Here Comes the Bride...zilla?

This post is dedicated to the high-anxiety, hyper-organized souls out there - the ones who thrive in the face of chaos, who turn spreadsheets into works of art, and who know that with a little bit of determination anything is possible.

Through a majority of the planning in the months leading up to the wedding, I had done a relatively good job of remaining cool, calm and collected. Well, as cool, calm and collected as possible for me at least. 

As I sit here at the airport with too much luggage, preparing to board our flight over to the UK, I have been reflecting on the events of the past year that have led us up to this trip back to Scotland. The last-minute decisions to shake up our itinerary one week before our travel in April 2023, the surprise proposal, and the dozens upon dozens of back-and-forth emails as I coordinated a wedding in another country. 

As I sit here in the airport, I feel a little bit less cool, calm and collected.

But don't worry, the anxiety isn't the "if the napkins don't match my color scheme I'm gonna lose it" kind of anxiety. It is the good anxiety that comes along with excitement and big adventure - no bridezilla here. 

Many people warned me that planning a wedding in the timespan of a year would be severely challenging and anxiety-producing. Maybe I was just graced with luck, but once the venue was booked everything else seemed to quickly fall into place. Armed with endless to-do lists, color-coded spreadsheets and a penchant for triple-checking every detail, I dove headfirst into the world of destination wedding planning. 

I had gotten the biggest piece of the planning out of the way before even beginning to tackle anything else - booking the venue. You may remember from my earlier post, I had in mind the exact castle I wanted to use for our "aye do's". 

Being a privately owned, smaller castle definitely worked out in our favor. With May and June being in the midst of tourist season I was quite lucky that I didn't have to negotiate our date. With our dates and venue secured, I set out to manage the other million tasks that naturally come along with the joy of planning a wedding. 

A photo from our first visit to the magical Buittle Castle in May 2023

Way back in some of my original pre-departure posts for my Peace Corps service, I mentioned that I have developed a bit of a habit of over-packing and over-preparing every single trip that I take - and of course, this wedding would be no different. 

Before June 2023 I had the castle booked. Before July I had purchased both of my wedding dresses, hired a photographer, booked our musician and scheduled with our celebrant. And by August our flights had been purchased and the remainder of our hotels throughout the trip reserved.

Phew! I'm out of breath just thinking back on all of this! 

Now I won't misguide you, I did have a couple near-bridezilla moments when my anxiety threatened to spin out of its usual baseline. The uncertainty of weather with severe storms forecasted on the day of our flight (hail, flooding and a possible tornado, oh my!) and the nagging worry that something could go wrong - it was enough to send my stress levels through the roof for brief periods. There were many times where I practiced what I preach - inhale, exhale. Radical acceptance is hard.

Needless to say, people weren't completely wrong in cautioning me about the stress of planning a wedding; however, thankfully my hyper-organized nature ended up being a lifesaver in tackling this feat and I am happy to report that planning a wedding abroad in a year is completely possible.

So maybe there is a future in wedding planning for my high-strung self, helping other brides-to-be plan their own fairytale weddings. But for now, I'm going to throw on my noise-cancelling headphones and fire up my Kindle, as I prepare to walk down the first of two aisles on this trip.

Almost a Mrs. -