A Year Later: My Favorite Wedding Day Decisions
A year after my wedding, I still reflect on the most amazing day. It helps that so many people in my circle are now in the process of planning their own weddings. I find myself wanting to be their helpful little wedding fairy godmother. However, I actively hold myself back because I know how overwhelming wedding planning can be. I don’t want to push my opinions on others, especially if unsolicited. That said, there are a few things I did for my own wedding that alleviated so much of my stress that I wanted to share them here.
1. Hire a day-of coordinator
No matter how much you plan, issues inevitably arise. The last thing you want want to do on your wedding day is deal with last-minute problems that pull focus from what actually matters: getting married. Having someone you trust to put out any fires, is invaluable.
You may feel comfortable asking a friend or a family member to be the point of contact for the day, but then they have to pull double duty. I’ve seen weddings where this unfortunately prevented close family members from fully enjoying the experience.
Some venues require a professional or in-house coordinator for their events. It’s important to note, a venue coordinator is not the same as a day-of coordinator. Venue coordinators are there to serve the best interest of the venue. A day-of coordinator is there for you.
Here are a few examples of things I didn’t have to worry about on my day:
rearranging the floor plan: once the rental tables were delivered and the size of them in the space could be gauged, my coordinator made an adjustment to the floor plan to better accommodate the space.
tipping vendors: I pre-distributed all my cash tips into envelopes, and my coordinator handed them out for me. I didn’t have to leave the dance floor to hunt down vendors. Your wedding only occurs for a limited amount of time and the day flies by, so every minute counts.
clean-up: Since our venue was also our accommodation for the night, we didn’t have a set time for teardown, but it was nice waking up in the morning and having the clean-up complete. The coordinator made sure our belongings were packed, and anything that needed to be returned to vendors was set aside. I have been to some of the most gorgeous and elegant weddings; only to see the bridal party, immediate family and even the bride and groom loading up vehicles at the end of the night. That’s the last thing you want to deal with after your wedding wraps up.
I’m confident there were dozens of other things my amazing coordinator handled behind the scenes, allowing me to stay stress-free and remain fully present.
2. Pre-shoot your wedding portraits
This won’t be viable for everyone for a multitude of reasons, but I would be remiss if I didn’t point it out as an option. It’s your day— you can make your own rules.
Leading up to our wedding, I felt a lot of stress surrounding our wedding photos. I know the day isn’t about the pictures, but I wanted quality photos that my husband and I could treasure. We also spent a decent amount on our photography, because it is an investment. That only added to my anxiety, what if we spent thousands of dollars to not even like a single photo?
Pre-shooting our wedding portraits alleviated so much stress on our actual wedding day. We weren’t worried about getting the “perfect shot” or being pulled aside for golden hour photos. We got to immerse ourselves in the moment and enjoy our day.
3. Rent your wedding flowers
One of the best decisions I made when planning our wedding, was renting our wedding flowers from Something Borrowed Blooms. I rented four bouquets, three boutonnieres, two wrist corsages and one flower dog collar and it couldn’t have been easier. My husband and I had a destination wedding, and the delivery arrived to our beach rental without any issues.
They offer may more pieces than what we used, and if I could go back, I would rent more of our decor through them.
The week leading up to your wedding is already so busy, and I knew we wouldn’t have the time to make our own flower arrangements. I also didn’t want to rely on Costco or another retailer to have the desired fresh flowers, especially because we weren’t from the area and couldn’t scope out the flower selection ahead of time. Another reason I was hesitant to use fresh flowers was because our wedding was going to take place in Florida during the summer (I know, not the smartest decision— but thankfully, the weather behaved and didn’t melt us or our guests!).
The quality of the Something Borrowed Blooms arrangements was amazing (my bridal bouquet is pictured below— you can’t even tell that the flowers are fake!). We didn’t have to worry about wilting flowers, buckets of water, or water stains on bridesmaid dress from still-damp bouquets. The whole process was stress-free and the flowers remained beautiful all day.
