Wedding Reflection – Renee and Joost

Gratitude  //  15th February 2016

Renee and Joost were married at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Rochester, NY with a reception at the Strathallan Hotel. Below are a few of their reflections from the beginning of their married lives together!

1. When reflecting on your wedding, what is it that you remember most?

Joost: There are so many things that I remember “the most.” The first look of Renee in the dress was a really special moment. For both us, right after the ceremony, when we were walking away by ourselves, realizing that we just got married!

Renee: I really remember the ceremony the most. There is a definite moment when you are pronounced by the priest as married and kiss and that is really the moment when it’s official. 

2. If you could plan your wedding again, would you do anything differently?

We had some confusion with the timing for the dinners and the venue thought we wanted a break between courses. Perhaps it would have been better to get a more detailed schedule from the chef/kitchen. Also, we hired a band and essentially just told them to play their standard wedding songs. But in hindsight, maybe giving them a few more preferences would have made it slightly better. But these are really minor, overall everything went really smoothly! 

3. What, if anything, did you do before your wedding that helped prepare you most for life after saying “I Do”?

Because we were married in the Catholic church, we took part in marriage preparation, which included having some discussions with other married couples. This was really helpful to talk through some of the topics that are easy to skip over when busy with wedding planning, such as: how to handle finances, or how each person in the relationship prefers to communicate. We didn’t necessarily figure everything out, but it at least started some open discussions. 

4. What is it that you LOVE most about being married that all of those engaged couples can look forward to?

On one hand, nothing really changes. But on the other hand, there is a new amount of “permanent” feeling that we will always be together, and that is very comforting. Being married adds a new meaning or layer to the relationship- like the relationship is stronger than before. We also really like just doing “normal.” After the stress of planning a wedding, it’s nice to get into a normal routine again. A couple weeks after our wedding, we went jogging on a Saturday morning, then had breakfast at home and just relaxed- no appointments, emails, or anything to immediately take care.   

5. What advice would you give to an engaged couple who is currently planning their own wedding?

Don’t get too stressed about the wedding. Think about the details ahead of time as much as you would like, but on the actual day – you just have to go with the flow. Everything will work out. I was not the most organized bride, but there are enough professionals around you that everything will go smoothly! One thing that we perhaps underestimated is how excited/enthusiastic/emotional our family members would be leading up to the wedding and on the day of the wedding. It’s so great to have everyone there, but they may have their own expectations of the day, which can require some managing or patience.  

Definitely plan a honeymoon, it was so relaxing, and something nice to look forward to after the wedding. 

6. Is there anything else that you would like to share with other engaged/newly married couples?

Enjoy being engaged – it’s (usually) a short amount of time and (hopefully) the only time you’ll ever be engaged! Also, for newly engaged couples – we planned our wedding in about 8 months. Lots of people and wedding magazines will suggest that you are crazy, but it is possible! We decided to have a wedding on Friday, and then essentially all vendors and the venue were available. Engagements don’t need to be super long if you don’t want that! 

For newly married couples – I feel that we are so newly married ourselves that we don’t have that much advice yet to give, so I’ll pass along some advice from my father. When I asked him for some advice on how he and my mother manage household finances, he said, “have a discussion, make a decision for the current time, but just don’t fight about it.” I hope to keep this in mind. There is probably very little worth fighting about!  

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We are so excited to start this year off with a Wedding Reflections Series on our blog from our 2015 Liz and Ryan couples! We understand that wedding planning can be hard and overwhelming… but we hope you never forget that all that really matters is that you are getting MARRIED! ;) That is so exciting! When wedding planning becomes stressful, please know that you are not alone and there are a lot of people out there (including us and our 2015 couples ;) ) who are cheering you on and want your marriage to start off on the right track! Please let us know how we can help make the start of your marriage AMAZING! ;)