Put your personality into your wedding – Lesson Learned #3

This might sound like a no-brainer, but I’ve heard so many stories about how couples have bent to the desires of parents, siblings and friends or simply just followed tradition blindly that this needs to be said. Now, there’s certainly a place for tradition, but it should fit your personality as a couple. For instance, there was no way we were skipping stuffing cake in each other’s faces, because we’re a playful couple who likes to be silly, and when are you going to get an opportunity to shove cake up your new spouse’s nose without getting smacked up side the head with a cheese grater or some other jagged kitchen implement. Yeah, that’s what I thought…

And I’m not saying that you should turn a deaf ear to your loved ones (as parents often foot some of the bills for these shin-digs, and therefore they deserve to be heard). But they should know that you simply want their feedback and impressions, not necessarily their input (two very different things) when planning your wedding.

Many engaged couples actually fear putting their whole personality into their weddings in fear that their guests might not cotton to a Kenny Loggins cover band (although they may actually be right about that one) or a 70s attire dress code. But what’s interesting is that, if your guests really know you and love you, then they will go with the flow and revel in your enjoyment of the evening.

Here are a few good examples from our wedding … I made DJ mixes of lots of house music for dancing and of chill-out/lounge music for dining/cocktails (using this really cool professional DJ software called Traktor Pro) prior to our wedding and loaded them onto my iPod. Now, my parents and some of our guests are definitely not into this kind of music, but they all said afterward how fun and cool it was to dance and listen to music that was relatively unfamiliar to them. Another good example is that we both love tres leches cake (Mexican style of white cake that is drenched with three kinds of milk/cream … ungodly, sinfully, I-need-to-run-12-miles-tomorrow-to-work-it-off good), and we decided that we wanted a tres leches wedding cake. Most of our guests had never tasted such a cake, let alone a tres leches wedding cake, but they all raved about it afterward and asked for recipes.

So if you’re uncertain if adding a certain element to your wedding might bore, annoy or otherwise chafe your guests, unless it’s something completely offensive or downright creepy, you should do what you want, and they will likely follow you happily down the aisle and into a swimming pool filled with jello (or whatever else tickles your fancy).