As It Once Was, So It Is Again

On trying to be someone I'm not....

As many of you know, I've thought long and hard about changing Olive Weddings into a new, more modern and classy blog. I really wanted to change the name (see my posts about this here and here), because I was tired of the name. To be perfectly honest, I thought the name was kind of dumb. It's not as clever as the names of a lot of really cool wedding blogs out there -- blogs I admire and wish I could be called among.

My plan was to change the format and even some of the content. I searched (and I mean searched) for new premade blogger templates. I bought a few headers and even contemplated getting a full blog makeover. I came up with the new name, "From Madness to Marriage: the musings of a girl gone bridal," and planned to pay for a custom illustration and revamp. I was even going to change my dot com!

Our best ideas are our initial ideas...

There I was, ready and set to launch into a new world of blogging. A more beautiful and glamorous world. One that might come with it recognition and envy. I was ready to have a new look, the perfect name, and volia the fulfillment would settle in, but as much as I racked my brain for new ideas and searched for new templates, I couldn't come up with anything I felt I could stick with.

I mean, I like the madness to matrimony idea, but what's wrong with keeping things they way they are? There's nothing wrong with Olive Weddings and I was starting to miss my old template. I loved this blog when I first created it. I've made a lot of these changes and I tried a few new approaches. All of it, just to find that I wanted back what I started with. Nothing has looked as good as this original template, which I found over a year ago on an awesome site called Yummy Lolly. The best part is... it was free.

Why do I want to be a big time blogger anyway?

I'm so totally content with the readers that I have, there's no need to have more. I've gotten more than I ever imagined out this blog, just the way it is. You guys have no idea how awesome I feel when I get comments from you... It's so nice to know somebody is listening and watching! I think I just started to feel like I needed to be better for you guys, but nobody ever asked for that. I looked at all the amazing blogs out there and thought I needed to do something to be amazing too, when in all actuality, I'm prefect content just blogging here, the way it is, for the few of you that come by from time to time.

Bloggers and brides have a lot in common...

I want to relate this topic to our wedding, because I think there are a lot of parallels. Like blogging, a lot of people get married. There's a lot of blogs out there and a lot of weddings out there. It's easy to look at the weddings on Style Me Pretty and want to have a wedding just as stunning, or read about the fabulous DIY brides on Weddingbee and want to be just like them. While it's fun to imagine these things and it's alright to strive to be better, it's not cool to think you've got to change something to meet a more mainstream standard. Of course I want a blog that is recognized and admired and of course I want a platinum wedding done up David Tuttera style, but at the end of the day I think I'm off better off sticking with what I know.

Stay true to who you are...

My point is that through this blog and through the process of planning our wedding, I'm learning to stay true to myself. I don't have to have the same type of blog as the next bride-to-be, no matter how cute hers is. I also don't have to a clever, awh-inspiring name that is going to make my pasttime my career. The only thing I have to do is enjoy blogging. That's it. The same goes for my wedding. I don't have to have all the frills or all the expensive extras. I just have to have a good time. I've just got to remember the reason I'm there and the reason I'm here.

Have you felt blog and/or wedding envy? How did you deal with it?

Did you try to transform into something your not too?

Share your stories, they are always welcome!