I'm NO J-Lo!

I .swear. the next post won't be about weddings.  Really... I swear.

I was watching Maid in Manhattan on TV earlier today... terrible movie (WHY Ralph Fiennes?! WHY Stanley Tucci?!  Career low point...) and it has nothing to do with this post, except that it reminded me that J-Lo was also in a movie called the Wedding Planner...  Okay, this isn't really about weddings so much as it is about struggling to find purpose in whatever it is that you do. 

I've launched my facebook "fan" page for my new company Laurel White Design.  Very shortly Tim will be finished with my business website.  June 26th will be my first official wedding, coordinated by Laurel White Design.  Clearly, we are now open for business, and so, of course, anyone who hadn't sort of gotten wind of this project a few months ago is now asking questions about it.  I'm struggling very much with how to respond to the question "so you're a wedding planner now?"

{ugh.} 

The short answer is "Yes, I am indeed a Wedding Planner."  The long answer is... well, it's long.

This might seem like a really stupid moral struggle to some of you, but then, you didn't know me growing up.  You clearly didn't know me in highschool and college.  Finding love, sticking to love, and marrying my love are all relatively new concepts to me.  Yes, I'm married and I love who I'm married to, but I never thought I would find myself helping other people down that road.  I'm not against marriage.  It just was never a very high priority for me.  Maybe some of that was because I never thought I'd meet someone I really wanted to marry, but some of it was definitely the "I'll be the cool, single, independent chick for the rest of my life" motto.  More importantly, I always thought big, expensive weddings were a huge waste.  Sure, they're fun to attend - I appreciate that - but think of all the millions of other things you could put that money towards.  Starving children in Africa aside, there's traveling to exotic places, a down payment on a house, a new car, adopting homeless animals... you get the idea.  I'm a selfish person already, so yeah, I definitely struggle with jumping into an industry that is, pretty much, incredibly selfish.  I literally cringe when people ask me if I'm going to be a "Wedding Planner."  I feel like saying yes not only makes me selfish, but immediately dumps me into the category "shallow, superficial, and ridiculously overrun by estrogen."

Then a friend -- a guy, of all people -- totally screwed my head on straight.  He pointed out that I was having a very small, closed perspective on the whole scenario.  Here I've been put into a position to use skills I have been blessed with to help other people make one of the most important days of their lives an enjoyable experience.  Not only that, I can lead people to see that extravagant weddings aren't necessary to express their personalities or their love for one another.  But it's all about how you choose to look at what you do with your life... Yes, I'm looking to make a little bit of money at this, but really, I know I can be good at it, I know how much having an official wedding planner would have made my whole wedding experience a 1000 times better, and I know how much I like to see people relaxed, happy, and in love on their wedding day.

{hmmmm.}

I will try to remember that when I'm dealing with multiple Bridezillas on my own reality TV show and I have a personal assistant who bitches about me behind my back.