How 1 Couple Planned a Wedding in Just 5 Days
Wedding planning can be incredibly stressful for everyone involved, with couples usually spending months poring over every last detail in preparation for the big ceremony. But some opt to make the process much quicker — and, thus, much easier.
Emily Hardman and Rob Reading of California, for example, recently planned their $4,600 wedding in just five days. While that might seem like an impossible feat to some, the pair pulled it off by simplifying the process.
“We were hiking in Sedona, Ariz., when we got engaged,” Hardman shared with ABC News. “As soon as we had cell phone reception, I called the banquet hall, and then I called my parents and told them, and then I called the temple.”
Some big moments of the planning process they avoided in the short time span? For one, Hardman skipped the traditional rite of searching for a white dress and picked a $10 white top that her mother helped her stitch to a skirt. They also traded paper wedding invitations for a simpler method — a quick text invitation that the bride designed to include an attached selfie of herself and beau.
Despite the unconventional method, Hardman said that her friends weren’t fazed by the text.
“People know that I hate everything that is overly complicated. I am just a minimalist, so nobody was surprised,” Hardman told ABC. “And everybody was just so happy that we were getting married, they were all like, ‘Awesome, I’ll be there.'”
The quick turnaround also helped accommodate the couple’s busy schedule, since the bride was slammed at work with an important court case and the groom only had a short time off work while he was transitioning in jobs.
The bride realized from prior experience that taking part in the traditional wedding planning process was not the right path for her.
“I had become convinced that modern weddings had become way to burdensome,” Hardman told ABC. “Starting at age 17, I started helping my friends and my siblings plan their weddings, and I just saw this stress that was going into the napkin colors … and I just thought nobody is going to notice the napkin colors, nobody is going to walk out with their bag of peanuts and be like, ‘Wow, I just feel so loved that you stayed up for three days tying a ribbon around these peanuts.'”
And despite the speedy process, her big day was apparently a great success.
“Everyone who came, they said it couldn’t have been more perfect than if you had a whole year to plan it,” Hardman shared. “They said there was nothing that felt left out, there was nothing that felt rushed or undone.”
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