planning our wedding: 4 things we delegated that thoroughly surprised us!

it's tempting to want to control every aspect of your wedding, to have it be "perfect." i implore you to let that go of that mentality as soon as possible. it will make life easier! plus delegating is a great solution to wedding control issues. : ) 

the beauty of having six weeks to plan our wedding was that our time constraint made it clear we simply couldn't do all of it. i am so glad for the gift of delegating some things out to people who i love and trusted. 

1. bouquet & boutonniere. i wasn't even sure i wanted flowers at first. they can be very costly! anyway, i can't remember if heather offered or if i asked, but the thought of heather making my bouquet felt like the right call. she's so talented with floral arrangements, and she is so dear to me. i knew having something she made for me would be really special, kind of like wearing annette's earrings. i showed heather a picture of a bouquet i was drawn to for it's simplicity and colors and asked if she could make something like it. i completely trusted her judgement and eyes for beauty and let it go. i was so surprised and delighted by what she created the morning of our wedding. it was...perfect. 

2. the welcome table. oh emily grady. she is a saint. here are a few things about emily i appreciate: she cares a LOT, she got married a few months before us, has a great rustic sensibility, and is impeccably organized. i knew that she and her husband would go above and beyond welcoming our guests because they are naturally like that. they give their all. i merely handed her the stuff i had for the welcome table, asked her to do what needed to be done, and then thanked her. i knew all would be good in the grady's hands. and it was! (see below, the little mason jars and yellow ball flowers were small things that emily brought from her home.)

3. family dinner venue. we needed to find a restaurant to host 30+ guests for dinner on saturday night after the wedding, which was no simple task. we asked my oldest sister to help us with this search, negotiate the terms, and be our liaison. it was so helpful to have my sister do the heavy lifting in this process. easy to say: everyone RAVED about cafe pro bono. the meal was so good that we went back there with our wedding coordinators to thank them, and gave a gift card to one of our speakers to enjoy a meal there as well. we loved it that much!

4. cake & toppers. when chris said he would make a cake for us as our wedding gift, we were thrilled. we didn't know what to expect. but classic chris....he sent us a list of questions to think about regarding what the cake and its meaning to us. when we got back from europe, we met with chris to discuss his questions and share our favorite cake inspiration. in the same discussion, he asked us about toppers. honestly, cake toppers wasn't even something i cared about, but chris mentioned sheri and then things changed. i love her work and i love her, and commissioning sheri to make us cake toppers felt like a good decision. i told her that samuel calls me bird and i call him my bunny and that we do this little affectionate nose-to-nose thing. and with that kernel of information, we had one of the most exquisite and tasty wedding cakes i had ever seen and tasted. (yes, i'm biased.) 

bonus: the day of coordinating. there was of course, delegating the entirety of the day to our friends cara and amy. we did as much prep as we could and then handed over everything to these two extremely capable women. they gifted us with an enormous sense of relief and freedom. having day-of wedding coordinators is like being pregnant for nine months, and right before you go into labor, someone else takes over. cara & amy delivered our baby. how's that for a metaphor? 

ps. if you're looking for a wedding coordinator, cara is available for new clients. i'd be happy to put you in touch (email me at lizsong (at) gmail.com or comment below). 

anyway, all this to say....

there was an element of surprise and delight i couldn't have created if i did everything on my own. i simply loved being surprised on my own wedding day by the beautiful creativity and service of my friends.

as much as samuel and i wanted to host an awesome experience for our community, i think part of what made our wedding so special was that we were also able to receive from our community. we had to stop believing we were "being a burden" by asking for help, but rather we were inviting our friends to participate, to ask them to invest in us. 

a wedding can be a beautiful opportunity to give and receive love from our community. i'll hold this learning close to my heart for many years to come.

how might you let go of perfection and invite deeper friendship/delight/surprise into your wedding planning process? or even into your life?

today is friday.

the next day is when everything changes.

since getting back from europe on september 1st, i have been thinking about this wedding day, almost non-stop. i'm exhausted from having my brain start at 65mph every morning and from being in a state of gogogo. it's been stressful and tiring, and i have certainly not been my best self. samuel will attest to this fact. (i've said, "i'm sorry for ______," about a thousand times to him.)

but. 

what brings me back to an even slightly better state of being is by letting my gratitude settle in. during these last couple weeks, i've been so moved by all of the care and love that our friends have poured out on us, on me. i am completely taken by everyone's generosity. i feel undeserving of so much abundance, and yet i feel i am supposed to just soak it in and receive. and to simply look in everyone's eyes and say, "thank you." 

what this process has shown me is that people really love me. they really love us. like....a lot of them, and like....a lot of love! they are our family, our church community, our friends: our dearly beloveds.

i can't wait for the gathering of all these beloveds, to bear witness to one of the most important decisions i'll make in my lifetime. i'd be lying if i didn't mention that as much as i'm elated to be married, i'm scared! it's such a huge decision! a tiny part of me wonders if i'm ready to do this. and then this huge part of me responds with, "trust me. this is going to be the best adventure you'll ever go on. let's fly!"

so i walk to the edge of the cliff, spread my arms, and take a deep breath before i jump...

quote | a place of relationship

Community can be a terrible place because it is a place of relationship; it is the revelation of our wounded emotions and of how painful it can be to live with others, especially with ‘some people.’ It is so much easier to live with books and objects, television, or dogs and cats! It is so much easier to live alone and just do things for others, when one feels like it…. While we are alone, we could believe we loved everyone.
-Jean Vanier

quote | the new community

we can too easily become identified with goodness--feel that we are 'the enlightened ones.' we cease to ask questions about what we are doing, how we are doing it, whether it might be done another way. not only must we question ourselves; we must create the kind of atmosphere that invites others to question us and to give us feedback on how they perceive and hear and experience us.
-elizabeth o'conner


sometimes, i think this means directly inviting people to give us feedback about: the decisions we make, how we spend our money, who we spend our time with, how we spend that time, the passions they see that we're dampening or ignoring, the work that brings us to life or the work that's killing us slowly, patterns they notice (healthy and unhealthy)... there's a lot to list. 


most people don't feel okay offering unsolicited feedback. so until we're able to exude the kind of openness that welcomes it, i think it'd serve us to hand-pick a few special folks who we trust and who love us and to ask them to speak into our lives. 


i specifically point out the "who love us" characteristic because i believe those are the people who will speak the truth, as they see it & as harsh as it may be. love, the great motivator, will allow & foster space for candor, grace, kindness, empathy, openness. 


who are the people in your life that speak into it?