Brides 4 Brides: A Sharing from Tobi Young

From the merry month of May, we will be featuring sharing from real brides’ wedding planning experience that other brides-to-be can learn from. We will call this “Brides 4 Brides” or “B4B” in short.

Our maiden featured Bride is Tobi Young, 31 years young, a PR Manager living in Newport, Rhode Island. Tobi is here to share how she and her fiance, Adam met and give you the good, the bad and the ugly of wedding planning!

Tobi and Adam

1. How did you and Adam meet?

We met three years ago. It was March 18th and I was throwing a party for a friend who was moving to New York.  Adam was one of my friend’s boyfriend’s (now fiancé) friends. That day, my then-boyfriend and I had just broken up and my little sister got engaged. The last thing I thought is that I was going to meet my future husband; rather I just thought I would drink a lot. Both happened.

At the time, we both worked at the same IT company but we never crossed paths. He remains there, in sales and I am a PR Manager at a great agency in Providence.

We fell in love while I was living in Newport, and after a year of dating he moved to Newport, a few minutes away from me. After two years, we bought a house together in North Kingstown, RI.

2. When did you and your fiance get engaged?

June 2008 on the back porch of our new house. It was very sweet and I cried.

3. How long was the gap from engagement to the start of your wedding preps? Basically, when did you start your wedding preparations?

We had just started right before it became official, just looking around at places so in total about a year of real planning. I couldn’t have waited any longer to marry this man.

4. Who is more hands on on the wedding preps? You or your fiance?

Me, no question. He knows me well enough to know I want to plan every detail and says he trusts my judgment. He cared about the venue, food and cake!

5. Tell me the Good, Bad and Ugly of your own wedding preparation experience? What are the highlights of your wedding preps? What are the discoveries? What were the bad parts? Did you have bad patches during the wedding preparations where you almost called off the wedding because of some fiance/family/friends/wedding drama? What’s the ‘ugly’ part of the wedding preps?

There have been wonderful moments as well as some not-so-wonderful moments. I think what we don’t realize is the amount of stress a wedding can put on a bride. There are so many little details, we spend a lot of time considering. About two weeks ago my mother called me to tell me that some of her colleagues thought they were invited (but weren’t) and could I send them a couple invitations.

This came after I spent four hours designing the seating chart, had everyone assigned and my fiancé and I were bickering over landscaping to be done pre-wedding. Not to mention, the RSVP date had already passed so it would be clear they were “B listed” and I would have felt very bad. Anyways, I flew off the handle and demanded we call off the wedding because I was done. I called back a few minutes later to apologize and cry. I think many of us suffer from WRMI (wedding related mental illness) but I’ve been assured, it will pass. There were so many points where I wanted to call off the wedding, but never once did I want to call off the marriage.

Hands down, the most joyful moment occurred at my bachelorette party. My girls planned a great day of wine tasting in Long Island. It was supposed to be a secret but I knew, or thought I knew, that was the big surprise. They spent all morning shuffling me around to “surprise me” at the ferry. When I got on, they had set up a table of breakfast and out of nowhere my friend Pam who is living in San Francisco, leapt out to surprise me. I hadn’t ever expected her – she had only met a couple of my friends a couple times, years ago yet they got her in the night before, she stayed at someone’s house and they managed to get her there without my ever expecting. I cried, there were hugs. We had a wonderful day.

Another wonderful surprise is the terrific group of girls I met on our local wedding message board. I knew they would be helpful in my planning but some have become very good friends and will even attend my wedding.

6. What are the 3 most expensive items on your wedding list?

I didn’t go nuts and really splurge on any one thing in particular but ultimately, the big expenses will be the flowers, the venue and the honeymoon!

7. Did you do anything ‘innovative’ to save on wedding-related costs? Any DIY projects? Recycling of gowns, etc?

I did a lot of projects but I can’t say I saved very much by doing them myself. Mostly its stuff I wouldn’t have bothered with otherwise. I did save some money by purchasing containers for my candy buffet from other brides once they were done.

My biggest project was my wedding invitations…I loved the design work, hated the production but love the praise and shocked look on faces when I tell people I did them myself. I hope to never produce another invitation again.

I also DIY’ed: programs, seating chart, favor bags, aisle runner, cocktail hour centerpieces, shirts for my bridesmaid to wear while we get ready, menus, table numbers, candy buffet centerpiece, ring bearer pillow, pouch for our glass (breaking of the glass).

It’s funny to see how things evolved from a design aesthetic from when I started to where I ended. I had so many ideas in the beginning, but in the end learned to love simplicity.

8. What new wedding trends did you pick up while you were planning for your wedding that you plan to use?

I don’t know if I’d call it new but I have a candy buffet as my favor. About 10-14 types of candy and containers and my guests can fill their bag with whatever they like. Adam and I love candy so it was perfect for us.

9. Any tips you can give to those brides (and grooms)-to be who have just started or are in the middle of their wedding preps?
Elope. Just kidding…

If you’re planning to do a lot of DIY projects, do them early. I did and if I hadn’t there’s no way they would have happened in the last couple months. You have all that enthusiasm right away – use it!

There will be a point where you wished you’d elope. I got through by crying it out and saying it out loud. I felt better and luckily, I knew Adam wouldn’t let me call it off.

Take your time selecting your dress and the venue. These decisions should be fun but can easily succumb to the pressure of finding “the one” and nailing down a date.

Also set a budget upfront, not to hinder your decisions, but let it help guide you.