Grace under pressure

After a long hiatus from the blog, taken to focus on moving among other things, I am back with wedding ideas, stories and hopefully helpful advice to all you brides-to-be as well as friends and family.  We are really blessed as people in the wedding industry to be able to share this important time in your lives with you.  As I witnessed recently during my good friend’s wedding weekend, the people hired to provide a service for your wedding, whether it is to serve the food, take the pictures, officiate the ceremony or provide wedding favors have everything to do with the success of the wedding.  And conversely, no matter how meticulously you plan for the occasion, in the end, there are bound to be things over which you have absolutely no control.  It takes a bride with a healthy attitude and proper perspective to not break down when thing don’t go as planned.

When you see the list of all the things that went wrong during the weekend-long wedding celebration of my friend, you might wonder how it’s possible that she didn’t just completely lose it.  For the sake of brevity, I’ll just give you the highlights…

  1. The entertainment for her bachelorette party (we hired a stripper) was a no-show.  All the girls, plus a very dressed up mother and grandmother of the bride-to-be waited while her sisters, thinking quickly on their feet threw an impromptu party instead, inviting the groomsmen and other friends
  2. On the morning of the wedding, we had no hot water in the bridal suite.  The bride had to run across the resort to bathe in the suite occupied by friends.
  3. The officiant was 30 minutes late to the ceremony due to personal matters.  Guests waited on the lawn on a cold, overcast and windy day by the beach.
  4. The catering office mixed up the dinner menu and instead of serving duet plates of filet and salmon, served only filet causing a few vegetarian guests to dine on sides of mashed potatoes and garnish.

By now all you ladies planning your weddings are probably ready to have a nervous breakdown.  Believe me I’m not trying to scare you!  But unfortunately these things happen.  And it wasn’t for lack of organization on the part of my friend.  Despite every consideration and countless hours of planning and coordination, it seemed as if the perfect wedding was just not in the cards.  But the point of my story is that she took it like a champ.  I myself was surprised at the level of composure the bride maintained despite many hiccups and few disasters.  And her attitude was what allowed the weekend to take place in spite of those setbacks.  She diffused a potentially awkward situation when we told her that the stripper won’t be coming by initiating drinking games with her groomsmen and turning the evening into a riotous party.  When we found no hot water on the morning of the wedding, she was flexible and trekked down to another hotel room to take a hot shower before proceeding with hair and make-up at the salon.  And when the catering manager interrupted the reception to review the contract for the dinner menu choices, she firmly explained that she would take care of it later so as not to draw the attention of all of her guests.

Looking back, I am proud of my friend for displaying grace under pressure.  As guests, we take the cue from the bride.  The wedding day is built up to be her day, the fruit of all her labor, the pinnacle of her coming of age.  So many times throughout the weekend I thought my friend had reached her limit and would blow up or break down, she held her cool and even laughed it off.  Seeing her relaxed and enjoying herself allowed me to do the same.  Her wedding and the entire weekend was a huge success.  I imagine even the debacles will remain as colorful details in our memories of her wedding day.

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