Some of us hardy souls decide that the normal challenges of planning a big day are just not enough. We have to complicate things further by going long-distance.
Whether planning a wedding in another country or heading off to university in another state, the distance between you and your goal can be daunting.
Without local knowledge or your usual support structures and faced with tackling everything from foreign bureaucracies to time zones, the process of planning your big day can leave you feeling tied up in a million knots.
And while it is true that modern technology has brought us many wonderful new tools, sometimes it only seems to complicate things further.
In reality, the more options we have at our fingertips, the harder it can be to find the right buttons to press to meet your needs.
Two Key Challenges of Long-Distance Planning
1. Marching to a Different Beat
One key challenge of planning across time and space is that when decisions just have to be made, the other interested parties are tucked up in bed asleep.
Tackling time zones is stressful. Conversations have to be put on hold and office hours never suit.
Phone calls wake the whole household, emails go unread and your attempts to message others come back with the dreaded “offline.”
Sometimes it can feel as if rather than just a timezone, you are a world apart.
2. Singing off a Different Song Sheet
More challenging still is the fact that distance seems to create enormous pockets of misinformation, where the simplest things can be lost in translation.
While you are positive that you and your interested parties are all on the same page, they are in fact reading things upside down and back to front!
Take the example of a good friend of mine who was planning an interstate wedding. The future mother-in-law misread a comment about a nice classical CD my friend had heard and the next thing she knew she had a five-piece string orchestra booked for her walk down the aisle.
Not so bad except that my friend had already put her money into a band for the reception and was forced to make some unpleasant calls to undo the arrangements her mother-in-law had made with the very best of intentions.
Putting the Love Back into Long-Distance
Clear communication is at the foundation of every successful relationship, so it is no wonder that when your lover, your friends, your family, your teacher, or your business partner is out of sight, conversations can become strained.
And when decision have to be made, you can feel very alone and isolated, adding to the stress of the planning process.
Not to mention all the hurt feelings of family and friends when they think they are “out of the loop”.
Quite simply, when planning for your big day, it is one time when having your parents-in-law on the other side of the world can be a bad thing!
So how do you ensure everyone is up to date, keep your thoughts and ideas organised and give all interested parties a voice?
Try creating your own big day blog. It is cheap (sometimes even free!), fun and gets everyone involved.
By the time your big day rolls around, you will all be singing in perfect harmony!
