What Wedding Planning Has Actually Taught Me

Reflecting on wedding planning, staying intentional in an industry built on autopilot, and the unexpected lessons

Can I admit something slightly embarrassing?

A sneak peak into the most magical trip we just took and that I will be writing more about soon

Patrick and I have spent an unreasonable amount of time talking about ribbon. Not metaphorically—literally. How long and wide should it be? Should the edges be hand torn? Is green too olive? Should it be more sage green instead? Does anyone actually notice the difference? At one point I caught myself zooming in on two nearly identical shades of green on my computer screen and just broke out into a laugh. A few months ago, if you had told me I’d be spending my evenings comparing ribbon samples, I never would have believed you. I am detail oriented by nature but I have never cared so deeply about things that matter so little.

Wedding planning has challenged us in ways I didn't expect. I'm very visual. I can look at a swatch of fabric, a handful of flowers, and an empty room and somehow picture what it'll all become. Patrick simply cannot. I'll ask, "What do you think of this ribbon?" and he'll look at it for a few seconds before saying, "I honestly have no idea what I'm looking at." At first, that frustrated me. I wanted him to have opinions about every little detail because I wanted to feel like we were making every decision together.

Over time, though, I realized I was asking him to participate in the wrong part of the process. He doesn't need to have strong feelings about ribbon lengths or whether one shade of green is two percent warmer than another. That's simply not how his brain works. What he does have strong feelings about is how people experience the day/weekend. He cares that our families feel welcomed. He wants guests to linger over dinner and actually enjoy being together. He wants the ceremony to feel meaningful instead of rushed. I want these things too but noticed they were falling to the background amidst the ribbon decisions. Once we stopped arguing about the details and started talking about what those details were meant to accomplish, we found each other again. Because we want the same things in the end.

Every relationship has moments where two people are looking at the same thing but seeing something completely different. It's tempting to conclude that one person cares more than the other. More often than not, they simply care about different parts of the same story. Wedding planning has reminded me that love isn't asking someone to think exactly like you. It's learning how they see the world and realizing that your differences often create something better than either of you would have created alone.

I think that’s what surprised me most about wedding planning. You start with this really simple idea: We just want to gather everyone we love in one place. Somehow, over time, that simple idea becomes hundreds of tiny decisions. Flowers. Menus. Chairs. Linens. Music. Welcome bags. Candle heights. Ribbon lengths. Before you know it, the details become the project, and it’s incredibly easy to lose sight of why you started planning the wedding in the first place.

We’ve definitely had those moments. More than once we’ve found ourselves twenty minutes into a conversation about something completely inconsequential before one of us finally says, “Wait...what are we actually trying to accomplish here?” That question has become our reset button. It pulls us out of the weeds every single time. Because the answer has never been, Find the perfect ribbon. The answer has always been, Create a day that feels like us.

The funny thing is that the more we’ve asked ourselves that question, the less we’ve talked about the wedding itself. We’ve started talking about the marriage we hope we’re building. Every decision, even the little ones, has become an opportunity to ask what we value.

I think that’s the difference between planning an impressive wedding and an intentional one. An impressive wedding asks, What will people remember? An intentional wedding asks, What story are we telling? Those questions don’t always lead to different answers, but sometimes they do. We’ve kept some traditions because they genuinely resonate with us. We’ve let others go because, after asking ourselves “why,” we realized the only answer was, “Because that’s what everyone does.” Which, can I just say, the wedding industry is on autopilot much too much. Too many of our planners and organizers have just made assumptions that things will go a certain way. Frustratingly so. For an industry that charges people SO MUCH MONEY I just wonder how we have allowed it to exist this way for so long. But I digress…

This entire process has changed the way I think about love, too. For a long time, I thought love was something you recognized in a single moment. The older I get, the more I think it’s something you build through thousands of ordinary moments instead. It’s paying attention. It’s remembering the little things. It’s noticing when the other person is quieter than usual. It’s choosing to be curious instead of assuming. It’s making room for who they’re becoming instead of wishing they would stay exactly the same.

Maybe that’s why weddings matter. Not because they’re the beginning of love, but because they give us a reason to pause and celebrate all of the quiet ways love has already been showing up. The wedding isn’t the proof that two people love one another. It’s simply the gathering that says, Look what all of those ordinary Tuesdays created.

I also didn’t expect how much planning a wedding would make me think about the people around us. I’ve already written about friendship, so I won’t spend too much time there, but I’ve realized that inviting someone into your wedding doesn’t just celebrate an existing relationship—it often deepens it. Every time we’ve asked someone to give a reading, share a toast, help greet guests, or play a meaningful role, it hasn’t felt like assigning them a job. It has felt like saying, “We want you inside this memory with us.” That’s a very different kind of invitation.

We have learned A LOT through all of this. Weddings aren’t really about flowers or ribbons or perfectly styled tables, even though I’ve spent more time thinking about those things than I ever imagined I would or care to admit. They’re about continually finding your way back to what matters every time you get distracted by what doesn’t. And if I’m being honest, I have a feeling that’s probably what marriage looks like, too—not getting it right the first time, but learning to return, over and over again, to the things that matter most.

I would love to know what your experience with this has been. Is wedding planning a crash training course for what is to come? Desperately taking in every ounce of advice one has to offer when it comes to marriage and weddings.

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If you enjoyed this article and should you feel so inclined, you can Buy Me a Coffee here. Between my work at the hospital, planning a wedding, and writing on Substack, I am officially chronically overworked and under caffeinated. No complaints. I love this life. But acts of kindness always help motivate me to keep going even when things get hard :)

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If you’re new here, I’m Dr. Landon Eggleston, a board certified emergency medicine physician in Chicago. Clear View explores health and wellness through the lens of someone who interacts with life and death daily- offering a grounded perspective on what it truly means to make the most of your one wild and precious life. If you are looking for where to start, start here. If you want to read more, here’s what I’ve been working on recently: organization tools that were instrumental in my own success, what truly matters at the end of life, why high functioning humans are the loneliest, why crying is so important, and insight into seasonal depression. If perhaps you are here looking for a bit of ER drama, I’ve got you here and here. If you feel called to live with more clarity, intention, and courage, this space is for you. Subscribe for free to receive new posts and join the conversation.