As I have blogged about before, I recently (May 30) got married, and we got the photos from the photographer yesterday. He took some great shots of some of the decorations that we made ourselves, so I thought I might share some of the things I learned through planning our wedding.
We had our wedding in my grandmother's yard, overlooking the bayou in Moss Point, MS. For that reason, we had a lot of work to do ourselves in preparing things. We also took on other tasks ourselves to save money and personalize them more.
Tip #1 - Order your own flowers. You can save a lot of money ordering them through Costco or Sam's, and they were beautifully fresh and on time, two important factors.
Tip #2 - Personalize everything. The more like you the wedding is, the more fun people will have; after all, they are there because they love you. If the wedding reflects you in every detail, everyone will feel at ease to relax and celebrate.
Tip #3 - Let your attendants be themselves. Along with the personalization theme, I asked my bridesmaids to choose a black dress that they would feel beautiful in (it was cocktail hour, so it didn't look overly morbid). I gave them matching black jellies and simple rhinestone jewelry to unify their attire, and they looked great. Plus, they ended up being "stuck" with a new little black dress (can't have too many of those) instead of something they didn't really like.
Tip #4 - Consider your guests. True, it's your day, but that doesn't mean your guests have to be uncomfortable or bored. For example, we knew it would be warm, so we gave our guests raffia fans. We ordered them from an online vendor and added personalized ribbons. We (ahem, I) also hand-wrote the thank-you tags on the favor baggies to let our guests know we were really glad they were there.
Another way to consider your guests: your music. I know you don't typically listen to the same music as your grandmother or that weird cousin from Kentucky, but there is a lot of music that is commonly-known and -loved among social circles like the family and friends who will be at your wedding. If you actually want your guests to dance, you have to give them the right music to do so, whatever that may be. For our family it was Oldies/Motown and Classic Rock; we rented a sound system and used iTunes to create a playlist and just let it run (money saver!). And I can't tell you how many compliments we got from our guests about the "great" music. If you have a DJ, you can give him/her a specific playlist.
Tip #5 - Relax. Two ways: plan down time, and have a relaxed attitude.
Planned fun: We planned plenty of activities for our wedding party because we knew we would be needing their help finishing up the wedding and wanted to provide lots of fun times to show our thanks. We had a joint couples party in lieu of a bachelor/bachelorette party and went together with all of our attendants for a night out; we hired a party bus to cart us around from place to place and simply had fun together. The guys all went canoeing the day before the wedding while the ladies enjoyed a sunny brunch. Luckily, my parents have a pool at their home, so we also spent after hours swimming and chatting pool-side.
Attitude: I'm not unwilling to allow plans to change, and I found that flexibility helped the preparations for the wedding move more smoothly. Things are going to go wrong; expect it so you don't go nuts when it happens. Just say, "It's fine," and rest assured that it really is. Our photographer (the wonderful Joey Miller of Memphis-based Interrobang Photo) told me that out of all the weddings he had been to, ours was the most relaxed he had ever seen. That's what we were going for. As blessed of a once-in-a-lifetime event as a wedding is, it is also a celebration, so have fun and everyone else will, too.
There you go, my list of recommendations.
That's all!
