Editor Riley Bourgeois on her wedding day. Photo by Dear Wesleyann Photography.

From the Editor: Dream On

I pride myself on working well under pressure. Or, at least, that’s what I tell myself.

I am a shameless procrastinator and have been for my entire life. My therapist says it’s because I’m a perfectionist. My mom says it’s because I’m lazy. I think it’s open for interpretation.

Photo by Jordan Hefler

When my now-husband popped the question on a bright morning next to the pool of my parents’ beach house, I just knew I was up to the challenge. Unlike anything else in my life, I had been planning this forever.

If there are any men reading this, the way I felt is not unique. Most women, for better or worse, spend much of their younger years dreaming about what their walk down the aisle will one day look like. And that amount of dreaming and preparation? Well, it can take a toll when you’re finally living out the moment.

It makes things too heavy. Too loaded. Too overwhelming.

I felt this tremendous pressure to live up to the visions of my younger self. The ones I had meticulously cut and pasted into scrapbooks, vowing that I would one day bring to life these fantasies taken straight from the pages of magazines like Vogue, Glamour and, of course, inRegister.

Truth is, when the time finally came, I froze. I was paralyzed with fear that I would choose some color, some flower, some ribbon, that I would regret. The pressure was just too much, and no all-nighter could save me.

I got so in my own head about my wedding and how people would perceive me that one afternoon, about two months out from the big day for my husband and me in Alys Beach, I collapsed on the sofa and told him that I wanted to cancel it all. “It’s too late,” he told me. Stupid, procrastination.

I would love for this story to end with me not regretting anything and all my fears being a simple case of nervousness. But, in my role as editor, it is my duty to tell you the truth. And that simply isn’t it.

I regret many things that I chose for my wedding day. If you would like me to list them out for you, please feel free to contact me. For the sake of positivity, I will leave you with vagueness. But while those regrettable decisions might make me grit my teeth a little bit when I look back through my wedding photo gallery, they don’t change the happiness that I felt on that day.

Truth is, it doesn’t matter if everything about your wedding is flawless, timeless and chic. It’s just a party, for goodness sake. What does matter is that you’re marrying the love of your life. Unlike the flowers or the dress or the band, you’re going to be with that person standing across from you at the altar forever. And here’s the good news. You can marry them again and again and again.

So catch me in Las Vegas very soon. I need a do-over.