Lone Wolf

(source)

Yes, that’s me. You see, Hive, I’ve been doing this whole wedding planning thing pretty much all by myself. Why? Well, it’s a little complicated.

For one thing, Mr. Swan and I decided NOT to have a wedding party. It’s not that we don’t have any friends that we wanted to include in the wedding. If anything it was the exact opposite! Mr. Swan would have been faced with the task of having a wedding party consisting of his brother and about eight other guys. I don’t have any siblings and very few close friends, so my half of the wedding party would have been pretty small consisting of four people or less. Either way, the idea of a ten-plus person wedding party was not appealing to the both of us. We felt we could still include people in ways we thought were important without having a formal bridal party. I know that’s not a popular sentiment, but that was definitely the right decision for us. 

While I love Mommy Swan and my family, they have not been a part of most of the planning either. Since there hasn't been a wedding in my family (or among the people I would call my family) in about twenty years, I've had to really take the lead on bringing everyone up to speed on weddings in the 21st century. :)  My mother has never gotten married, so in some ways she's pretty new to this too. 

I will say above all having to travel each week for work has been the hardest impediment to including more people. I really don't get the time to have major pow-wows about everything because it would require much more time that I don't really have. After several days of being gone, it's just easier and more efficient to just make a decision and get things done rather than wrangling a group to go somewhere or to ask for multiple opinions.

 In many ways, I think I've struggled to figure out how to include others too. Do they help make the ultimate decision? Do I ask their opinion even though I have a strong sense of what I want anyway? Do they do research for me (I love researching things for the wedding; it's my favorite part)? 

Please don't feel sorry for me though. I've really enjoyed doing much of the planning myself. I am someone who has always had a VERY strong sense of what I like and don't like. I enjoyed my private dress shopping sessions. The one where I did bring Mama Swan resulted in a whole lotta needling about why I should have picked another dress (I love her still)! Also many of my friends have a VERY different style from me. While I love them and respect their opinions, I appreciate the fact that I am going to have a wedding that Mr. Swan and I feel is ours while still making sure to include our families, histories and culture as best we can. 

In many ways, I chock this up to being an only child who also happens to love spending time by myself. I do feel rather freakish that I am not the type of woman who has a ton of people at each appointment. I will even admit to you that I also feel some guilt at not including others more, but so far I have had a very non-stressful and pretty smooth planning process (although I say that now....) and haven't gotten flack from anyone really (at least not to our faces anyway, hee hee!!).  I will say that Mama Swan is going to a fitting with me today and will be front and center at our tasting coming up soon. 

Are there any others out there planning your wedding almost by yourself? For those of you who are not, how involved have others been in the planning process and how do you choose to include them?