Planning a Second Wedding

There are many times in your life when you're going to get a ton of unsolicited advice. One of these times is when you are planning your wedding. I was married when I was 24 years old. I had the full Catholic Mass, the huge white princess ball gown, and a country club reception. Everything about wedding planning was a beautiful fairy tale. And everyone was so excited about every decision I made. It really was a beautiful wedding. Everything was perfect, until 2 ½ years later when I found myself divorced with a six month old baby.

But I, like many women in my position, was able to find the true love of my life, and 10 years later found myself planning another wedding. If I thought the first time around was difficult, I wasn't nearly prepared for the second time. The first wedding was considered normal. And now, with my second wedding, everyone around me seemed to have an opinion about what was "right" and what I was "supposed to do" while planning my wedding. Having been through so much, and now being older and wiser, I listened to everyone's advice - and evidently broke every rule. The way I saw it - this was my first wedding to this man. And, it was his first wedding. So, why should it be any less special? It shouldn't! So, allow me to pass on the supposed "rules" of planning a second wedding (and my personal point of view!).

1. Because your parents paid for the first wedding, they aren't supposed to pay for the second. Ok. This rule I believe in. Except for the fact that there's no "supposed to" in who pays any more. And honestly, it may be hard, but do what you can to pay for the wedding yourself. You'll have so much more control. Family members can't guilt you into making decisions you don't want, if they aren't paying for it. Also, if it's your own money, you start making decisions about what's important and what's not important. As unfair and selfish as it is, it's so much easier for you to spend other peoples' money. Growing up, I found I was a safer driver when I started paying for my own car insurance, and when all the wedding checks were written out of my account, I was much more judicious about what was spent. (I will say here that if you can try this on your first wedding, it would be great, too!)
2. You shouldn't have a bridal shower the second time around. Honestly, we didn't need one. We bought a house together a year before we actually got married. Having a child in the picture, we wanted to build a family first without all the stress of a wedding. If we didn't, my son would have one weekend where he has a wedding to attend, then move in to a new house and a new room with a man who is now his stepfather, and change schools. We felt that was too much for a 6 year old to handle. So, we had already set up a house. We didn't need a traditional shower. So we had a barbeque at our house, and people brought us wine to celebrate (if they wanted to) and it was perfect for us.
3. The wedding is all about the bride. This was actually never told to me as a "rule" but I think it's the attitude a lot of first time brides have. The second time around, I completely changed my attitude about this. Though I was the one that was into the planning, I made sure to get my future husband's ideas about what he envisioned for his wedding day. Remember - it is his day too. I consulted him on a lot of things - he actually chose the colors (blue and brown) and the venue ( the restaurant he proposed to me at), among other things. Along the way, he didn't care about the minutia of all the wedding details, so we would have "10 Minute Talks." During these talks, I would talk for 10 minutes about the wedding, and he would pay attention (this is why it was kept to 10 minutes!) and during that time, if there was anything that he "wished for" he would tell me - or if anything sounded not appealing to him - he would let me know. This is also where we discussed budget because since we were both paying for it, we needed to be on the same page at all times. I didn't want any surprises to be a source of tension.
4. The wedding can't be a religious ceremony. This is very much not true. If you are Catholic and divorced, you can't remarry in a Catholic Church without an annulment. My husband and I are both Catholic, but because I didn't finish going through the annulment process, we didn't have our wedding in a Catholic Church. Every religious has their own rules, though, so if this is important to you, be sure to talk with your religious leader. We actually found a minister online who was willing to tailor our wedding ceremony exactly as we wanted it. We wanted a religious ceremony, but our own way. And that's exactly what we got.
5. The bride is not supposed to wear a "real" wedding dress in white or any other color. A nice suit should do for the day. Personally, I love wedding dresses. It's the only day in your life, if you like that sort of thing, where you can wear a dress so completely over the top. And if you want to wear one for your second wedding, then go for it! After all - remember that this is your first wedding to this person! But really - wear what you feel comfortable in. I went wedding dress shopping with my sisters. And I really felt ridiculous in everything I tried on. I felt like I was trying to be a "frilly little girl" and that just wasn't me. I wanted something a little different, but elegant. And most of all, I was NOT going to spend a lot of money on my dress. I was planning a fall wedding, so I knew I wanted an off-white dress. And I found the most beautiful dress online - for $70. There are a lot of online dress shops and second hand dresses. Ebay and Craigslist are other good options. But I actually found mine from a shop in China that made it in whatever color you wanted (I chose champagne) to your measurements. The way I figured, even if it came out completely different from how I imagined it, it was only $70, and not a big investment to lose. And it turned out to be absolutely perfect. As a little money saving tip - take your dress for hemming and bustling to the cleaners. They did a great job for me and it was extremely reasonable.
6. If you do get a "real" wedding dress, you can't wear a crinoline. This follows the same guideline as number 5 - if you want to, do it! I didn't want my dress to be very puffy. But I also didn't want the dress to go between my legs when I walked. So I decided to make my own, so I could choose the "puffiness." Fortunately I'm handy with a sewing machine. I bought pretty fabric that matched my dress. But a couple days before the wedding, when the crinoline still wasn't made, I decided that it really wasn't something I was going to stress about. I happened to have a cranberry colored crinoline in my closet from another dress I had, so I wore it! I loved that I had a brightly colored crinoline under my pretty traditional dress. It made me feel a little sassy - like a secret only I knew about. And that really was how I felt as I planned my second wedding. Sassy - and in control. Of course I had to let my crinoline peek out for some wedding pictures.
7. You can't wear a veil to your second wedding. I think the real etiquette rule on this one is that you aren't supposed to wear a blusher at your second wedding. But, I was all about doing what felt right for me. "Supposed to" was thrown out the window. Sure, I tried on veils - it seems every bridal shop thinks that's going to be the clincher that makes you feel like a bride. Honestly, with a veil I felt like I had a white water fountain shooting out the top of my head. I decided that I would just wear a simple little flower in my hair - something elegant. Until I tried on a birdcage veil. And I was hooked. I think my wedding theme was "anything that makes me feel sassy." Even my mother, who frowned at the idea at first, saw me and thought it looked perfect on me. I felt like a 1940's Hollywood star, and my husband loved the way I looked.
8. You can't invite your whole family to your second wedding, because they probably went to your first. Let's think about this one. Wouldn't your family want to celebrate your new life with you? I know mine would. We actually had a very small wedding - because we wanted to. We wanted the whole affair to be small and intimate. So we had 24 people total - including us and my son. And we were all able to sit down at the same table together like a family. We did celebrate with everyone else, though. We invited anyone who wanted to meet us out at a bar later on that night (after the little kids were tucked in bed at their grandma's house). This not only made the affair intimate and special - but it also kept expenses down.
9. For the people you do invite, you don't need to buy "real" wedding invitations. As you can probably tell, I started getting irritated by people who kept intimating that because it was my second wedding, it wasn't a "real" wedding - and didn't deserve "real" wedding elements. I actually had a wonderful lady on Etsy design my invitations. I went with a dark chocolate ribbon on a blue and brown patterned invitation. I also ordered brown and blue paisley announcements. They weren't' your traditional white invitations - but they were exactly what we wanted.
10. For the wedding ceremony, you should only have one female and one male attendant. I'm not really sure where this came from. But we weren't having a big wedding - so we didn't really need attendants. Everyone was our witness. We had our sisters do special jobs for us - like the readings, and one sister was in charge of music and another sister was our photographer. But, no one other than my future husband, my son, and me walked down the aisle. We made it all about us and our new little family. My six year old son walked me down the aisle and was the ring bearer, man of honor, and best man. This saved on people having to buy special clothing for our wedding - and we didn't have extra bouquets and corsages to purchase.
11. You should just have a simple little cake for your reception. First, I can't eat cake because I'm gluten intolerant. But I can have gluten free cheesecake. Which my future husband, my son, and I all love. So, when we went cake tasting, or cheesecake tasting as it was, my future husband decided that he wanted a 3 tiered cheesecake. So, the 3 tiers would serve three times the number of people we were having at the wedding, but because it was what we wanted, we ordered it. The bakery was even able to cover it in blue whipped cream with brown and white cherry blossoms decorating it. It was beautiful. Oh - and since traditional bride and groom cake toppers normally just have a bride and groom, we had our own cake toppers made so my son wouldn't feel left out. So, we had a bride, a groom, and our son sitting on top of the cake.
12. You can't have X at your wedding. Fill that X in with anything that people traditionally think of as belonging to a first wedding. But make the choice for yourselves. Spend your money on what you want. Make it a day for you two to remember. Because that's what it's all about. We didn't have a DJ - I created an iPod play list for both the ceremony and cocktail hour. We had a first dance so we would have "our song" and my son and I danced to a song to (so he wouldn't feel left out). We had beautiful flowers but I didn't toss them- they included special touches like peacock feathers and a brooch - and I wanted to be able to take pictures with them all night. We didn't smash cake in each other's faces, we had a million toasts, and there was no garter toss. We had a gourmet meal that included a surprise dessert for the kids with eyeball shaped ice cream served on dry ice, and we had place cards, favors, and programs. We didn't have a photographer because my sister is a great one, and we took a little limo ride together after the wedding to the monuments in Washington, DC, to spend quiet time together and take pictures. All in all, we had what we wanted, didn't have the things we didn't want, and we made the wedding all about us - as it should be.

Having gone through the wedding planning process twice, I learned a lot. Most of all, I learned that the wedding is about the bride and groom, and any present children that may be involved. It's about joining your lives - not about pleasing everyone else. Yes, your second wedding may be different from other peoples' ideas about what a wedding "should" or "should not" be. But isn't that what everyone strives for? A wedding that is uniquely their own? So put down the etiquette books. Stop listening to what everyone is telling you. And do what you feel is right - make choices that celebrate that you and your future partner have overcome life's adversity and found each other. That is the only rule that weddings need to follow.