Wedding Season: Advice for Brides to Be
Instead of a traditional guestbook, Kevin and I found vintage Iowa postcards our guests could write notes to us on. They were pre-stamped and strategically placed by the venue's mailbox. It was so much fun to get notes from our guests the following week.
What advice do I have for brides prepping for their big day? I'm so glad you asked, people of the interwebs, because I have a few opinions.
I don't claim to be an expert, but I did plan a wedding. I don't claim to know it all, but I did try to know "enough" without deep diving into the overwhelming world of bridal magazines and Pinterest. I didn't go the traditional route for all the things, and I certainly didn't follow all the rules (... I mean, we served our guests Moscow mules as they walked into the ceremony...) but I did build a wedding that was totally US.
Here's my advice for Brides (and Grooms) to Be:
I ordered white matchboxes from Amazon and spent my Thursday nights leading up to the wedding watching Scandal and drawing on 300 of them. These punny party favors were a huge hit.
Decide what three things will make your night.
When the wedding planning starts it is SO easy to get lost in all the options. Paper types, dress styles, napkin colors, party favors, and on and on and on. When we started the wedding prep process, it felt like too much, so I decided we needed to define 3 must-haves at the wedding for each of us. What was going to make this wedding PERFECT?
[A certain band? A letterpressed invitation? A full bar hosted by singing bartenders? A light up dance floor? The perfect photographer?]
After deciding those 6 things, one overlapped: for us that was a dance party with our favorite local DJ. After identifying one thing we could cross off our list, immediately, I felt like other planning bits were easier. After we narrowed down what was important it was easier to budget, to move forward, and to make the choice to nix a few extras that just didn't matter to us.- Comfortable shoes are 100% the way to go.
I went for some fancy blue Ted Baker beauties, but should have stuck to wearing my favorite gold loafers (that just so happen to be from Old Navy). You will be standing, a lot. Your feet should be as happy as your heart on the wedding day.
- Get personal.
My favorite parts of our wedding were the most personal: matchbooks I hand drew, fishing fly boutonnieres, desserts made with love by our friends, wedding photos of our guests hanging from the walls. And you know what, those are the things our guests remember the most too. The little bits of Kevin and Laura we sprinkled in were the most beautiful parts of the day.
- Write your thank you notes RIGHT AWAY [Seriously]
We failed on this. Big time. Instead of writing thank you notes, we took off and hit 33 states in our first year of marriage. [When you own a business that specializes in stationery and you write your thank you notes 5 months later, it doesn't look good.] Write your thank you notes as soon as possible - because thank yous are important and it's more fun to write them while riding your wedding high. Hot tip: use postcards. Not only are they fun to receive in the mail, postcards have limited writing room... and we all know short and sweet is the way to go.
[Shameless plug: if you need wedding thank you notes- I can help with that!]
- Keep saying thank you.
A wedding is one day, a marriage is a lifetime. While planning the wedding took work, so does being married. Yes we wrote thank you notes (very late), but our friends and family continue to support us as people and as a married couple, in so many ways. Keep saying thank you for that support. It matters.