To plan or not to plan?

I have neglected my blog..but lately I've had some thoughts. So I wanted to post some stuff as it's been floating around in my head.

So here goes. On September 11, 2010, I married my soul mate, my best friend, and the godliest man I know. And one of the questions I've gotten is: was all the planning worth it?

It was over nine months of planning (yes, we started planning our wedding before we were actually engaged).

Below are reasons to not plan a wedding:
1. Time consuming
2. Ridiculous spreadsheets
3. Stress in managing expectations

But there are a lot of reasons for enduring all the work to plan your wedding:

1. There is something inherently amazing about having everyone you love in one room together witnessing your special day. If, for nothing else, this is reason enough to have a wedding.



2. You let you have people see a glimpse of you on your wedding day. Some of the personal touches we put in our wedding included:

A guestbook with polaroids pictures that my friend designed. We wanted to be sure to remember everyone that came on our wedding day.

Lakers references for me.

Mavs cookie cake as Darren's grooms cake.


Our friends performing a song written specifically for us on our wedding day called "Love Full and Complete" written by Carina

A cookie bar honoring Darren's (and mine) love of cookies

Homebrew honoring Darren's love of beer by his good friends at Lakewood Brewing Company

We served wine that we made over a year ago (a gift Darren gave to me for my birthday); and our friends signed the bottle

3. You get to make whatever message to those you love about your wedding.

For Darren and I, we wanted to make sure that Christ was at the heart of our wedding. So we chose some Christian contemporary songs about for our wedding including:

- Unfailing Love by Chris Tomlin for when our parents came down the aisle
- Love Never Fails by Brandon Heath for bridesmaid's processional
- O Happy Day by Tim Hughes for our recessional
- When I Say I Do by Matthew West for our first dance

Our friend Terrence officiated our wedding and wanted him to communicate God's faithfulness in bringing us together and Christ and his church at the heart of marriage.


You get to serve Christ by being an example of his love for the church:

This picture may be one of my favorites. We had just finished the ceremony and we had just walked out of the recessional, and I asked him to kiss me before everyone else got there. It was a mix of happiness because we were finally husband and wife, and relief because it was all over. It was one of those moments we'll always remember and we're so glad a photographer captured the moment

So yes, at the end of the day, it's completely worth "to plan". I wouldn't have changed a thing even amongst the ups and downs. Most importantly, I married the love of my life and God was honored.