Summer in this part of the world always comes with lots of activities and it marks the highlight of the wedding season. I met a couple of busy bees attending one wedding after the other over a chain of weekends, despite their fatigue. I guess one way to be there for one another is to always honour an invite lest nobody shows up to yours’, or you might also end up painting the wrong picture. Summer is also the best time to have a wedding and take advantage of the brilliant daylight sunshine and the epic sunset views, to capture the most romantic memorable pictures, because otherwise who wants a muddy wedding? Well during this period, I also had the chance to not only attend weddings but to also enjoy a front-row seat in wedding planning and, to my realisation, organising a wedding is not a walk in the park, no wonder consultancies charge unfavourably to take up the task for you. Please check the currency before you pay up for wedding planning services and if you cannot afford to dig deeper into your pockets for an extra million or two, be wise when selecting an efficient wedding committee. This bunch of people usually consist of a chairman or chairlady, a treasurer, a secretary and logistics person to the minimum, actually the smaller the group the better. I came to appreciate wedding committee members not only because they voluntarily take up the responsibility regardless of their regular schedules, but also because they carry the weight of the couple the entire pre-wedding period. If you are reading this and you are married, I can bet you are nodding right now at how challenging it may have been before you said the words “I do”. Shall we start with the pressure and interference from either side of the family to bend to a certain demand, or should we talk about the financial challenges when you exceed your budget only two months to the wedding? We cannot exhaust the list of challenges couples face during the planning phase, one, you can’t wait for the D-day to come and go, and eloping seems to be a solution at that point. Two, you simply can’t sleep soundly anymorewithout having a dream or two about something going wrong on your wedding day. You see, your siblings, aunties and uncles may tend to take your side when there is a conflict of interest or a disagreement between you and your partner’s family, sometimeswithout really having a voice of reason, you don’t need that, you need to salvage the situation and face the hard hitting and uncomfortable conversations. So if you are asked to join a wedding committee, wear your white hat but if you are planning to wed soon, my advice is choose your committee wisely and always remember to take a breather. But what do I know, I am not married, I only learnt from helping out.
