the band or the florist, or wearing that ultimate dress. Despite its smallness in proportion, people agree that the wedding ceremony itself is the most magical and sacred few moments of your wedding day. Consider that you arrive at your wedding ceremony as two distinct individuals. The ceremony itself is a crucible for transformation, and after certain words and rituals you will emerge from the other side as two (still distinct) individuals who are joined in the eyes of their community, beginning to walk on the path of one life together. Somehow, planning the wedding ceremony often gets lost among the shuffle of searching for your venue, tasting cakes, and calling up transportation companies. And that’s why even smart and conscious brides and grooms can easily overlook some important action items. Like setting aside time to think about writing your vows, or whether you even want to. And don't wait until the last minute to choose or book your officiant. Many couples have been unpleasantly shocked to find that officiants are already booked, and have been so for months. When you don’t clearly think through these issues, a general miasma of anxiety begins to rise up around the wedding which makes planning not so much fun for anyone. Fortunately, you can settle these issues fairly quickly and release a great deal of tension from the planning process. 
It easy for me to tell that autumn has come. I find myself reaching for long-sleeved shirts and boots, thinking about food.
A restless urge stirs inside me so that I sort through my bookshelves, releasing seven bags of books I no longer need. And I think about food. I’m compelled to sort the family’s flannel sheets and throw out plastic lids with no containers, thinking wildly about food. Fall food. Roasted butternut-apple-onion soup. Roasted beets in mango balsamic vinaigrette. Kubocha pumpkin soup --- it doesn’t get any easier. Roast it and purée with the stock of your choice. If you want to get fancier, quinoa salad with minced red onion, feta, orange segments, arugula, cilantro, mint, and chopped dried cranberries and apricots. Slivered almonds optional. Oatmeal with persimmon, banana, walnut, and cranberry. No sugar or milk needed. Pears baked in apple juice with cinnamon and vanilla. Or just an Asian pear (also called apple pears) thinly sliced, with a cup of ginger honey tea. Mmmmmmmmmm. |
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