I love that I get to read wedding blogs with abandon, I’ll miss this once I’m married.

Offbeat Bride has been a staple site for me for months. Via OBB, I surfed to A Practical Wedding a few weeks ago and it has fast become my favorite wedding blog. It’s got the emotional, philosophical, conceptual element covered. It’s a lot of amazing women (specifically the creator, Meg) writing about their experiences and feelings, and giving some damn good advice. That is what I need more right now than favor ideas, color scheme inspiration boards, or seating chart apps.

One of the best repeat blog topics on A Practical Wedding is their “graduates” posts – folks that are now married giving advice based on hindsight. It’s amazingly helpful.

Today I read Meg’s own graduate advice and it made me cry. Specifically this:

“Show Up. When the ceremony starts, you need to be THERE. Even if it makes you sob, even if it makes you laugh, even if someone just yelled at you, even if something major just went wrong. Be fully present, because you only get to live this once.”

I guess this is what I was trying to get at in my last wedding-related post. It’s so easy to stop being present to the big picture. I try to consciously be present in my everyday life anyway (I’m a good yogi) but I never thought about how important it is on our wedding day. You work so hard on all of the small details and lose sight of the bigger picture. The Big Day.

I think it’s easy to lose sight though. There is a lot riding on it and a ton of pressure. You spend gobs of money, exert tons of energy just getting everyone in one room together, spend months attending to every single little minute detail – all on a mere 7 hours of your entire life.

There’s a lot of conflicting advice out there: it’s about your guests, it’s about all of the financial contributors, it’s just about the bride and groom. I don’t think any of these is true. I guess Meg is right, it’s about being present and being in every single moment. For us and our guests. I guess all the stressful prep just leads up to ensuring that you can be present and not worry one little bit on the actual day.

So from now on I’m going to fret or laugh or cry or do whatever I need to do without reservation as we prepare for our wedding so I don’t have to do it the day of. I’m going to be fully present, to the stress now and the joy then. I like this plan.