Advice and Templates!
After posting some advice for future brides on The Knot and receiving such positive feedback I thought I would post it here for other brides to read as well.
1. The week leading up to the wedding was super busy for me with in-laws in town and last minute errands. As prepared as I was I still had last minute things to do like getting the cake for the rehearsal dinner, picking up decor for the church, etc. There are just some things you can't do till the week of the wedding. Be okay with leaving these till then and make detailed to do list for those days. My list saved me life!
2. Delegate! If you have family or wedding party members in town and there to help - let them! It was hard for me but finally I just had to say you go here, you go there. There is no way I would have been able to do everything and there is no reason for you to do everything. We did an assemble line in the hotel lobby to make OOT bags. We had my MOH, mom, FI, 4 GM's and Fi's parents. It took us less than 30 minutes to assemble all the bags.
3. Enjoy some time with FI. FI and I did a date night on our last Saturday as an engaged couple and it was great. We didn't classify it as a wedding free date because we enjoyed talking about the wedding but just having that time together was priceless. Once his parents and family came into town that week Tuesday we barely had any time together at all. I'm so glad we had a date night.
4. Have your bach parties before the wedding if at all possible. Due to groomsmen being from out of state FI had to have his on Thursday before the wedding. It worked out fine because he had all day Friday to recover but honestly he was useless on Friday. They were up till 4:00am partying and I'm glad he had a good time but I wish they could have done it weeks before the wedding so FI would have had more time to recover.
5. I would do the normal something will go wrong speech but I firmly believe it doesn't have too. Nothing, besides the excessive heat, went wrong on our big day. That being said though . . I was prepared for something to go wrong. Don't let something go wrong and ruin your day. Expect it, plan for it, and then move on. This goes back to the delegating thing. Most of us here on TK have done 95% of the planning ourselves so vendors will call you with a problem . . give your cell phone to someone else that day. I did and it was the best (thankfully though my phone didn't ring once).
6. Take some time for you and FI that day. FI and I did a first look and I'm so glad we did. It was basically the only time that day that we just got to say wow, look at us we are getting married.
7. Don't think that just because you have a first look it will ruin the walking down the aisle moment. We did a first look but then after the first look FI and I took separate cars to the ceremony and tucked away in different rooms. We probably had an hour apart to get excited and it worked. FI cried when I walked down the aisle.
8. Eat at your reception and make sure you get some of that cake you paid for too! I did and I'm so happy that I did. I wasn't able to get much during dinner due to nervous or something but I ate and I'm so glad I did.
9. If you are doing OOT bags .. pay to have one sent to your room. Ha! Sounds silly I know but after the wedding FI and I got to our room for the night and realized we had nothing to drink or eat in our bags. FI ran down to his parents room to get us a bottle of water.
10. Do what you want! Dance at your reception, talk to people, be with your DH. Whatever you want do it! I danced all night with DH at the reception and it was a blast! Your guest will understand if you are busy and don't get a chance to say goodbye. We had several people leave without us having the chance to say goodbye, sad but true. We were busy talking with other people and enjoying our big day!
11. Take it all in because it really will be a busy day.
12. Take charge of your wedding party and your vendors.
13. Make day of schedules if you want - our WP laughed at my colored coded schedules but at the reception I had several of them tell me how much they really appreciated it. Our florist and DJ commented that they were the most well organized wedding party they had seen. It was great to hear and helped the day go smooth. (see below to download a copy of my schedule)
1. The week leading up to the wedding was super busy for me with in-laws in town and last minute errands. As prepared as I was I still had last minute things to do like getting the cake for the rehearsal dinner, picking up decor for the church, etc. There are just some things you can't do till the week of the wedding. Be okay with leaving these till then and make detailed to do list for those days. My list saved me life!
2. Delegate! If you have family or wedding party members in town and there to help - let them! It was hard for me but finally I just had to say you go here, you go there. There is no way I would have been able to do everything and there is no reason for you to do everything. We did an assemble line in the hotel lobby to make OOT bags. We had my MOH, mom, FI, 4 GM's and Fi's parents. It took us less than 30 minutes to assemble all the bags.
3. Enjoy some time with FI. FI and I did a date night on our last Saturday as an engaged couple and it was great. We didn't classify it as a wedding free date because we enjoyed talking about the wedding but just having that time together was priceless. Once his parents and family came into town that week Tuesday we barely had any time together at all. I'm so glad we had a date night.
4. Have your bach parties before the wedding if at all possible. Due to groomsmen being from out of state FI had to have his on Thursday before the wedding. It worked out fine because he had all day Friday to recover but honestly he was useless on Friday. They were up till 4:00am partying and I'm glad he had a good time but I wish they could have done it weeks before the wedding so FI would have had more time to recover.
5. I would do the normal something will go wrong speech but I firmly believe it doesn't have too. Nothing, besides the excessive heat, went wrong on our big day. That being said though . . I was prepared for something to go wrong. Don't let something go wrong and ruin your day. Expect it, plan for it, and then move on. This goes back to the delegating thing. Most of us here on TK have done 95% of the planning ourselves so vendors will call you with a problem . . give your cell phone to someone else that day. I did and it was the best (thankfully though my phone didn't ring once).
6. Take some time for you and FI that day. FI and I did a first look and I'm so glad we did. It was basically the only time that day that we just got to say wow, look at us we are getting married.
7. Don't think that just because you have a first look it will ruin the walking down the aisle moment. We did a first look but then after the first look FI and I took separate cars to the ceremony and tucked away in different rooms. We probably had an hour apart to get excited and it worked. FI cried when I walked down the aisle.
8. Eat at your reception and make sure you get some of that cake you paid for too! I did and I'm so happy that I did. I wasn't able to get much during dinner due to nervous or something but I ate and I'm so glad I did.
9. If you are doing OOT bags .. pay to have one sent to your room. Ha! Sounds silly I know but after the wedding FI and I got to our room for the night and realized we had nothing to drink or eat in our bags. FI ran down to his parents room to get us a bottle of water.
10. Do what you want! Dance at your reception, talk to people, be with your DH. Whatever you want do it! I danced all night with DH at the reception and it was a blast! Your guest will understand if you are busy and don't get a chance to say goodbye. We had several people leave without us having the chance to say goodbye, sad but true. We were busy talking with other people and enjoying our big day!
11. Take it all in because it really will be a busy day.
12. Take charge of your wedding party and your vendors.
13. Make day of schedules if you want - our WP laughed at my colored coded schedules but at the reception I had several of them tell me how much they really appreciated it. Our florist and DJ commented that they were the most well organized wedding party they had seen. It was great to hear and helped the day go smooth. (see below to download a copy of my schedule)
My super amazing day of schedule!
If you would like to see the schedule that I used for our wedding party you can download it here!
I printed one copy for each wedding party member, wrote their name at the top and then highlighted the sections that would mean the most to them. I knew some people, most the boys, would get lost in all the text. Our wedding party actually loved it! Our vendors commented that they were the most organized group they had seen.
I printed one copy for each wedding party member, wrote their name at the top and then highlighted the sections that would mean the most to them. I knew some people, most the boys, would get lost in all the text. Our wedding party actually loved it! Our vendors commented that they were the most organized group they had seen.
wedding_party_day_of.docx | |
File Size: | 18 kb |
File Type: | docx |