The Wedding

Even if you’ve never planned a wedding yourself, you’ve probably seen it happen. What is conceptually a fantastically happy and enjoyable day and process leading up to it becomes quite the ordeal the closer the event gets.

Here’s the thing though, planning the wedding in itself is actually a piece of cake. There are no shortage of options, resources and “helpful” friends and family and strangers to support you. The stressful part in many ways is the pressure from everyone for the result to be perfect. We’re told by society that everything about the wedding itself must be the culmination of a lifetime of dreaming about that one day.

Realistically though, it doesn’t actually matter. I’m prepared to bet that no one remembers what my bridesmaid wore (except perhaps my husband and the aforementioned bridesmaid herself), even though we got married less than 18 months ago. A lot went wrong at our wedding. The man in charge messed up our vows (we got someone else’s), our marriage certificate has typos and my husbands date of birth wrong, my hair came undone before I even got to the church and the speeches were fairly interesting (my dad told a story about a lamb… seriously). But you know what? We’re just as married now as we would have been if it had all gone according to plan. I adore my husband and that’s the part that matters most.

You know the other big thing? No one who cares about you enough to attend your wedding judges you on that day or the results of that day. No one looks at the photos afterwards and develops a single opinion about you as a result. And certainly, your income for the next 12 months is not dependent upon those photos.

And here’s where I get to my point. Our third collection (Autumn/Winter 2012) is being photographed next week. Next Sunday a team of people that I’ve put together will show up at a prearranged location and do their thing to make a series of garments that I’ve designed look as good as possible.

Both Bento and I will be judged on the outcome.

Whether media will give me the time of day and stockists will talk to me and if the collection will sell will be determined based on the photos taken on that one day.

Equally though, that one day is in many ways the physical realisation of the Bento dream. It is what I set out to do in action.

I’m both terrified and exhilarated. But mostly just scared out of my brain.

Wish me luck.