Brides And Grooms Are Sharing The Biggest Lesson They Learned After Planning Their Wedding, And These Are Valuable
Getting married means having a lot going on in a short period of time, especially if you're planning it all on your own.
Touchstone Pictures / Via giphy.com
We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community about their wedding planning tips and here's the knowledge they shared.
1."Make the wedding yours. Add something special for you and your spouse."
"My husband and I made our wedding nerdy. I walked down the aisle to 'Storybook Love' from The Princess Bride, my favorite movie. The menus were in picture frames, 2 per table that I had decorated to showcase our movie, game, and TV show nerdiness. There were Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Legend of Zelda frames to name a few. Guests had to roll a 20-sided die to get us to kiss. 1–10, they had to kiss someone, 11–20, we would kiss."
2."You are planning a marriage, not a wedding. The day will pass; bits of it will be good, bits of it might not be. Regardless, in the end, you're married and spending the rest of your life together."
3."Write your own vows to each other. Make them fun and goofy — make them unique. It makes the wedding so much more memorable."
"When my husband brought his vows out, he unfolded the paper, and it rolled all the way out onto the floor and then some — it was so funny! (And no, they weren’t that long! He was just being a goober. And it made me feel special because he put a lot of time and thought into it!) Everyone was cracking up."
4."You don't have to have bridesmaids if you don't want to. If you think it's going to stress you out more, be too expensive, just don't have them."
"You can still invite friends to your bridal shower and to your bachelorette party, but it can tend to get very chaotic when there are a ton of people you have to worry about. I just had a maid of honor and it was pretty peaceful."
5."Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. Yes, you want your perfect day, perfect flowers, tables, weather, dress, the whole works. But don't tie yourself up in knots about things being 'perfect' on the day."
"That quest for perfection will only end in tears. There will always be something that doesn't quite work or add up, or get forgotten. As long as you end up marrying the person you love, all the rest is just detail."
6."Before you walk down the aisle, take a few moments for yourself to take everything in. Don’t just rush towards your spot then walk down the aisle."
"Take time for yourself — even just 5 minutes before you walk. Make sure it’s on the schedule! It’s your last moment as an unmarried woman. Think about all you’ve been through and who you’ve become so you can truly savor the moment."
7."There are a lot of tasks that need to be completed the day before and the day of the wedding. Delegate those tasks to someone specific, and give willing people jobs to do."
"Don't assume 'someone' will get the task done because no one will. Most people are very open to helping get little jobs done, so take people up on their offer to help, and give them a specific task."
8."The seating chart is going to feel incredibly overwhelming. But (and this goes for all parts of your wedding) there are really only a handful of people who truly care."
"As long as you seat people by at least one person they can talk to, people will be fine. That said, avoid sitting people you know are in a feud near each other. If you’re truly stuck on feeling anxious about someone’s seat. Explain to them beforehand why you placed them there and they’ll definitely understand and even might feel proud to have a 'job' to do at your wedding. But again, pretty much no one cares except you. Don’t overthink it."
9."Use something to keep track of expenses — Excel, Google sheets, whatever because it’s easy to lose track. Also, give yourself a cushion because there will be last-minute unexpected expenses (mine was travel fee for the MUA)."
"Make sure to work in the tip for any services you contract. That could be a couple hundred too."
10."Do NOT, I repeat, absolutely DO NOT let someone else take over your invite list."
"My first marriage was a courthouse wedding. We were allowed 20 people max, meaning me and my ex, and up to 18 people. I invited the people I wanted to be there. My mom, right before the day, told me I had to invite a friend of hers. I was like okay I have a little room I'll invite them. Then she added that I need to invite another ... That led to a major rift in the family."
11."Get relationship couples therapy while planning the wedding to help get all the negatives in the open and ensure that your partner is the right person to marry."
"Better find out now and save on an expensive wedding and divorce then when you're married."
12."If you want people to enjoy your wedding reception — which you should, that should actually be the primary goal of any party you throw — worry WAY less about the aesthetics and way more about having more than enough good booze and good food."
13."Get married before your wedding day. Get used to being married."
"My husband and I had to postpone our wedding multiple times due to the pandemic so we legally got married around the time our wedding was supposed to be. We got used to being married and by the time the wedding finally came, we weren't in shock. We were able to focus on each other, the music, our guests, and enjoy all the food."
14."Take time to have a honeymoon! Even if money is tight, take a few days off work to just be blissfully in love with your new spouse before you go back to reality."
"That’s my one regret, not taking more time off to just be freshly married without worrying about work and routines."
15."Designate a larger part of your budget for the photographer. Everything else is only enjoyed on the actual wedding day, and over time your memories of the details will become fuzzy."
"Having amazing pictures that will last the rest of your life is such a gift. I can’t recall every single detail of the day, but I can always look at my pictures to remember them. Also, if you have to make the choice between a video of the whole ceremony or a shorter highlight video, I would choose the highlight video. We have only watched the whole ceremony once since getting married, but we’ve watched the highlight video several times because it’s much shorter and reminds us of the whole day!"
16."We were pressured to have a bigger wedding (still under 100 people) because of our parents. But I wish we would have eloped and had a ceremony just for us."
"Because of that, we weren’t able to enjoy the honeymoon we really wanted. Biggest regret! Do what you want and don’t even ask for forgiveness."
17."Elope. Seriously, you won't regret it but you'll regret planning a wedding (and the cost of it)."
