There's No Place for Green at Our Wedding

They always say that you shouldn't compare yourself to other people or be envious of what they have, and I'd be lying if I said I don't. It's incredibly hard not to compare myself to others, especially when I see people my age doing (what seems like) 10 times better than me in every aspect of life. They have better jobs, they make more money, they travel the world, and they slay every damn day. Meanwhile, I'm nowhere near where I wanted to be in life except for the fact that I'm finally getting married, so that does give me a little boost in confidence. The way I see it, if I'm gonna struggle, at least I have someone to struggle with. For richer or poorer, right? But no comparison of myself to others has sent me spiraling like comparing wedding plans.

Green is NOT my color, which is why you won't find it in my color scheme.

Even though I've only been planning a wedding for a measly three months (with a whopping 31 more to go), I can tell you that it brings on a whirlwind of emotions. For me, the worst of these has been envy. Pinterest and other forms of social media can without a doubt give you wedding envy, but those are just random weddings of people you don't know. No big deal. It gets a whole hell of a lot worse when it's people you know personally. The worst of it usually happens when those people try to give me advice, specifically about venues.

Once people find out you're engaged, they love to tell you about where they're having (or had) their wedding, who's their photographer, where they're getting their flowers, etc etc. They gush about how beautiful the space is and more importantly, how much cheaper it is than everywhere else they've looked, and I can't blame them. Who better to "talk wedding" and share the savings with than a fellow bride-to-be? Now in my case, I've looked at (what feels like) every damn venue in the New Orleans area, except for plantations (that's a huge no-go for us). So when someone says, "Have you looked at Venue XYZ? That's where we're having ours. It's only costing us *insert insane amount of money*," and I have, in fact, already looked at Venue XYZ and determined that they're way outside of our budget (or automatically know from the price they just quoted), the little green monster in a white dress (known as wedding evny) creeps out. I start thinking things like, "We're the same age? How in the hell are you affording this?"

Of course, I don't say these things to people. I know they're genuinely trying to help, so all I say is "Thanks, but that's outside our budget." What else am I supposed to say? And I hate that it seems to make people feel awkward when I basically tell them our budget is obviously a lot lower than theirs, and that's not my intention. Some people have parents who've been saving for their wedding since the day they were born, others are just genuinely doing better financially than we are. It's nothing to feel bad about. If you can afford your literal dream wedding, why not go for it?

If you read my last post, you know that my dream wedding takes place at Disney World and that my fiancé is content with the local courthouse. You also know what type of budget we're working with. Obviously, we've had to settle somewhere in the middle (unless we win the lottery), but even that middle area is ridiculously expensive. It's so expensive that I ask myself on a daily basis "How in the hell are we going to afford this?! How in the hell are people our age affording this?!" So you can see why I'm envious, right?

Dreams might come true... and if they don't, it's okay.

At this point, I probably sound like a bridezilla who only cares about a big flashy party and a poofy white dress. I promise you, that's not me. So let me say this: we could say our I do's literally anywhere, even under a damn bridge, and it would be magical and perfect and everything we could ever need to start our lives together. But, we have our entire lives to underwelm our family & friends with house warmings, baby showers, awkward dinner parties, & birthday parties for 2-year-olds who barely know what's going on. If there was ever a time to go big or go home, shouldn't it be the day we officially start our happily-ever-after? Instead of going out with a bang, why not start with one and keep the momentum going? Then again, I'm also not trying to start our lives by playing "Keeping Up With the Joneses" (or the Kardashians, for my generation). So, I don't know.

I don't know what I'm supposed to tell my fellow brides-to-be in terms of wedding envy, because I barely know what to do myself. I guess all I can say is just push his ugly little ass down as far as he'll go, slap some blinders on, and focus on YOUR wedding day. Don't compare. Just enjoy it for what it is, whatever it turns out to be.