“Here Comes the Bride, with a Bajillion Lists”
First comes love, then comes marriage – or, if you’re planning a wedding with ADHD, then come checklists, anxiety, and a struggle to organize a thousand details.
There should be an Idiot’s Guide to Wedding Planning for those with ADHD, and if there isn’t I’m prepared to write it. How did I get here? How did an ADHD woman get so far up the aisle, so close she can hear the champagne bubbles and smell the wedding cake.
Seemingly overnight the romantic drought has transformed into an oasis. The relationship with the boyfriend took an upturn with my proposal. With distance too much of a heartbreak I said, “I need a greater commitment. Otherwise we should go our separate ways.”
“That’s fine,” he said matter-of-factly. “That’s fine with me.”
As proposals go it was very unromantic, nothing close to the engagements I’d fantasized about, me being such a sucker for romantic comedies, flowers, and boxes of chocolate – and even worse, poetry. But yes, indeed, I’d gotten to a place where I never imagined I’d be: engaged.
The boyfriend-fiance is equally or perhaps even more disorganized than I am. I’m starting to think that he has ADHD. On many days I’m sure of it. His mantra? “Where are my keys? Where is the iPhone?”
And then there is the wedding planning. Oh, where to start? The wedding planning is perhaps the tip of the iceberg. True, there’s another eight months, but the checklists from Real Simple and The Knot – both very evil sights as they ignite expectations of the Cinderella wedding for us ordinary girls – are lengthy.
Over the past two months I’ve been trying to plan a wedding with him (yes, it’s our wedding) and it’s like trying to tack Jello to the wall. Men are notorious for regarding wedding planning with dread, and then there’s the already-reluctant groom I proposed to. His wedding planning mantra? “Can’t this be done another time?” which comes with an eye roll and an exasperated sigh. You would think I was trying to schedule a dentist’s appointment.
The father says that if I were more organized, more feminine, more decisive, I’d attract another kind of guy. Not him, but hey – no one is perfect, the father reminds me, just look at myself.
The very thought depresses me now as weddings are supposed to be a happy affair, the planning of it stressful and yet satisfying.
“You should organize and plan your own wedding,” the best friend says. “That’s how most women do it.” So I’ve presented the checklists – the addresses, the venues, the potential photographers – to the boyfriend-fiance who continues with the “Not right now” mantra.
It seems like the entire act is like swimming against the currents. I wonder if this is the norm, or if it’s the curse of ADHD.
Of course, it all sounds very negative. Along with the checklists come a bajillion creative ideas for the wedding, the decor, the music, the cake. How about a cruise wedding, a beach wedding, a wedding on the Great Wall of China? I smile, satisfied by the very thought, but reality hits when the fiance reminds me of the tight budget, that he can only offer so much time and money, and yada yada yada.
At times like this I think that I should be grateful. I never thought I’d be here, so close and I don’t want to blow it. I forge ahead, checklists in hand.
