In this post:
Introduction – Defining Wedding Planning Tips
Shortly after mine and Mike’s engagement, we went full force into the wedding planning process. Many people like to wait or just bask in the excitement of being an engaged couple but for us, we knew we wanted to solidify the things we’d already been talking about as quickly as possible (we wanted to secure dates meaningful to us). Given that we’ve been together since 2012, we had a pretty good idea about what we wanted from our wedding, even well before I ever had a ring on my finger.
In this post, I want to touch on the major lessons I’ve learned as well as the tips that helped me or I wish I’d known. I’m hoping this will either be helpful to anyone planning their own wedding or just an insight for anyone interested.
As a brief disclaimer, I want to say that throughout this article, I’m not trying to minimise anyone else’s ideas/hopes/plans – if I say something that sounds fairly strong, it’s simply because it was a strong preference for Mike and I as a couple. I completely respect that everyone is different and has different goals for their wedding. I also want to add that this article will not reveal any specific details about our actual wedding, simply for privacy reasons.
You Don’t Have to Put on A Show
For me personally, the idea of saying overly emotional and/or legal vows in front of a packed room of people is intimidating. I was that child in primary school where I’d refuse to be given lines to say in the school play, simply because the idea of performing in front of others really scared me. As an adult, this has translated into being able to tolerate public speaking but tending to mess it up out of nervousness or generally not present myself in the way I’d hoped.
Another issue within this subject is context. Mike and I have been together for over a decade so are well past the ‘honeymoon’ phase and neither of us have particularly overemotional families or friendship groups. In other words, the prospect of trying to master public speaking on my wedding day while simultaneously trying to take each other seriously by reciting some kind of film script, potentially false-sounding vows just didn’t seem like the path forward for us.
Given our feelings, we decided to cut out the public ceremony entirely. Something interesting about this though was the amount of people who’ve come forward to tell me that, they too, did not have a public ceremony. While Mike and I will be using provided witnesses (i.e strangers), others just had a couple of close friend or siblings to witness the marriage. Growing up, it seemed like barely anyone took this path so I was initially concerned people might be upset with us but I’m happy to say that I’ve realised we’re in good company and everyone has respected our feelings.
Not everything flows effortlessly like what you see on TV
Following on from my previous point, I’ve really come to realise how much within weddings and wedding planning is carefully orchestrated by the couple or others involved in the decision-making process. Maybe I’m a bit dim but, as a child and teenager, I always assumed that people ‘just knew’ that they were to sit down and listen to speeches at a particular time of the day or that that adorable photo was just randomly shot. In reality, everything has to be planned for. Our wedding is set for 2025 but I’ve already been asked questions like whether we’ll be cutting our cake in public and if so, what time we want to do that and where within the venue. I’ve also been creating a shot wish list that I’ll be discussing with our photographer and videographer to figure out what’s possible.
My takeaway from this is that it’s extremely important to manage expectations of what will be happening on the day itself. If you want something badly, e.g a kissing photo in a certain location, voice your views to your photographer and/or venue during meetings. Personally, I’m leaving nothing up to chance or fate, if I want it and it’s achievable/doesn’t harm anyone/anything, I’m making it happen.
You Create Your Own Fairytale
I had difficulty of trying to organise ways of making our ceremony meaningful. For anyone reading this who isn’t aware (I certainly wasn’t), registry office ceremonies are not allowed to contain any reference whatsoever to religion/beliefs which many couples might struggle with. They are also fairly brief. Of course, you’re allowed custom vows or poems/music, depending on your town/registrar service, but I personally found this aspect restrictive and difficult to navigate.
As bizarre as it sounds, I personally value the celebration of mine and Mike’s relationship far more than what an over-simplified legal ceremony can provide by itself. Many online forums aggressively chastise people for this belief, noting that people like me must not ‘value marriage and only be in it for the party’ but as much as I’m excited to be legally married I just wanted something more from the ceremony that didn’t automatically mean it would become a public show. Meaningful, memorable and special were my keywords.
To tackle this issue, Mike and I decided on having two ceremonies. I really wanted to write about this here as I never knew that this was even a thing until I started looking into it. Often, it comes up when couples want to get married abroad but the marriage would not be legally recognised by the UK on their return, hence doing a simple, second registry office ceremony either before or after their wedding abroad.
For us, we’ll be doing a simple registry office ceremony locally on the same day as our reception but, a few days before this, we’ll be doing a handfasting in a location special to us (not legally recognised). This ticks the box of having my spiritual needs met by having a handfasting while still getting legally married at a later point. By following this method of two separate ceremonies, we have also cut out over £1000 from the budget and avoided creating the anxiety-inducing public spectacle that we didn’t want.
Going back to the title of this lesson – TV and film is very quick to convey the message that every legal marriage ceremony is full of meaning and emotion and that everything just flows effortlessly on the waves of romance. In reality though, there’s a significant amount of soul-searching and legwork to make the occasion meet the needs and desires of the couple.
Deciding What You Don’t Want Is Just as Important as What You Do Want
As much as it’s a beautiful experience to meander around lavish wedding fayres or flick through glossy bridal magazines, I found that it never truly gave me a complete picture. It never put me into the trenches of real guest opinions on subjects like local venues, the menu served or whether the timings were right for the day.
I’ve personally spent a significant amount of time listening to what did not go well at other people’s weddings to see what will and won’t work for my own plans. I’ve also asked several past brides (obviously the ones that are close friends of mine, not strangers!) the question of ‘was there anything you felt you didn’t really need to spend money on?’ or ‘would you have changed anything?’ Exactly nobody said that everything was perfect, and that they wouldn’t have changed anything at all. Their answers gave me a huge amount of insight and things to think about. They also have saved probably thousands of pounds in the budget so it’s definitely a discussion exercise worth having if you know anyone open to chat about their own wedding/the wedding of a family member.
Reading Other People’s Regrets Has Been a Major Driving Force
This is a bit of a bonus point as it links to the previous, but I learned that a huge topic to listen out for is other people’s regrets. The biggest one that kept coming up honestly surprised Mike and I… In a world that promotes 200+ guest weddings with no expenses spared, everyone who approached us told us to keep it small.
For context, the incomes of individuals talking to us ranged considerably but finances never came into it in terms of wedding size. Many cited wishing they’d had more time to talk to those who really mattered in their lives rather than some relative they hadn’t seen in 15 years. They also spoke about feeling overwhelmed or their guests not fully being able to relax just because of the volume of people there. In our own wedding planning process, we’ve truly taken this advice on board and built our guest list on the simple question – ‘would you invite this person around for dinner?’.
Conclusion
I hope this post has been a useful or enlightening look into the wedding planning process, especially given that I’m someone who came to this with a strictly limited budget and very little experience in planning something this important. If you have any interesting tips to add, I’d love to hear about them in the comments.
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