Wedding Coordinators own wedding – A Leap of faith Buddhist Wedding and Western Wedding 29/02/08
Without a doubt organizing your own wedding should come with a major health warning. This is seriously not to be recommended particularly when you are a wedding organizer and event manager. And particularly so when you tend to be the person who delivers the ceremony (not civil ceremony I am not a priest, vicar or otherwise registered).
My Thai wife and I have organized some fantastic weddings for others – Thai Island Weddings with beautiful sunsets brilliant against tropical seas and set against jungle foliage, Thai City weddings at hotels with entertainers doing stunning gymnastic tricks and magicians greatly amusing the throng of all ages and finally weddings on boats gracefully cutting their way along the Chao Phraya River with fireworks and dancing into the small hours – so when it came to organizing our own we figured we would be the best people to do this. How wrong can you be!
For a start when organizing your own wedding there is the immediate issue of attachment. This is not to say you should be heartless and ruthless but there is always a history with people in the family and events which should be long forgotten. Then there is the issue of family pressure this cannot be underestimated and comes in many forms ….a long silence, a wouldn’t it be nice if, a that’s the way they did it ….etc. Then there is the coordination of the pre-Wedding Event preparations themselves which are fraught with dangers ie delays, issues with stock, dress and attire, bookings, storage, transportation, accommodation, flights, car hire etc …leading often to much disappointment and angst and this is all before the big day! The joy of using a Wedding Planner and an organization that knows what is possible and how to deliver it is a/ you are not the one doing the worrying b/ the options are so much wider c/ you can actually enjoy the process and if all else fails you can blame the Wedding Planners for not meeting the requirements of the whole family ….though secretly you get the wedding you want! Painless smooth-running is what you want.
As for the day itself – we all know that sometimes organizing a family group that have not seen one another for sometime can be like ‘herding cats’, well in this situation you have two family groups = double trouble.
So how did it go for KT and I. Well…
a/ given we are Wedding Planners Thailand there were high expectations for a really lavish posh wedding
This preconception was burst early on – we wanted a fun enjoyable ceremony in a relaxed environment on an island. And yes to make things more interesting we decided to have two weddings one Thai Buddhist Wedding on the 28th and one Western Wedding on the 29th February 2008 the leap day.
b/we were considering a very small wedding but it was necessary to break out the numbers to accommodate more friends, family and work colleagues
Initially we were looking at 10-20 close family members finally we settled on 70 including hotel owners and suppliers to our business who just would not accept a no.
c/ given we are in the travel and event coordination business many hotels wished us to run the event at their location no matter how impossible this was….
Mmmmm yes this was a political hot potato which meant we had to base the wedding in a neutral location. We settled for the beautiful island of Koh Chang as we have delivered two wedding here previously. There were still problems with Koh Chang and the resort but we made this up later with a visit to the offend hotel owners hotel. No problem just great people trying to make sure we had a wonderful time.
d/ given it was our wedding the coordination of the wedding coordination took an extremely low priority against client activity which meant we made mistakes we never make with our clients. Normally our wedding checks run weeks before the event to avoid last minute problems but for our wedding …this was not the case. As an example ….The wedding dress was not ready until 4am on the day that we were due to travel to the island, ushers clothes did not fit, we had no time to meet our elephant before-hand (Yes elephant!) and the manager of the resort had moved on. PS the manager of the resort was to be taking us through our marriage vows on the 29th so 6 days before the wedding itself we had to locate a compare to deliver our wedding …not an easy task when your wedding is on an island in the middle of nowhere.
On the days of the event – we found ourselves still in the middle of all the coordination and having to ask people to check and coordinate ie the Thai Long Drum Ceremony, seating at the western wedding and even getting the hotel to pour wine in time for speeches (I never know it took 30 minute to open 24 bottles of wine!) + many more. This is all activity a coordinator with forward thinking would manage.
As for the weddings themselves, the Buddhist wedding went well and was a colorful enjoyable affair with many other tourists at the hotel very interested and joining in. As I rode in on my elephant wearing my traditional King Rama trousers (silk plus fours), with a procession of children beating drums in front and friends and family bearing gifts behind, I was on top the world until I decided to dismount my elephant. At this point I began to wish I had more practice getting on and on the elephant as my leg movement was drastically restricted through my colorful trousers – I almost fell off which would have been a non ceremonial start to the proceedings as the groom scrabbled on the floor. The rest of the ceremony went very well including the passing through three gates, blessings, monks chanting, the tying of string around wrists and the gift giving to the 9 monks
The western wedding started well. Along with flowers and arches we arranged for ice sculptures to be cut. These proved of great interest to the children as the Thai artist formed beautiful shapes from large blocks of ice using only a small ice pick. People gathered, the excitement was palpable, the ceremony began and my brother and son made good speeches then we came across a small problem. We had located a compare but had to greatly compromise. The compare, who was just about managing throughout the ceremony, was so nervous that when she delivered the vows she actually forgot to complete them ie the, ‘I do’s’ she asked my wife ….she forgot!!! to ask me. Wow. I was going to address this but felt it was not so important – I think everyone knew the words. I was standing there with the woman I loved with friends and family. I was happy. I had got through both wedding ceremonies but was exhausted and suffering from a thumping head ache so my wife and I bid the family party revelers an early night and snuck off to sleep after the party games.
At this point would like to state a heart felt thank you for all of those wonderful people who did help us with the coordination. Your help was greatly appreciated however, it is not the same as having someone else take complete responsibility for the total event.
Net result – do not organize your own Thai Island Wedding. Look to someone outside your family to do this. It is simply too much pressure, too many expectations and a burden. Find an expert and enjoy the process. Everyone tells you it is your day and as time take you further away from ‘that day’ the more you realize how true this really is.
