When the hubs & I were planning our wedding, there was one area in particular that plagued us & you might be rather surprised to know which.  Believe it or not, dealing with a Wedding Registry was a major source of pain for us.  You see, the hubs and I were over 30 when we got married.  What does that really have to with a wedding registry right?  As you can imagine, we had been living on our own for well over 10+ years at that point, already set up in our respective apartments complete with dishware, appliances, you name it.  The idea of a wedding registry began once upon a time in effort to aid the couple in setting up their household, which is nice & all for couples actually doing that, but what about those that already have their homes established?

We operated under the misguided unfortunate idea that if we basically ignored the whole, where are you registered question, guests would default to giving cash {it’s not like it’s really acceptable to say we just want money}.  Turns out, we were quite wrong.  See, here’s the thing.  People like to give something and often feel that the gift of money is a cop out, like they aren’t trying.  Moreover, people feel an obvious dollar value puts a literal amount on how much they value you, so often people give literal gifts to avoid all this potential awkwardness.  While this is all well and good, we still didn’t need another set of dishes, that second toaster, & so on, so what to do?  Well like I said, we screwed it up for ourselves, but it turns out, there IS another way to go that I think will make a lot of people happy!

What if I told you that you could create your own registry, with helpful suggestions OR completely from scratch ideas, collect gifts from your guests in the form of payments toward those things, thereby avoiding the awkward, “Give us money”, all the while making your guests happy!?  Wedding Republic  is exactly that, a glorious forum for you to create, completely customize & {the best part} personalize your wedding registry.

Having now had many a conversation with a new bride-to-be regarding how she should tackle her own wedding planning, there is a common theme that kept coming up that I am 1000% most brides battle.  Where do I start?  The biggest concern that she has voiced to me on a number of occasions is essentially she doesn’t even know where to begin to sort out what she wants.  A spot of advice flowed out of my mouth that now comes as natural to me as breathing.  Sometimes you have to figure out what you don’t like, to realize what you do like…& by default, what you do want.

As it turns out, I am my own case & point.  Before I ever got engaged, I was totally Team Brown & Turquoise wedding.  I was so pro that color combo that my darling BFF, when she got married, was heavily influenced to my watery brown ways! (Thankfully in the end, she did not!)  When the clock finally started on our own wedding planning, into the browser went brown & blue weddings.  Turned out, it wasnt me… at all.  This ended up bring an important lesson for me.  Granted I am pretty opinionated to kick things off, but it was a reality check for me to realize some really defined lines of things I really did not like.  This helped me shape & direct my vision in a way I didn’t realize.

Another case & point is that for years I had a major female hard on for what I refer to as ‘The Mad Hatter Cake’  You know the type.  Crazy uneven levels, funky colors and explosions of God knows what going on.  Yeah, those….  When the time came to start looking at cake inspiration, oddly enough, I almost immediately realized how very much I actually did not indeed like them.  When I would force myself to close my eyes, envisioning my own wedding, I knew it was wrong, it didn’t belong, it didn’t fit us.  Once I got off of that idea, I began to look at fundamental things like shape of the cake, size, & so on.  Once I was able to decide that square cakes were not for me, I easily found myself pursing round cakes, from there I started to see the levels of the cakes, and how many we wanted.

After that, our direction become even more clear.  Did we like sugar flowers, are we ok with fondant, do we want pearls, or waves of ruffles.  When you start lining things up and systematically shooting down those that dont belong, your vision will become a lot more clear.

I think that there is this magical illusion that exists to wedding planning.  It needs to be romantic, it and of itself, the planning process, needs to woo you.  It should come naturally, like life fitting into its puzzle and all that other cue movie music BS.  Sorry kiddos, I am here to tell you it simply doesnt work that way.  I can not stress enough here that at the end of the day, a wedding is a party, an event.  Something you strategically design & plan for.  It simply is not this mystical thing that unfolds before your eyes.

Thats really the crux of it.  By sorting out things that I knew I completely did not like, did not fit, I was able to begin to hone in on what indeed was right.  I know it can be overwhelming in a blank canvas sort of way, to jump onto Pinterest, wedding blogs, magazines and so on, suddenly getting inundated.  Its almost like staring at a photo collage, your eye doesn’t quite know where to look first.  Take my advice, and start with what you dont  like, its easier anyway.  Trust me, once you get  a sniff for what you actually think is indeed you, look out world!  Much like a dog that catches a scent, once you know, the world of design is your oyster & suddenly everything falls into place!

{*Stunning Veil on top bride: Fascinating Creations} & {Bottom Bride Photo by Juliet Elizabeth}