On one hand I've witnessed moments when a wedding took months to organize and every little issue was considered, on the other I've also seen the shot gun weddings that came together in about a month. Both may have given the bride and groom beautiful memories and could say that neither wedding was a failure, but in our modern world of high pace planning we tend to negate the virtue of thinking things through.

The truth is both weddings we're beautiful but deep down the difference lay in the way both weddings came out. The preplanned engagement saw a lot of the same

pitfalls as the shot gun planning but in many ways it avoided letting them be a problem right from the start. For example, both weddings needed a cake designed and made beautiful for the after party, while one needed one right away, they ended up paying over $4000 more than the preplanned wedding.

Since the pre-planned wedding had time to shop around, they found a cake designer that not only could provide them with a cake but could also do the catering at about the price that they where looking for.

It's not to say that everyone needs to worry about price when planning their weddings, with the right amount of money and people anyone can turn a 30 day

shot gun wedding into something worthy of Alan Silvestre's Pachelbel "Canon" but the truth is even the most affluent budgets need to worry about cutting

costs. Though not all the problems encountered in the shot gun wedding ended up being financial.

In a big way the biggest problem our poorly planned one month wedding faced was coordination. You would be surprised how many people take their wedding rehearsals for granted. At one of the weddings I attended, a Marine and his wife were planning to walk down the isle with a row of uniformed men lowering

their swords as they came down the isle to leave the church. Each man was confident that they could time the swords exactly but the father of the bride insisted that during the wedding rehearsal they all appear to practice this one

movement.

To everyone's surprise this single moment in the wedding took up the bulk of the rehearsal. Had they waited and not preplanned to give everyone time

to practice before hand, there would have been an angry bride at the end still mad that the Marine sword had cut the back of her dress. Though everyone will

not have a wedding with uniformed men lowering swords, it does go to show the need for every couple to give adequate time to coordinate and plan things out before hand.

Another example is the placement of the wedding party during the ceremony, try as it may, the shot gun wedding did have a few problems with people showing up late or messing up on their steps while walking towards the alter. Though it may seem easy and everyone always sees it done, watching a wedding and taking part in one are two completely different beasts.

In the end the bride and groom will follow their hearts and marry when they feel they need to, but giving time too planning isn't a bad thing to make your wedding more memorable for both you and your guests, although too much time given for planning a wedding can also become a recipe for disaster.