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

Today we are back with our regular 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 here on the blog 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 This Modern Revelry – full wedding here

General Advice

Don’t overthink the big things, at the end of the day, everyone in the room is there for you, and the day should centred around having a good day filled with love.
I will say that giving myself the week before the wedding to chill and enjoy the lead up instead of running around last minute was a huge help.
Vinted is a good source for little extras.
There are a lot of ways to save money, you can rent equipment and use Fiverr to hire a DJ to make a premixed DJ set (which is much cheaper than hiring a DJ).
Consider a weekday wedding to save on costs and keep the guest list intimate. Flexibility with decorations and using items from the venue can also help keep expenses down without compromising on style.
Also in hindsight I wouldn’t have stressed so much about the small things. On the day of, they don’t matter. You and your partner committing to each other is.
If you can write your own vows, take the chance to do so. It made the day for us to have that moment to speak to each other openly, and to have this moment of “Hey, look, we did it! Thank you for doing it with me!”. We got to have so much autonomy over the ceremony, and it made it even more special. At the end of the day, it really does end up being the best bit.
There’s no need to be nervous. I have a total phobia of public speaking, and leading up to the big day I was freaking out big time about reciting my vows in front of everyone. But when it came to it, I was surrounded by people who love me and are there to celebrate what I had to say. As soon as it was over I wished I could do it all again.

photo by Chang by Wedding Boutique Phuket – full wedding here

Planning

Enjoy the journey and don’t sweat the details.
Have a wedding photographer who is talented and works well with you! We can’t thank our photographer enough for all that she did! She coordinated so much and took out so much of the stress out of planning that I just go to enjoy the process!
If you are planning to do a destination wedding, find yourselves a wedding planner who gets you and your vision.
Just enjoy the process as you’ll only do it once!
Plan in detail everything you want for your special day. You only get this day once so you want it to be everything you have ever dreamed of.
Wedding planning should be fun! Plan a date night, put YouTube dance lessons on the tv, have a glass of wine and make it fun and most importantly, make it you!
Because we specifically didn’t want a pinterest wormhole of ideas wedding. We wanted the focus to be on being in the moment, for it to be a tonne of fun, and for there to be dancing. Lots of dancing! Because we didn’t take much of it that seriously and didn’t put strive for Instagram perfection at every corner, it was perfect!
Hire a planner, or at least a coordinator! We didn’t need to lift a finger the entire day. It was totally zen. No freak outs, no sweating. Just peace.

photo by Iain Irwin – full wedding here

Make the day your own

We emphasis the importance of staying true to what matters most to you as a couple. For us, this meant choosing elements that felt personal and meaningful, rather than following conventional expectations.
Don’t put unnecessary pressure on yourself, because the people at your wedding love you and your partner and are there to celebrate and love you, not critique you! Put thought into what you both truly want and don’t compromise for anyone but each other.
There are a million ways to execute a wedding, and it turns out, you can execute it just the way you want to, so don’t let anything stop you!
Do what YOU want and make it your special day – we followed our hearts and it led us to create an incredibly special day that we will remember forever.

photo by Linen & Elm Photography – full wedding here

Getting organised

Don’t go into debt for a stressful day just to appease people in your life.
It’s never too early to start DIY and booking vendors.
Take it slow, not everything has to be planned in a single day. Wedding planning becomes part of the routine – as long as you keep track of all your asks and desires for the day, it’ll come together.
ONE THING AT A TIME
Pick one thing. Venue. Only focus on venues. Then caterer- only focus on caterer. When your mother in law comes to you with 50 ideas and questions about flowers, alcohol, plates, napkins,
weather, dress, ect!! Say No! I am on caterer for this week and next week and that is all I can talk
to you about right now. That helped me so much!
Also find one or two people that are in your corner. Sometimes too many cooks in the kitchen can get overwhelming and feel like more work. I had my mother in law and one of my maids of honour and they were my go-to-get it done- girls. Also it’s okay to ask your wedding party for help. Assign one person to look up caterers and then go through that narrowed down list-etc. That helped!
Also I would say first try and sit with yourself and truly picture your day and what is important to you. Where are you? What’s the scenery? Who is there? This social media/ technology world can be super overwhelming and if you scroll too much you may feel completely overwhelmed and lost before you even begin! Try and picture each category of what you want before you look up inspo so that you don’t get lost in the trend or what everyone else is doing and have a day that you pictured as a little girl and that is truly important to you. Sit and hear yourself first because otherwise the outside noise will drown out your vision!

photo by Cristiana Fiorini Photography – full wedding here

On the day

Enjoy the day & don’t worry about the smaller/finer details as you soon wont care on the day when you’re having so much fun.
This day is about the starting of your marriage.
Soak in every single second of this season of life, it goes by so fast.
Definitely take that 20 minutes to yourselves between the ceremony and dinner! And if you can, maybe even take a little video on your phone so you can look back and remember that excitement.
If you have disposable cameras, you need to have someone turn ALL the flashes on before placing them down or you’ll end up with a stack of blacked out images. (Ask me how I know).

photo by Fabio 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]

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