look back lesson #3 | setting and sticking to priorities during the planning process.
I’m torn. Rogue Bride called me on the phone this week with a serious cake dilemma. She wants to use a baker she trusts and whose tastes and sensibilities are aligned with her own. The problem: the perfect baker is 2 hours away in Southern California. Rogue’s wedding is in June.
Butter cream + SoCal traffic + a hot June day = A recipe for wedding cake disaster.
So she’s debating whether to “settle or not.” The easy solution is to choose a by-the-numbers wedding cake shop that, as is typical of most wedding cake shops, uses shortening in their butter cream. But oh-sweet-Jesus, who wants to “settle” under these circumstances?
But settle on what? I asked her where cake factored into her initial list of priorities, which included stunning photography, a unique venue, and a killer dress. It didn’t. Rogue didn’t care much about her wedding cake until the decision was on her plate, and after months of her mind and emotions being polluted with the mandates of The Wedding World, where every detail must ‘wow’ each guest, turning into the stuff of wedding legend; They’ll talk about your wedding for years! They won’t. Each detail doesn’t have to ‘wow’. None of your wedding guests will obsess over every little detail the way you have for the past 9 months. Wedding guests don’t care about the minutia; they care about you.
So here’s my Hindsight Advice: Refer back to your initial list of priorities and don’t let every detail become a make or break decision as it comes up on the to-do list. If the words, “I want to have the best, most delicious, wonderful wedding cake in the world,” didn’t come out of your mouth when you were first imagining your wedding, then don’t let the cake railroad your emotional equilibrium now. Or, more reasonably, if you didn’t think about the cake until you HAD to, don’t turn the choice into the biggest fish you have to fry. Use those couple of high-priority details you thought of at the very beginning of the planning process and focus your energies there. For the rest: establish a modest baseline. For Rogue Bride, her priorities were venue, photography, and the dress. The flowers, cake, and guest favors can be phoned in.
In the end, Rogue is right: The cake IS a lie. It is not the ultimate prize at the end of the wedding planning game. You are; your spouse is; your family is; the chance to celebrate with the people you love the most is. Don’t get sucked too far into the rat-maze-like wedding world where everything is equally important, and the cake at the end of the game is the only thing that will make you happy. It won’t. The cake is what it is. The power and choice to be happy is yours alone. And perhaps THAT’S the most important decision you will make.
