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Planning a wedding or special event can be nerve wracking. There are lots of details to handle.

My best advice is to do what you do best- and delegate what you don’t do well or are not attached to doing.

If you are crafty, then think of what you can make. Maybe your invitations are your artistic gift- and you have a very particular vision in mind.

Maybe it’s the flowers; or the cake. You may even be lucky and have friends or relatives that might give you your cake as their “wedding gift”.

Bring in a professional for the heavy lifting. Coordinating many of the vendors and their work, in my opinion, is “heavy lifting”. Completing a detail like what the flowers look like is only the partial job- where the flowers will be placed, which ones go to the church or the reception, when will they be delivered, etc.- are just a few of the rest of the details that have to be handled.

So, if that is not what you want to do- hire a professional. You will have less stress and more time to enjoy this very special time. And that is the whole point of the day- creating a memory.

It’s so exciting to get engaged. And how it happens and where it happens will remain in your memory forever.

And then what hits is the reality of planning a wedding- a daunting task when one thinks about all the details.

So where to start? You need to get the wedding venue, settle on the date and determine a reception location.

Those are the big items and now the thousands of details follow. So where do you start?

Take your cues from the colors that you select as the theme for your wedding. What are the choices? They are unlimited; however there are certain color trends this year. Robin’s egg blue and chocolate brown or turquoise and chocolate brown. Chartreuse or peridot is often the zing when added to black. Black can handle other bright bursts of color- think purple, hot pink even bright orange.

Any color works and you can do your invitations in a different color than the color your bridesmaids wear. Why? I hate the whole idea of “matchy-matchy”. Think about the distance between your shoes and the hem of your skirt or dress. It’s a big enough difference that no one will know that it’s the same or different shade of black.

Think also that if the wedding is outside, the reception inside, then it doesn’t matter if everything goes together or even coordinates. You can get away with different colors in every location.

It’s pretty common to see a bride change dresses- one might be more formal for the wedding and one might be funkier for the dancing and the reception.

I’m not the last or final word on this subject. There will be those that agree and those that don’t.

But that’s what makes planning a wedding such a personal and unique statement. It is about you and your soon-to-be husband. So make it about you both. And don’t stress about what others think. Remember it’s your big day.

I just came back from a respite from the day-to-day craziness that runs my life. I met my twin sister, Lydia, for a whirlwind adventure in Santa Fe, NM. The result- my head is awash in color and I am revved up for spring. 

Why Santa Fe? Well, it’s been on my list of to do’s forever. Maybe it’s because I love Georgia O’Keefe, her style of painting, and how she was inspired by the land and mountains and the surrounding area from Santa Fe to Ghost Ranch. 

It was a respite, but we were on the hunt so there was no time to sleep in. There are 6 fabulous museums in Santa Fe on our list and we got 4 reviewed top to bottom. In between, we walked everywhere to see galleries, and local Santa Fe Native Peoples contemporary and vintage artwork- paintings, pottery, rugs, baskets, photographs, sculpture- all forms of art. 

The colors were exhilarating and all around you. Bright colors mixed with natural colors –like dawn to dusk. Think purples, roses, blues added to natural colors from limestone, red stone, and minerals like copper plus natural items like charcoal. 

Looking at a Georgia O’Keefe painting was awesome. I didn’t imagine how some of the pictures of her work, which I had studied in books, would look like in person. Sometimes the image in the book was way bigger than the actual image. It might be presented simply as a stretched canvas and with no frame. Maybe hung on a wall all by itself or among several that were a series or reflect a certain period of time. 

We also took in a documentary about her life which was so interesting. There were video clips where she talked about herself and her work; sometimes information came from letters that she had written to her friends. 

It also showed places that she explored and then ultimately painted. She sketched and at times photographed these sites. It was fascinating to see where her color inspirations were from- I think sometimes it was purely from her imagination of what the colors should be. 

So I am saturated with Georgia O’Keefe art and images; colors and simplicity; everyday articles like pottery that reflect usefulness but are so artistic in their plainness. 

I had a hard time sleeping at night. Turning out the lights just left the colors swirling around in my head. I couldn’t think of anything else.