"It's in my head!"

My eight slide PowerPoint presentation was fired up and ready to go when we sat down at June's for our official wedding planning chat. Each slide was accompanied by Adele's sweet rendition of Make You Feel My Love. My presentation corresponded with the Wedding Planning Worksheet I created and emailed to Megan earlier in the week; a tool to ensure her consideration in the essential elements of wedding planning. I strongly "suggested" that she print and complete the worksheet prior to our scheduled breakfast meeting.

I was impressed to see the folded pages at the table, next to her platter of buttery pancakes, perfectly scrambled cheese eggs and home fries. In my zeal, I asked Megan to go first. As she began talking, I noticed that the worksheets remained folded on the table. When I alluded to this, she told me she did not finish filling them out and that some of the things were in her head. I looked at her with bewilderment. Why would you keep things in your head, when I have provided a thorough template to assist you? With that, she unfolded them to reveal a BLANK form! The stark white of the pages were blinding. Not a single precomposed line was completed. I let out a string of incongruent consonants. My eyes widened, I grabbed the curls on my head and warned that I was about to get mad. "I have it in my head!" she assured me.

I narrowed my left eye and folded my arms across my chest, which is what I do when I believe that I am about catch Megan in a fumble. "So, what date did you come up with?" I asked. Yeah, there was an ounce of attitude mixed in.

"The date we were thinking about. July twenty...twenty fourth...wait..." She was stalling. She reached for her phone to pull up the calender.

"JUNE 29th, you mean?" I quickly volunteered, beating her to the phone. I think I rolled my eyes, or at least wanted to. I moved on to the next question, quickly asking her the time of day she thought the festivities should begin. She answered slightly quicker this time, "I want it to be in the day time." Hum...had she really given this thought or was she just flinging out answers, hoping they would deflect the daggers shooting from my eyes? I couldn't be sure, so I snapped the next question at her, sure that I would trip her up. "So, what's the budget?" After a brief explanation of how she came to the number, she confidently answered. Okay, okay. I uncrossed my arms. The questions that followed: theme, venue, attendants and colors, were all answered in a sort of "yeah, I was thinking..." kind of way, but answered, nevertheless. I unbunched my pan'ies and adjusted my snarl.

So, she did not have a slide show, magazine clippings, or even a dot of ink on the handy-dandy worksheet. But, my initial measure of effort expended proved to be irrelevant. She had done her homework, in her own way. Megan and I are different people; we address things with different urgency. I am learning that it doesn't make her way wrong, and mine right.

To further relinquish control, I asked Megan if there were any tasks, related to the planning, that she would like to take on. Without (much) hesitation, she offered to hold down the reception menu and cocktails. She even took on transportation.

Good job, Babe.