Advice From the Married Side – Real Brides Advice

This afternoon we are back with our regular monthly feature ‘Advice from the Married Side‘ 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 Joel Bedford – full wedding HERE

Planning

• Make the most of the preparations, I made three trips to London for dress shopping & fittings with my bridesmaids, this was so much fun.
• Enjoy every minute of it.  From choosing what suit, colours, decorations, music & food just enjoy the whole process.  We had such fun planning it and felt so chilled about it all.
• The planning is as much fun as the day itself, so share as much as you can of it. I didn’t really have a big picture of my perfect wedding, so it was wonderful creating a shared vision together.
• Enjoy it too, we had such a great time planning things together and that was one of the best things of the whole experience.

Photo by Benjamin Thomas Wheeler – Full Wedding HERE

Making The Day Personal to You

• Do what YOU want, it’s YOUR day!
• Break any conventions you feel like and do things your own way. Matt and I met up for lunch before the wedding with close family and friends and it was great. We got some lovely photos taken and were then far more relaxed for the ceremony.
• Be true to yourselves and make it special, never compromise your own happiness, make it as unique as you are together and above all.
• Just do what YOU guys wanna do. Focus on what’s important to you and don’t feel like you need to fit into a cliché wedding scene or worry about what your mates are doing
• There are so many things people will tell you ‘must’ happen at a wedding – don’t listen. Don’t do anything you don’t want or spend money you don’t need to. It’s your day and it should be the way you want it, there’s no need to comply with so-called convention.

Photo by Gypsy Westwood – Full Wedding HERE

On the Day of the Wedding

• Everyone says the day goes so fast and it really does, so just make sure you’re present.  Savour every moment as it really is one of the best days of your life.
• Take 5mins out on the day to be alone and contemplate the events whilst gazing into each others eyes.
• On the day itself, I would really recommend trying to stay with each other as much as you can. People will try to pull you in every direction during the reception, but take some time together and try and have as many conversations with people together as a couple. Otherwise, you end up with completely different experiences of the same day!
• Remember to relax and enjoy the day itself. A friend of mine said on the morning of the wedding, stop every so often and look around, take everything in, smile and record it in your head.
• Once the big day arrives just enjoy every second of it…there’s nothing more you can do so don’t stress!
• If something doesn’t go quite to plan on the day, don’t panic because your guests probably won’t even notice.
• If I could change one thing it would be to have spent more time with Brad on the day.
• If something goes wrong on the day, don’t worry, people either won’t notice, won’t care or won’t remember

Photo by Lawson Photography – Full Wedding HERE

Getting Organised

• Decide what’s most important to you and what sort of day you want before you start booking anything, and always keep that in mind. Don’t let yourself get distracted and tempted by all the ‘add-ons’ unless you really want them!
• Family and friends will want to help out so make sure that you have a list of jobs for them to tackle
• Listen to the advice of others but also follow your gut instinct and do what you want to do.

Photo by S6 Photography – Full Wedding HERE

General Advice

• Don’t buy your wedding dress too early – I did and then had too long to start worrying if it was ‘the one’. Luckily, I came back round to loving it in the end!
• Don’t sweat the small stuff. Who cares if the food is later than planned or it you have a power cut. Other than the two of you no one knows the plan, so they won’t notice or care if things don’t go according to it! Just sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labours!
• We hunted around for the cheapest deals on most things but some things you might want to spend a little more on.
• We were also able to be very thrifty by roaming around car boot sales and charity shops…just make sure that you can off load it all after the wedding. We gave lots of stuff away to friends, some of whom worked in primary schools who really appreciated the bunting
• If you’re wanting to stick to a tight budget we’d say think outside the box in terms of venues, suppliers and even the day of the week you get married – those that love you and want to be there will be there whatever the day of the week.

Photo by Nicola Thompson – Full Eedding 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