I only spent maybe a month looking for a venue before I started losing it. My coffee shop basically runs itself, which meant I could focus on it full time. I felt a little obsessed and I couldn't understand why at first. I looked at hundreds of venues. Contacted dozens. Spent entire days doing nothing but this one thing.

Why was I getting so upset? Why was this so difficult? Why was I spending so much time on this?

I'm an older bride. Fifty, to be exact. I've been a self-employed business owner for three decades. I am pretty competent. I built my business from the ground up. I know how to deal with wholesalers and distributors. I thought this would be a piece of cake. How in God's name did one month of searching for a venue almost break me?

It felt like walking into a retail store where the sales associate is overly eager and friendly — but you know it's not because they actually like you.

After falling in love with a half a dozen venues only to find out in the very, very small print that it didn't meet my requirements, I started to think: "Bitch, just tell me what it costs and can I have candles or not, because at this point I just might elope."

But then I remembered — everyone says to hire a planner. So I hired a full-service planner. I thought to myself: Ah-ha! I'm being savvy now! I'm going to get this handled! She'll know the tricks. She'd be my co-conspirator and shield me from all this nonsense.

Instead I got someone who moved slowly, sent generic information, and ultimately didn't find my venue for me. When I told her I wanted a photographer who was proficient in low light photography, she told me — in the tone of someone explaining difficult news to a child — that flash and spotlights were just how it was.

I ended up finding a multi-award-winning photographer proficient with low light myself. (Shout out to AJH Photography.)