The 3 W's of Wedding Decisions

Since the end of September, I have been kind of immersed in wedding things. It even was so bad the weekend we got engaged that it caused a little tiff between me and the fiance. It was easily solved though. Sometimes it can be really hard to face the issues concerning chronic illness in your life. For me, I needed to be able to become immersed in these things because I work a dead end job and my health issues don't make it any easier to have happy thoughts sometimes. It isn't easy living with uncontrolled pain and questionably working medications while you watch people your age out partying, exploring the world, and participating in sports that hurt you to even think about.

One of the first things that an engaged couple should do is have the budget talk. I'm kind of avoiding it since I have an amazing amount of debt between student loans and credit cards filled with medical bills.

But the next step is to brainstorm/daydream and think about the following W's of Wedding planning.

Who

Who are the people in your life that you value the most? Who can you trust to help get things organized and keep you together mentally through your big day? A spoonie has an added challenge here as it isn't always easy to have friends that can be physically near you who also understand the issues associated with your illness. You need to have people in your wedding party that trust and believe that you are ill and who can help take on maybe a little more responsibility than the normal party members - because you are going to have days where you're supposed to meet with vendors but the brain fog takes hold of you and you need someone there to back you up and help remember everything, or help you to get all your ducks in a row the morning of your wedding because dealing with the anxiety gets 'normal' people overwhelmed easily and you need to have as little stress as possible. In short, you need people who really are your friends/family, who are dedicated to helping make your day special, and don't mind needing to put in a little extra elbow grease to help you get things done.

For my fiance and I, our entire tiny wedding party is all girls. I have my college roommate and best friend Katy as my maid of honor. I chose her over my sister and his (our two bridesmaids) not because I value her more than family but because she is family to me and I know she knows how to get shit done where sometimes the sisters may not have experience with these things. His best maid is his best friend Melody, the only person who knew he was going to pop the question and who helped him pick things out long distance from New York. These four special ladies are family to me, regardless of DNA. I know that they all recognize my illness and that they will do whatever they can to assist my fiance and me in getting things done.

Where

Picking a location can be a tough one for any bride. You'll have to really think about your dream day and what, if any, kind of theme you are going to go off of. If you want a lot of hanging floral or light pieces, getting married in a 200 year old wooden Norwegian chapel in northern Wisconsin might not be the best fit. You'll also need to consider how many people you will have on your guest list and use it to guide which venues you end up visiting.

The spoonie bride will face additional issues with accessibility needs. If you need to be able to sit, you won't necessarily want a beach where it'll be difficult to walk and not much better to sink a seat into. Likewise, picking a venue where you won't be able to fit a wheelchair through a doorway won't help if you try to rest your joints and avoid walking the morning of your wedding so you can store some spoons for dancing and mingling with loved ones. And dealing with stairs if your worst joints are your ankles/hips/knees in a poofy dress isn't going to be the best idea either.

You just have to keep all these things in mind and decide which things are necessities for you or your groom.

When

Choosing a time of year can be a little daunting for some brides. For the spoonie bride, additional worries include how possible weather conditions may affect how she feels on her special day. Living in Wisconsin, even thinking about getting married in winter pains me. With the rain we tend to get, spring and fall aren't much better. Summer can be extremely hot here certain years, but there are a few weeks where the weather tends to be warm and mild - aka the month of August. Once you think about the month, you will need to pick a few dates and keep them in mind as you start shopping for a venue.


January brings an interesting set of wedding expos in Wisconsin. This weekend, I will be spending a much needed girls weekend with my maid of honor and my fiance's sister in Milwaukee trying on dresses and heading to an expo at the state fairgrounds. The following weekend there is an expo here in Madison where I live and I'm going to try to get the fiance to go with me. In discussing this with my GP a few weeks ago, he said I should go with some gals and stop attempting to torture my poor fiance :)

I hope that the new year finds you all well. I'm definitely looking forward to sharing my adventures trying on more dresses and visiting these expos with you!

Beth :)

Hey there everyone! Very excited to be a part of A Very Spoonie Wedding. My name's Beth, i'm 23, Rheumatoid Arthritis is my body's weapon of choice, and ive been engaged for a whole year already (whew). I look forward to blogging about the big day, and the little speed bumps my disease puts in the way. But, honestly, theres a giant snow storm headed up the East Coast and im feelin it in my swollen lil fingers, so i'll have to sign out for now :( 

Hello and Welcome!

Welcome to the inaugural post for A Very Spoonie Wedding. If you aren't familiar with the term spoonie, it is a nickname that those of us in the chronic illness world have adopted after Christine Miserandino's "The Spoon Theory" from But You Don't Look Sick.

Over the next 2 years, a few of us intend to share our journey of planning a wedding dealing with chronic illness - namely, forms of autoimmune arthritis such as Still's Disease. We want to share our frustrations, our unique accommodations, and maybe in the afterglow of wedding bliss some things we would have done differently. We hope that this blog can help others planning their wedding feel not so alone and give ideas on different ways to go about this very special day in our lives that can help others.

In the coming weeks, we will be getting this whole thing put together and better organized including, hopefully, introduction posts from those of us that will be your guides into a polygamous marriage between us gals, our hubbys-to-be, and Arthur, our arthritic nemesis.