March Planning Update!

Happy mid-March everyone! Hopefully wherever you are it’s starting to warm up and feel like Spring.

I can’t believe our wedding is four months away! I’ve been getting SO excited, but there were times in the last few weeks it was also starting to feel like a lot. Towards late February I was beginning to feel ‘decision fatigue’, along with a feeling of overall overwhelm.

We had our wedding colors and theme, but that didn’t feel like enough to guide me through the planning process. It didn’t feel like enough to vet all the decision-making against. I kept thinking I need a framework. It took me a while, but then it clicked: the colors and theme were just details- I needed a ‘north star’ to guide me through the planning process.

Funnily enough the aha moment came at work. I was taking on a project in an area called Category Leadership and one of the girls shared a deck about ‘Storytelling’. She explained how Category Leadership Advisors are Storytellers. The deck talked about how all great stories take the audience on a journey and include the four signposts of a great story: setting, characters, conflicts and finally resolution.

And then it clicked- a wedding is a story you tell your guests and they participate in with you.

Until then I had details but I didn’t have a story. Our colors were pink and light blue. I was going for a dash of fairytale. Words to describe our wedding were ‘welcoming’ and ‘romantic’. I had elements yes, but not a narrative. And that was why the planning was feeling overwhelming…I was making decisions without an underlying framework for them. 

So I sat down and wrote out our story! (If you’re curious I linked it here, the password is love).

I didn’t write it in a documentary way but rather as a story about believing and fighting for love against all odds- first to find each other, and then later to bring our little miracle Kieran into this world. It’s a story about holding hope in your heart– even when it’s easier to doubt– until you finally come to your happily ever after. 

It’s a story about tenacity and perseverance. Because the thing is, we’re all going through something and we ALL want to find happiness, whatever that may look like for us.

I have to say now that I’ve written the story it’s sooo much easier to make all the decisions! The details are no longer one-offs, instead they’re a way to tell our story. And that makes it really fun.

There are so many elements you can use… the color linens you pick. Personalizing the napkins at cocktail hour to subtly write a line from your story. The music. The food. The lighting. The seating chart. Everything. Looking at it this way has made me so think so much more creatively.

And I want our guests to BE a part of the story, for it to be an immersive experience. And in line with the theme–I want it to feel like an escape from reality (which let’s be honest, is a big part of why we do weddings!). It’s stepping away from life for a moment and into a fairytale. 

Ok back to reality. This is the start of mine and Keith’s marriage. It is the day we formally promise the rest of our lives to one another. It is both beautiful and serious.

In the context of that, it will be a beautiful story. And as you can probably guess, sharing it at Disney Aulani ties in very well 🙂 In fact, the fairytales were the inspiration for telling it from this perspective. The story is ours, it just adopts the Disney language to help tell it. 

Ok, this was a very different March update than I thought of a few weeks ago. I thought I’d be sharing tablescapes and decor, food selections and cake flavors (which will come I promise…we just had our menu and cake tasting and so excited to share what we chose!) But I wanted to use this month’s update to share this ‘aha moment’ because it’s the engine behind all the rest of the planning to come. <3

Love,

Terra