Free Spirited Friday: Honey, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

Happy Friday you gorgeous creatures!

So we’ve got one simple thought for y’all to ponder over your morning coffee today, and it boils down to this:

What’s your ‘essential’?

‘Cause, put simply, if it ain’t essential, it ain’t worth your worry.

Don’t get me wrong, for many years I was a perfectionist through and through, some might argue I still am (when I allow myself to be!), but what we’re really talking about here is our priorities.

During the 9 weeks in which my beau and I planned our wedding from scratch, I learnt some seriously valuable lessons about myself and about what it meant to be successful.

‘Successful’. A successful wedding. A successful life. What are we actually saying when we use that word?

Author of Buddhist Boot Camp (read it, it’ll change your life) and one of my favourite authors, Timber Hawkeye, asks us to ‘reevaluate’ our definition of success, redefining it: ‘Success means being happy’ and here at FBrides we think this is never truer than when planning your wedding.

For me, successfully planning our wedding meant nailing every element. Everything sitting pretty, looking just as we’d imaged it, the perfect timing of every moment and not least, timeless-yet-trend-lead, original styling… You know the drill, we have high expectations of ourselves; I’m sure you dream the same dream!

The reality of this attention to microscopic detail, and the regimented organisation needed to fulfil such a vision, could have left me in tatters, and believe me, there were definitely a thousand few times I thought it may do just that! Our saviour was our short planning period: it totally shifted our – wait no, let’s be honest here – it shifted my perspective (my husband is so laid back he’s horizontal!).

We learnt to focus on the essentials and deal quickly, or not at all, with the non-essentials. So, whereas normally I’d insist on meticulously planning every aspect, I learnt to leave elements to chance, to nature (I mean, there’s only so much you can planning an uncovered, woodland ceremony in the UK…Right?!). This ‘undone’ approach allowed a more organic feel to seep into our wedding from the peripherals.

Hear me right, I still love all the little details, I truly believe they make for a beautiful wedding, but it’s about carefully selecting the details that really matter to YOU (and your beau), channelling your energy and enthusiasm into those areas, and not sweating the other stuff!

A happy, healthy couple, who haven’t spent the last 6 months arguing over the ceremony seating (definitely a nonessential in our book, we had hay bales that arrived the morning we got married!), a couple who’ve done everything their way, who’ve learnt to pass tasks on and delegate to family and friends who truly want to help (thereby aiding their happiness too, as they watch the stress melt away from your face!), a wedding that’s an accumulation of positive, uplifting and loving energy and effort…

Now THAT’S a successful wedding.

Learning the art of leaving things undone, the skill of focusing your energy; well worth your while my friends.

Now, go, have a FABULOUS weekend!

Peace Love

Clare X