A Case of the Bridal Crazies

Planning a wedding is all puppy dogs and rainbows. Before you really get into it there is nothing more exciting than the prospect of picking out the color of the napkins, the perfect dress, and making a guest list. Then, one day, you realize that the dog bites and constantly craps all over your floor, and that the rain prior to the rainbow is not a light mist, but actually sheets of pelting, torrential rain similar to the kind that causes mudslides in China.

Please forgive me. I'm not trying to hate on the planning process, I'm just suffering from a case of the bridal crazies...

Put. The Chair. Down.

Bridal Crazies: when wedding planning insanity strikes down perfectly good people; i.e. insufficient supplies for making table numbers at the store causes a mini hissy fit; lack of enthusiasm for yellow shoes causes you to see red; lights for wedding decor at a reasonable price cannot be found anywhere, so you consider taking up glass blowing and learning the art of electrical wiring so you can make them yourself; when everything matters about 7000 times more than it does in real life because it's for your wedding.

People who succumb to the Bridal Crazies are different from Bridezillas because they still retain vestiges of niceness and can recognize that they've gone batshit crazy.  Bridezillas can't or won't acknowledge their insanity and tend to be kinda mean. Big difference.

I have a pretty serious case of the bridal crazies right now. There is a lot going on in wedding planning land and being so emotionally invested in the wedding means that one minute I am on a complete, victorious high and the next I am deep in the doldrums. Generally, I consider myself a pretty easy going, emotionally stable person, but I have turned into this massively crazy person who spends 24/7 thinking about every little detail of the Goodlaff wedding, and sometimes it all gets to me. Ironically, it's not the work that I know we have ahead of us (candles, centerpieces, escort cards, invitations) that's causing all the trouble: it's the decisions we have yet to make, and the things I know we haven't even thought of yet that are freaking me out--the what-ifs.

When I was young, I read a lot of Shel Silverstein, and this is a pretty good snapshot of what's going through my head right now.

It begins like this:
"Last night, while I lay thinking here,
some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
and pranced and partied all night long
and sang their same old Whatif song"

You can pretty much add every wedding detail in here.  Chairs, decor, napkins, table numbers, seating charts, invitation assembly.  Whatif, whatif, whatif.

"Everything seems well, and then
the nighttime Whatifs strike again!"

(Shel Silverstein, "Whatif" from A Light in the Attic)

I know that this has affected Mr. Goodlaff more than he says.  I'm sure he's wondering what happened to his even-keel fiancee, and why the details that he can just shrug off send me into a tizzy.  And I wish I had the answers for him, I really do. 

I don't want it to seem like planning the wedding isn't fun (because it is!), but the reality is that there is a lot to do, a lot to plan, and a lot to get ready for the big day.  And yeah, I want everything to be my definition of perfect.  Who doesn't? Really, how many brides do you know that only want okay weddings?  As Brides, we do all this planning and put so much effort into details in the hopes that our wedding day will be everything we imagined and more.  In the end, living up to your own expectations is probably the hardest thing of all...

Are the whatifs getting to you?  Did you get a case of the Bridal Crazies?  How did you get through it?