The Eff It List

It's been a whole month, hive, and I've missed you so!  But I really owed it to myself (and that new husband of mine), to take some time and get our life in order.  I'm caught back up at work and the house doesn't look like a UPS sorting room in December anymore, so I figured it was time to pull out the computer and catch up before the pro pics arrive.

I feel bad starting back off on such a negative note as the "eff it" list, but hear me out.  My point here is "eff it" does not equal "giving up."
It's not "Screw my guests, I just don't care anymore, is this thing done yet?"  It's more like "There are things that need to be done, there is only so much time to do it - what's the priority here?"

Would a better name be the "Let it Go" list?

#SorryImNotSorry/Illustration found on Behance

And lo and behold, I didn't feel like a failure when I said "eff it." It was just a wave of relief each time, and I don't regret not following through with some of my planned ideas.




The first item was quite a doozy, and fixed many problems when it was taken out of the picture.  If you recall my New Orleans wedding traditions post a few months back, I said that we wouldn't have a second line in the street with a brass band.  Well, two months out from the wedding and I imagine there's some wiggle room in the budget (ha!) and decide that we must have a second line band after the reception.  I got in touch with an agency that contracts out the brass bands, but for several reasons (including some info left out about the cost and timing of a permit) I made the final call to not go through with it just two weeks before the wedding (no contracts had been signed, FYI).

How awesome is the picture of my college friend's wedding? THAT is the way to do a second line band!/Photo by Arte de Vie

I struggled with the fact that it would cost another $1000 to have the band at the very end of the night (not to mention the additional cost to keep photographers and video around that late), and we only needed to travel two blocks back to our hotel.  I was grasping at straws as the idea was fading away - we could make a lap around the block before heading back to our hotel, that would make it worth it!  But all I could see were our guests breaking off from the parade as we passed the parking lot and their hotels.  All in all, no one missed it, we did our second line in the ballroom, and it saved me so many headaches not having to coordinate something else.  If our timing or location had been different, this would have been a priority!

I decided to drop another cultural entertainment piece - the Cajun dance to honor my Maw Maw.  We hadn't had any time to practice the dancing as a family and I didn't want to half-ass it.  So the week of the wedding I realized that it wasn't meant to be and wouldn't make much of a difference in the long run.  Now that I'm on the other side, I'm glad we didn't hog the dance floor with a number that might have been awkward and uncomfortable.

A dance circle broke out, of course!  Who needs a choreographed routine when you can have a dance circle? (Guest photo)

If you're in the last weeks of your wedding planning, you might understand where I'm coming from with this next one: why didn't I just do this months ago?  I love the look of some cute chair signs, and I figured it would be a place where we could be a little quirky.  At least a year ago I had the brilliant idea to use phrases from Game of Thrones.  His would say "My Sun and Stars." Mine would say "Moon of my Life."  I left the crafting until t-minus 8 days or so, and I'm not even good with a paint brush when I have the luxury of time!  Needless to say, they looked crappy and I decided not to waste any more time fixing them up.  I figured out a quick alternative, but now I have some half-finished wooden plaques sitting around.  Giant outdoor coasters, maybe?

Chair signs that are geeky, but subtle./Photo from Dorkly

 Finally, one that was a little harder to come to terms with: I scratched out favors.  Completely.

Does that make me the worst bride ever?  Okay, so technically we had a photo booth and each guest got a printed strip from that, so I know that can count as a favor in some schools of thought.  For a "real" favor though, I wasn't really motivated at all while planning.  I knew we wanted something edible, and I kept going back to pralines.  Pralines can get expensive, but I was going to just suck it up - even though this was during the time that it felt like all of our final costs were ballooning!  The plan was to buy all the boxes available at Costco the week of the wedding, and wrap them up in cute baggies I had ordered online.  I had seen these at Costco before, and thought it was a solid plan.  I didn't factor in Costco being closed both times we went by to purchase them (their website hours were not correct) and Sam's Club did not carry them, so I took that as a sign to...let it go.  I haven't heard whisper of anyone offended for not receiving a little treat - on the contrary, just praises for the mashed potato bar, cakes, and liquor! - so I think the money was spent in the right places.

Cute little pralines in boxes, you were not for us!/From The Wedding Shoe Box/By Laura Reaux

So those are my confessions on the things I just couldn't make happen.  Like I said, it did not matter in the long run.  The lesson here?  If you've got something that you really want to incorporate, take care of it early on so that it doesn't get lost in the shuffle of those final days.

Did you have anything wind up on your Eff It/Let it Go list?