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I am the husband of a wedding professional. There is some power in the admission. For any of you out there who are husbands, you were at least the husband of a wedding professional once in your life. Why? Because most brides love planning their weddings. Not all, but most. And for most of us, during the time of our engagement, our brides lived and breathed weddings; decorations, guest lists, invites, attire…oh my, the list could go on and on! Don’t you dare roll your eyes though, gentlemen! The unattended details were best left with her I assure you. Had she not lived out her passion with such reckless abandon, you might have been the one picking out the color of icing on your cake. So for her passion, be grateful!
Truth is, however, I have more to admit than just being the husband of a wedding nut. This one is a little more difficult, so give me a moment to take a deep breath of courage…
I enjoyed helping in the planning of our wedding.
Okay, that one wasn’t easy. But it had to be said. Why? Because I care about my wife’s passion for weddings. And what’s more, I care about your future as a husband, and your present moment as a wedding planner, whether you wanted the role or not. I did enjoy helping with the planning. And if you think it is a compromise of my so-called man card, I assure you I can likely ride a horse better than most of you, have thrown my share of hay bales, have fired a few rounds from my 30-30 Winchester, and have done enough to earn the right to not be a “girly manâ€. But honestly, I don’t care whether you’re a guy who likes to knit sweaters or you make a part-time occupation out of beating up hippies. I care about one thing as I’m writing this blog. I want you to love your wedding. Live in this moment in a way that you will never forget, and love your bride for the rest of your life. To that purpose I make my contribution to Hill Country Bride.
Now, that being said, it is also true that there were many conversations during our wedding planning where I felt like I was listening to the eighteenth verse of a twenty-verse song, and I had the melody in my head but was no longer aware of the words.  This was especially true regarding the small details of our table decorations. Each table was custom designed by my wife with various candlesticks, books, antique items, and other retro décor. They looked amazing. But really, being asked to have an opinion on the matter was like being asked to count the blades of grass in our yard.
On the other hand, there were aspects of our wedding that I thoroughly enjoyed. I am a musical person, and I have a deep love for music. So I gladly took on the responsibility to put together the DJ, set up the playlist, take requests from the guests, and make sure the dancing and music were on point. I managed to get one of my lifelong best friends to write a song telling our story, to perform it at the wedding and the reception, and to have another best friend accompany him on a guitar that I once owned. It was beautiful.
In one of my pre-wedding bright shining moments, I had this genius idea to order an array of cupcakes for display at our reception instead of a traditional wedding cake. I truly thought I had created an original idea that would forever change the annals of wedding tradition. Little did I know, Pinterest thought otherwise. Yes, my idea must have been conjured by countless other brides and grooms who were happy to post their pinterestolosophy for all to see. But if you ask me, I thought of it first.
There were some shaky moments in our wedding planning. At one point I thought we might lose our engagement over port-a-potties. I’m not kidding. You see, our wedding location was on a piece of ranch land owned by my parents. The house was on septic, and my family was terrified the system would overflow if guests used the house facilities. They insisted on having a portable toilet. What did I care? Us guys will gladly free the pee anywhere there is some grass and a shrub for privacy, and even those are open to compromise. My bride, on the other hand, was equally insistent that her guests adorned in elegant attire would not climb into a port-a-john in the Texas heat. I was soon the diplomat in a nuclear arms race between parents and bride. I wasn’t sure whether to go to war or flee to Canada.
But here is the deal to all of you brothers in bridal battle, you can love your wedding. Why? Because there are things that you love to do. Maybe you love leadership and management. Take the initiative to be the facilitator of the wedding volunteers. Perhaps you enjoy manual labor. Come up with an item you can build for the wedding décor, or help out with the landscaping of the wedding site. Have an artsy edge to you? Come up with a creative location for guest photos. Some parts of a wedding tend to feel boring to us guys. Instead of griping, come up with a plan to make them exciting. For example, I think that a guestbook full of signatures is a complete waste of ink and bookshelf space. Why do I need the autographs of my wedding guests? Now, what I would love to have is pictures of everyone that I’ll look back at and laugh at their goofy haircuts and outdated styles. So instead of a guest book, we had a friend photograph our guests with a Polaroid, and then they wrote us a note next to their photo in an album. Much cooler than a boring old autograph book! But I came up with that idea because I wanted to make the wedding fun for me. Turned out the ideas was fun for everyone.
You might be surprised at your capabilities. There are characteristics in you that your bride absolutely loves, otherwise she wouldn’t have said “yesâ€. What are they? Now ask yourself how you can use those characteristics to help make your wedding unforgettable, and uniquely suited to you and your bride. Don’t make the mistake of seeing your wedding day as “her dealâ€. Instead, think of it as the one party in your life where you get to invite all of your favorite people on the planet and do whatever the heck you want to do. Trust me, you won’t get many more opportunities like that. Don’t miss it.
If you found a stencil you liked, you can skip this section. If you are cutting the stencil yourself, keep reading. I traced the letter onto the stencil plastic. I also bought a handy little hobby knife to cut the plastic with. I had to cut two separate pieces to get the outline of my “B” and to keep the center without paint.
