Advice From the Married Side – Real Brides Advice From Their Wedding Day

This afternoon we are back with our regular feature ‘Advice from the Married Side‘ a bumper post full of real life wedding planning advice from all the lovely brides and grooms I have featured on the blog.
I get to feature so many amazing real weddings and with each wedding I ask the couple to share with us their wedding planning knowledge and experiences. This post is a super useful collection of wedding wisdom from those who have just got married, to help you on your own wedding planning journey. I hope there will be something amongst these experiences that help you……….Happy Planning!

Photo by Taylor Roades Photography – Full wedding HERE

General Advice

• Don’t stress. Things will go wrong, but in the grand scheme of things, they will be minor.
• Whatever happens it will be the most incredible day. No one will remember the décor, flowers or favours so don’t worry yourself over them.
• Something someone told me while I was planning my own. Remember most people will only recall the great food, fast drink service, and good music at most weddings. Unless they are planning their own wedding they are most likely not going to notice elaborate centerpieces and expensive decorations. Do things that make you and future spouse happy
• If you can, invest in a wedding planner! It was the best decision we EVER made!
• I would also recommend a day of coordinator, as that was one of the best decisions we made to make the day so relaxed and efficient!
• Don’t get hung up on the weather, we had torrential rain but it was still a wonderful day.
• One of the things we were advised beforehand was to make sure we got a good photographer to help you to be able to remember all of the memories you have put all that work into making! Which is something I would definitely recommend.
• I’m really glad that we put aside a very short amount of time for ‘official’ photos – we got everything we wanted, without leaving the party for several hours. It gave us so much more time to spend with the people we care about.
• Don’t let the weather worry you, you cannot control it! If it rains, dance in the rain- there is nothing quite like it!

Photo By Cloud Attic Photography – Full wedding HERE

Getting Organised

• I would say to book the big and important things first. Venue, catering, photographer. Leave the little pretty things till last! Work out what you like and your theme and it will flow easily.
• Being super-organised really helped me, as did allowing enough time. Everything can become stressful if you cram it all into the last-minute. Also, make sure you make decisions together; it’s not just down to one of you to sort everything, you’re in it together.
• My advice would be to get the big things booked as soon as possible (venue, food, photographer etc.) and then you can spend the rest of the time doing all the pretty bits. It’s much less stressful knowing that you have the essentials sorted and the rest, although lovely looking, you could do without if you had to due to time or budget constraints.
• If someone offers help, take it – that’s what friends and family are for and we were very lucky to have such offers.

Photo by Stacy Paul Photography – Full wedding HERE

Making The Day Personal to You

• Making The Day Personal to YouMake sure you go with your gut in the preparations and include the things that MAKE YOU HAPPY – it would be horrible to look back on your day and think, I wish we’d done that after all.
• The best advice I can provide is to stay true to you and your significant other’s vision of what you want your wedding to be like. Family members and friends will all have opinions and thoughts on how you should do things, but just remember what makes you both unique, and why you are planning this massive event to celebrate YOUR special and love.
• Do what you do for you. Everyone spends so much time worrying about what they should and shouldn’t do, what’s traditional, what people think, who to invite, what they need to spend, but it all comes down to the two of you.
• Keep the day true to you, people who want to be there will be there. If you focus on keeping the wedding true to you; your individual and combined loves then your friends and family will see and appreciate that on the day.
• It’s not about the money. It’s not about living up to other people’s expectations. It’s about what you want as a couple and what expresses you as people. Be genuine, be true to yourselves.
• Just stick to what you both like and try not to get too blinded by what you see others do. I think your wedding should reflect you as a couple.

PHOTO BY ON LOVE AND PHOTOGRAPHY – FULL WEDDING HERE

Planning

• Set out your intention to create a special day that is a joy to organise. Involve your friends and family, they want to help and be part of it.
• After a while, stop looking online. Your wedding is YOUR wedding, and it could be a mix of a lot of different things, but it doesn’t have to be the most unique, creative, one-of-a-kind wedding. It will be those things without the hours glued to the computer.
• Get on with it! It’s so easy to put things off but once the venue is booked it all comes together quickly.
• Enjoy planning it, because it’s a blast! A bit of a cliche I know, but the little things that we spent so much time worrying about beforehand went completely unnoticed on the day. I think that it shows in your wedding if you’ve had fun planning it, which in turn should help your guests to have fun!
• Nail your guest list as soon a possible. Get the awkward conversations out the way early on so you can enjoy the planning! We didn’t want a large wedding and this resulted in some uncomfortable discussions about numbers but it all turned out ok.

PHOTO BY JAMES EVANS PHOTOGRAPHY – FULL WEDDING HERE

On The Day of The Wedding

• Ensure that you get to spend time alone together during the day as this allows you to soak things up and gain appreciation for all of the things that are going on. Laugh a lot and try to remain relaxed as your attitude can reflect how the day goes.
• Also, when the day comes, just try to relax and enjoy the ride — things will happen and the stress can be daunting, but when it is actually your wedding day, just relax and enjoy the love that truly radiates around you — it is such a powerful thing to experience!
• On the day, the little things won’t matter! You can consider every little detail and put plans in place to make it all perfect up until the night before and then simply, “let go”. On the day, enjoy every little moment!
• Other married couples said to us to keep reminding yourself to appreciate how amazing the day is from start to finish as it passes so quickly. We really tried to remember this and it definitely helped to stop the day from disappearing too quickly!

Photo by Grace Elizabeth Photography – Full wedding HERE

I hope you found these pieces of advice helpful. If you are already married is there anything you would like to add ? Was there anything in these words of wisdom that has resonated with you?

Is there something you would particularly like to ask me  for advice? any questions just email me [email protected]

BIG BOHO LOVE

KELLY XX