Planning a Wedding

People on the spectrum do get married sometimes. I'm sure that's not a shock for most of you. Like neurotypical people, neurodivergent people can and frequently do find companionship and love. The day may come when a person on the spectrum says, hey, I want to spend the rest of my life with someone. Then comes the ultimate question: should that person have a wedding or not?

Now, before we go too far, let me specify something. I think there's a difference between a wedding and a marriage. The wedding is the ceremony and the reception. It's the physical act of getting married. The marriage is what lasts beyond the wedding. Marriage is the commitment and partnership between two people. When I talk about a wedding, I mean the act of getting married with a ceremony and a reception. With that being said, let's get into this.

Ultimately, it comes down to two things: personal preference and what they can handle. Each person is going to have a different comfort level with a wedding. Some people thrive in that environment. Say you have someone who loves being the center of attention. That person is probably going to love a wedding, where all eyes are on them. Some people hate the mere thought of being the center of attention, and a wedding would be their worst nightmare. Others would love the idea of dressing up in fancy clothes and having a giant party. Other people would rather have a small gathering.

For each couple, the decision of whether to have a wedding, big, small, or not at all, is not an easy one. As an autistic woman who had a wedding, I'll give you some advice as to how to handle planning a wedding.

1. Know what you want

Before you sit down with anyone else, your parents, future-in-laws, relatives, or any friends, sit down with your partner and determine what it is that you want and need from a wedding. Before we ever sat down with anyone, my husband and I made some determinations. We said that we wanted a small wedding, and that was a non-negotiable we would stick to. We talked about doing something special for us as a couple and the members of our bridal party, which was planned to be many of our friends. We discussed many ideas and tried to agree. Since we did this before involving our parents, we managed to come up with a plan for a wedding day that worked well for both of us.

2. When you encounter pushbacks, because believe me, you will, stick to your guns

Everyone has an opinion about a wedding. What's important is that you know what you want and stick to that, even when you encounter resistance. Remember, it's your day as a couple, not anyone else's. While weddings are about compromise as well, if there's something that you absolutely cannot do, make it clear and stick to your boundaries. I'll tell you my big sticking point: the guest list. Our families are more traditional when it comes to weddings. Everybody and their brother have to be invited because social convention dictates it must be so. This wouldn't be an issue if our families were small. They aren't. My in-laws initially proposed a guest list of 150 people from their side. Had my mother written one up for everybody who expected an invitation to our wedding from my side, the number would've probably been about the same. That's 300 people being invited to a wedding. If you ask me, that's a very large wedding and far too many. I knew I couldn't handle that. Frankly, neither could my husband. It took a lot of conversations between us and our families, but eventually, we got the number of people we were inviting down to 110 people in total. Of those 110, 70 attended. That's a small wedding and a reasonable number for myself and my husband. After it was all said and done, my husband looked at me and said he was glad we stuck to our guns and didn't invite any more people, as he would've been overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed already at 70 people being present, but that was likely going to happen regardless. I'm not the best with crowds. What became most important to me was that he wasn't overwhelmed. Luckily, we accomplished that goal because we knew what we could handle.

3. If you don't want a ton of people at your wedding, scrap the A-list, B-list idea.

If you want a giant wedding, ignore this. In my experience, most people on the spectrum don't like giant weddings, so I'm putting this down. Many people create an A-list of people who will be getting an invite to their wedding no matter what. Then if someone on that list declines, they start to invite people from the B-list, or the list of people that didn't make the initial cut. I don't like this concept. Either you want to invite them, or you don't in my book. We made our list of people to invite and invited them. We left it at that.

4. Delegate tasks wisely.

It takes a village to plan a wedding, big or small. If you're going to do it, delegate tasks, but do it wisely. Don't give tasks to someone who's going to take over the entire planning process if you don't want that, but if you need help, delegate the task to someone you trust. I had a bridesmaid of mine pick out the dress color for them since I don't have an eye for that. I had my in-laws deal with the details around the reception, such as table decorations and guest favors. It ended up being more efficient and less stressful this way.

5. Your wedding doesn’t need to be traditional if you don’t want it to be, so do what’s going to be the most enjoyable for you and your partner

The wedding is about celebrating you and your partner. You don't need to have a wedding the traditional way if you don't want to. For example, we split our wedding into two days. Honestly, the wedding day itself was wonderful. We had a ceremony, took some photos, and went bowling with our friends. The next day was the traditional reception for our families to try and accommodate the needs that my in-laws had. This ended up working out for everyone since my husband and I got to have the small gathering we needed and time with our friends on the wedding day, and my in-laws got the giant gathering they needed. While I wouldn’t have ever had a reception under any other circumstances, it ended up working out in such a way that all of us were happy.

If you're planning a wedding as an autistic person, do what makes you the most comfortable and enjoy your day with your partner. At the end of the day, your happiness and comfort matter the most.

Photo credits to Jeremy Glickstein, our amazing wedding photographer. We couldn't have done it without him.