What I would and wouldn't do again...

[Oryx]

Wow, some GREAT tips here ladies, thanks so much! I spent the greater part of my afternoon at work going through this thread... thanks for the great information.

[Pandabride6]

OMG! I'm so glad I stumbled on this thread! Thanks for being so thoughtful and posting your do's and don'ts.

 

I'm a few months out from my day but I can say something. Another bride actually brought this up in her review. She mentioned to be more specific about wanting to do a RSVP for the STD's. This could help weed out some guests before you end up making or buying a ton of invites that can get pricey.

 

I had that feature on my website and a few people took advantage. At least I knew early on who is a definite but I wish I was a bit more assertive about getting a response. But I guess it depends since it's so early out and guests don't know if they're going yet.

[smith3576]

Here is my list. I'll probably think of more!

 

WOULD DEFINITELY DO AGAIN:

 

* Have a DW during the week! Doing our wedding on a Tuesday made it so we had plenty of time with our guests – they mostly got there on Friday or Saturday – and there weren’t any other weddings going on that day.

 

* Get there a week before the wedding. It was good to have the extra time to get settled in.

 

* Change hotels for our honeymoon. After a week, we were ready for a change of scenery.

 

* Greet all our guests as they arrived. It was time consuming but so worth it. We camped ourselves out in the lobby, had a few drinks, and waited with our welcome bags. We got pictures of everyone as they arrived, and they all said how much they appreciated our meeting them.

 

* Made such elaborate welcome bags! We put a ton of stuff in ours and most of it didn’t cost us much. No one used everything, but everything was used by at least someone. It was also something that people expressed a lot of appreciation for – they said it made them feel really welcome. They were calling them swag bags, even though they really weren’t expensive.

 

* Send out a departure mailing a few weeks before our wedding. It was extra work, but people said it made them even more excited to come.

 

* Do my own hair and make-up. I went to the Bobbi Brown make-up counter (because most of my make-up is Bobbi Brown) a few months before the wedding and had them do my make-up and show me how. Then I bought the stuff, practiced a few times. It looked great at the wedding, and I still have all the make-up. Two of my BMs did my hair (and they don’t know how to do hair!). We went to a trial up-do before the wedding and they “learned” how to put it up. They took notes and pictures. And then we winged it the day off. Turned out great!

 

* Have a video made of the wedding. It all went by so fast that it was good to be able to go back and “see” it. It was also good for those family members that couldn’t come.

 

* Sleep together the night before our wedding. We have lived together for a couple of years, and it was a great stress reliever to be around one another. (If we had had a morning wedding, we probably wouldn’t have.)

 

* Do parasols and corsages for the BMs instead of bouquets. It looked great, was practical with the sun! and was so much cheaper. I made the corsages (out of fabric) and they were able to keep them.

 

 

WOULD NOT DO AGAIN

* Rely on the hotel WC. We didn’t hire an outside WC, and I’m not sure now if I still would or wouldn’t given the price difference, but at least I wouldn’t put as much faith in the hotel WC as I did (see my review of Dreams in the Puerto Vallarta forum). Some things weren’t done correctly that added some stress, and our reception ended up being cut short.

 

* Forget to look at my self in the mirror and check my dress! We were in such a rush that I forgot to even look at myself all put together! This wouldn’t have been such a big deal, except that my corset was tied kind of tightly in the back and I had a little bit of a “butt crack” in my back LOL! And my BMs didn’t tell me!!! (I saw it in the video) Fortunately it worked itself out some time after the ceremony, but still! Good thing the veil covered it for a lot of the ceremony. The bigger issue that was created because I forgot to take the time to check it all out is that the dress wasn’t on quite right and so it fell too long. I didn’t notice walking to the ceremony because I was picking up the skirt. I did start to notice, however, as I was walking down the aisle. Between tripping over my skirt, and getting through the sand, my walk down the aisle was spend mostly looking down!

 

* Get so stressed about unimportant things! I wish I had told one of my BMs to stop me every once in a while, or when they noticed I was stressed, and make me just breath and refocus for a few minutes. They did this somewhat, although usually they did so by giving me a drink! I wish I’d given them explicit instructions to “make” me relax more directly. (I’m not a big stress basket sort of person, but I do tend to get lost in the details sometimes and forget the big picture!)

 

* Have an informal rehearsal. We had a rehearsal bonfire planned (instead of a dinner). This we would definitely do again. But due to some unforeseen circumstances, our timing got off. We had planned to meet with those involved in the wedding first to go over logistics, with the rest of our guests joining after. But because we started late, everyone got there at the same time. So we never really went over the logistics like we were supposed to. It didn’t seem important at the time, since I generally went over it with people individually, but it caused some problems the day of.

 

* Spend money on a cake! We hadn’t planned on it, but ended up getting a cake last minute and paying more for it than we should have because we were stressed and tired of making decisions. It didn’t taste good and didn’t look much better.

 

* We did many decorations ourselves, but we didn’t get them all finished before we got there. Even though we had friends helping us, if we did it again I would definitely finish it all before we got there! It created too much stress!

[futuremrsgoodrich]

thank you for sharing your experiences and congratulations

[Anthony]

Keep them coming. This has been extremely helpful.

[Raykel]

This is so helpful! Thank you all for sharing.

[kwright369]

This thread is the best! Totally validates some decisions I've made and has given me some new ideas. Thanks everyone for sharing!!

[PetitRouge]

Thank you everyone. This is very helpful for us who have yet to have our big day. I have taken notes:)

[bcbride]

Yay! my turn to return the favor

The only thing I wouldn't do again is wishing we just eloped because of all the stress with planning the wedding! All the stress was totally worth it in the end and would do it all over again!

I would:

- do a destination wedding - best decision we ever made We all had such an awesome time we didn't want the week to end!

- do first look pictures - it was really nice to spend such an intimate and private moment together, and calm our nerves before the ceremony

- use parasols instead of bouquets for BM's - inexpensive yet turned out so beautiful!

- use an iPOD instead of paying for a DJ - we bought a really good iPOD speaker that would have cost the same as hiring a DJ for one night, and now we use the speaker at home all the time

- guitar guestbook - DH is a guitar player so it was the perfect way to incorporate his interests in the wedding

- maracas for each guest to "shake for a kiss" at the reception - lol there were a lot of kisses that night!

- brought our own photographer - doing this gave us more flexibility and we were able to have her on the wedding day and TTD day

- do TTD session - this was awesome, so much fun! Found a quaint resort at Tulum beach, about 1 km from the ruins - the beach was totally deserted!

- do OOT bags - our OOT bags were so simple (flipflops from partyflops, bath puff, hand sanitizer, kleenex, playing cards, meet the guests handout) but they were a hit! most of our guests used the sandals and the bags, and they were all shocked and thankful for them!

- stayed another week after at a different resort for our honeymoon - it was sad to see everyone leave but we also needed alone time after the busy wedding week!

hope this helps some!

[shellk]

keep them coming ladies please