Image by Jessica Maida Photography

Wedding day planning is exhilarating, super fun, if a little time consuming. Good Afternoon Trulovers, do you agree with this statement? Yes? Well I do too, but of course there is another side to wedding planning, one that deals with your wedding day dreams, budgets, families and the inevitable wedding day doubts.

Whatever your venue, size of wedding or budget there are often kinks in the road to wedding planning, but add in a destination wedding and this might throw up a few more kinks. Today real bride Cassie, shares a wonderfully personal post about those kinks turning into wedding day doubts, and how she is working through them.

If you find yourself nodding along to Cassie's post or can sympathise, don't forget to support your fellow trulover in the comments below.

Cassie: "Here's something no one will tell you about planning a wedding. You will doubt yourself.

I'm not necessarily talking about the actual getting married part (though I'm sure people do doubt that!) but you will doubt some of the decisions you make.

In fact, in my work as a wedding stationery designer, I talk to a lot of brides and I had a chat with one over coffee just this week. She was having wobbles over her wedding dress. She picked it out very early in the process and it wasn't what she expected to choose at all, having tried her "dream" dresses and having found them not to be what she pictured. Not only that, she then continued planning her wedding and, as we all do, looking at wedding blogs, magazines, pinterest etc. Constantly bombarded with beautiful images of different wedding dresses, she began to doubt herself even more.

So when you are doing something a little bit different and a little bit awkward the likelihood is that you will doubt yourself even more, because you have to contend with all of that, plus the niggling feeling that you are making life a bit difficult for yourself and, more importantly, everyone who is invited to your big day.

This month, we have started to receive replies to our invitations. There have been some acceptances, which has made us so happy, but there have also been quite a few people who are really important to us who have had to say no. Some of those people were the first friends and family to say yes to the idea a year ago when we first started thinking about this crazy idea, but when it comes to the crunch, getting to the middle of France just is not as easy as we thought it would be.

Being something of a self-guilt-tripper (or maybe just a realist!) I blame myself for this. I didn't consider how difficult it would be for people. I didn't consider how much it would cost them in total for a whole family, or that they would have young children who couldn't sit in a car for six hours, or that they didn't drive and our Chateau is an hour from the nearest airport...I started to feel selfish and silly and a little bit embarrassed.

What upsets me most is that I might have made those people feel bad, not that those people can't make it. I really don't want to make people feel bad for not being able to come. I'm not a bridezilla who thinks everyone should drop everything for our wedding. I completely understand that it's difficult and I feel bad for putting people in an awkward position of having to say no when they really want to say yes.

What to do with all of this? Well, personally, I had to reframe it all. Luckily, my husband-to-be took a much more pragmatic approach. What will be will be and we have made our decision. The wheels are in motion. The most important thing now is to enjoy it, because otherwise, what is the point of all the time, effort and money that goes into something like this?

And he's right. At the route of all of this is a celebration; of our relationship, of our future and of our journey together so far in life. Those who can be there with us will be there and those who can't won't, but that won't change how important they are to us, or how much we love them. Our special day will be special, no matter what. I want to make the most of it with whoever can be there with us.

So I guess what I am saying, to those who are considering this option, is to consider carefully what is important to you. Maybe you found the picture-perfect venue that will look great in photos, but is it close enough to an airport to make it easy for the time-starved to hop on a plane and take a taxi to see you? Would you rather have the very best wine money can buy, or would you rather pay for the most important people to be there with you to drink some slightly less delicious wine? A wedding is about you and your partner, but it's also about your family and friends, otherwise we would all get married in private, right?

I have decided to make the most of it, to enjoy the ride and to go with the flow. As I said to my bridesmaids last night (or maybe as they said to me - I had had a few glasses of wine) marriage is the start of the journey, not the end. And our friends and family will be there in our married future, whether or not they can make it to the middle of France this August.

And hey, a small wedding will cost less anyway!
Cassie x