The Favor Dilemma: to give or not to give

One of the biggest questions facing brides and groom is what to do for favors for your guests. Favors can also be one of the biggest expenses that creeps up on you, depending on the size of your wedding.

Some people opt to go the fancy way, saying that these guests may have spent over $100 on your present, so you should get a high quality favor. That can run you hundreds of dollars. It's ridiculous.

Others want to go the DIY route, making cake or cookies mixes and packaging them cutely (is that even a word?). This is a cute idea, but depending on dietary restrictions of your guests, this could be an issue. As a bride who is gluten free with multiple food allergies, I probably wouldn't be able to partake in this favor at someone else's wedding.

The route that we are choosing to go is to donate to charity on behalf of our guests. Due to my multiple diseases, we wanted to choose a charity that would be meaningful - and one that we know would really benefit from our money, one that does great things. After taking a look at our options, we're actually going to donate to one of the orgs that I do volunteer and fundraising work with, the Arthritis National Research Foundation. 91 cents on the dollar goes to research - which is basically all they focus on. In the last few years, they have made some great progress for arthritis related diseases, and I'm excited to see what they do next. They also sell bracelets, that we may get to give to our guests as well.

While this type of gift may or may not give your guests concrete favors, it can help to further research or awareness for the disease you or your loved ones might suffer from. There are even companies that you can buy fancy chocolates from to give your guests in addition to the donation in their names. They're expensive, but it works.

What would/did you do?

Spoon Shortage: Tips & Tricks

Happy new year!

We all can admit that having a shortage of spoons does not help whatsoever when you're wedding planning. Your body is already trying to precariously balance the normal stresses associated with your daily tasks - work or school (or both!), relationships, money, etc - and of course your treatments and issues associated with that. Now you want to add in a wedding huh?

When you first get engaged, it's like a rush of excited energy comes over you. You want to plan and go get married right now. Once you actually get into it, things just feel like they drain your energy 10x as much as they did before. But your excitement is still there, so you keep going.

Eventually you hit a wall where the last thing you want to look at is your wedding stuff. And that just feels rotten... especially if you have people around who are excited for you and want to believe that you're excited 24/7 for the rest of your life to begin - to the point of where, if you're not excited, something must be wrong OH MY GOD WHAT HAPPENED??

Yeah, no.

Here are some tips on how to get through wedding planning without permanently losing all your spoons (or marbles):

• Set aside specific times to do wedding planning. A tempting thought is to set aside every Saturday until the day you get married for wedding stuff - please just don't. You won't be able to stick to it, and you'll feel rotten even if you miraculously do.
• Realize that your fiance may or may not care about the same stuff you do when it comes to details. Guys generally have no idea how much detailed planning goes into weddings. You can either try to show them how difficult it is so you can plan things together, or ask him for what things are important to him and have him take over those parts.
• Set up helper days! It's tempting to want to do everything yourself, but recognize that even for the non-chronically-ill that just isn't possible. Have your gals come over for a wine and dine and invite addressing night, or involve your mom in picking out flowers. Just like with most spoonie things, asking for help can be the best choice you ever make.
• Make sure that, even in the midst of planning or the day you get married, you don't lose track of eating or drinking water (or wine!) and taking your meds according to schedule. Make sure you eat breakfast; have snacks with you when you're running around; always carry extra pain pills. A bride is pain is one that won't think clearly, and one without food is just scary.
• Take your time. Unless you need to get married ASAP for reasons (insurance, deployment, severe illness, etc), take your sweet bippy time with planning this thing. It's a huge undertaking, even if you're not inviting many people. 2 year engagements are awesome.
• You can't please everyone. There will be things other people want that you think are dumb, but don't fight too much over it. This is one day - and the wedding, while coming out of your pocket and being your brainchild, is really for your friends and family and not in the end for you.
• Keep the big picture in mind. You're getting married to your best friend - is it really going to matter if the tablecloths are blue or white?

And just remember - stress makes just about every medical condition worse. Try to take things slow :)