Learning to Share? Still working on it...

There's a scene right at the beginning of the movie Chicago (again with the musicals!), where Velma Kelly, having just killed her husband and her sister, tells the stage manager concerned about her sister's absence and its effect on the show: "don't sweat it, I can do it alone."

In life, as in wedding planning, this is very much my mantra. Though I wouldn't say that I'm not a team player, I will tell you that all through school, I loathed group projects, and even now in the working world, I have a hard time letting go of tasks and passing them off to someone else. When I do something, I know that it's being done right. My experience constantly proved that in a group, there was always one person who didn't do their part, pull their weight, or do it right, and not wanting to fail because of something someone else had done, I always ended up picking up the slack.   This lack of trust in people is certainly a failing of mine, and I really am trying to get better, but let me tell you, old habits die hard. 

I can do it all, and I can do it alone...

Part self-sufficient, part perfectionist, the way I've approached wedding planning is the way I tackle most projects: I can--and have--mostly done it alone.  Even when the planning process is frustrating, I can't imagine passing everything off to a wedding planner and letting someone else plan the details of our wedding day. To be honest, there's no way I could ever give up the control.

Mama Goodlaff made a comment the other night at dinner that stuck with me--she mildly accused me of hoarding all the wedding planning and the tasks and not letting other people join in on the fun.  I would have loved to come back with some snappy retort, but the fact is, she's right.  I realize that this is a frustrating thing for people that want to help and want to be included in the preparations, but my slightly-arrogant self-sufficiency is also coupled with an extreme desire not to be a gigantic pain in the ass.  I promised myself that I would not be that bride that forced her family and friends into nuptial servitude, with every other weekend being a candle-assembly or favor crafting "party." 

Am I being selfish? Am I depriving myself and Mama Goodlaff of that essential mother-daughter wedding planning bonding experience? Are my bridesmaids feeling left out of the process because I haven't made them craft things? 

I'm not so impractical to think that I can keep going like this.  At some point, I will have to ask for help, or I will go insane (yes, yes, short trip, and all that).  I can't keep hanging on to everything and not letting people help. One of the many plates I'm spinning through the air is bound to come crashing down if I keep going like this.

Even Velma Kelly, with her cocky attitude finally has to admit "You can see me going through it/ You may think there's nothing to it/But I simply cannot do it alone."  And so will I...

What was your planning process like? Are you a "more the merrier" type, or do you prefer planning solo?