Priority One
Weddings are about true love and celebrating your vows with your most favorite people. Don’t forget this. Don’t let all of the extra details and logistics crowd this basic fact out. When you think of weddings, you don’t always think of having fun at them though but you can. Whether you are the bride and groom wanting more fun during the day, or you are wanting to make sure you guests have fun, check out these suggestions to consider on how to make your wedding fun. This Part I starts with the choices from the Bride and Groom’s Side while Part II will addrress guest-related choices.
From the Bride & Groom Side
1. Hire out the details
There are so many working parts to a wedding especially wedding day. You need a project manager day of your wedding just to oversee all of these parts. Hire a Day of Coordinator to be that project manager. Let a professional oversee all of those details so they don’t even swirl around in your mind on wedding day. If you can hire out your decorating needs, this keeps you from purchasing a ton of items, packing and hauling a bunch of boxes, taking the time to set out all of those items, having to pack them up at the night’s end, and finding someone to haul back all of those items. Whether you like to decorate or not, wedding day isn’t the time to spend it with such logistics. Whether with an economy package or not, hire it out and have someone else do it instead of absording precious hours on wedding day for this.
2. Don't Over-Invite
There is a reason that smaller more intimate weddings are in. Covid 2020 year where weddings were smaller because only your closest family and friends were willing to risk the warnings proved you didn’t have to have a large wedding invite list. Most were grateful for the constraints. The atmosphere and mood shifts when you guest count is over 100 – it just is. More people means more time to feed them, more time to get through the bar, more time to squeeze in to greet them all, etc. Don’t put yourself in a bind of wanting to go dance some more but realizing you haven’t spoken to a bunch of people. Go smaller and more intimate so you can actually enjoy those guests instead of a quick greeting. Less people, less stress, more fun.
3. Smaller or no Wedding party
This too is an upcoming trend. One might ask. Several factors, I would guess, but eliminating drama is one of them. You mix friends from different phases of your life with family members and put them all in one room or house to hustle through hair, make-up, timing, photos, food, etc., it often creates added drama that is not beneficial on wedding day. Have a Maid of Honor and a Best Man to assist you, but invite your friends as guests just not bridal party. It avoids having picking and choosing. Then, relax your timeline and enjoy the prepping proecess with less drama. It actually cuts down significantly on your costs and gives you more opportunity to focus on just you two – bride and groom.
4. Be Comfortable
It is possible to look amazing in your attire and still be yourself and be comfortable. Whether that is a tweed jacket and suspender or wearing tennis shoes. Don’t let the garb constrain you from being comfortable down the aisle and for the rest of the party. Don’t let your hairdo be a hindrance or have you fretting, “oh my goodness, I don’t look like myself.” It is indeed possible to do both – comfy and stunning.
5. Plan for Some Alone Time
Wedding day goes by quickly and has so many elements to it; prepping, ceremony, reception, dancing, etc. Don’t f orget the main objective: This is about true love and celebrating your vows with your closest family and friends. So, take some little tidbits of the day to be alone with each other. Three quick ways to do this without inconveniencing your guests.
- First Look – There are many reasons to consider “First Looks”. Check my other blog postings to read up on all of those reasons. Big reason is it gives you a very intimate 20 minutes to just be with each other affirming your love for each other without being in front of all of your guests. Those intimate moments are like money in the bank. Priceless.
- Serve plenty of appetizers and cocktails after the ceremony and before the reception so that you two can go over taking romantic photos with the photographer. Though not totally alone, use these romantic moments to affirm your relationship. Bonus is these precious moments get captured to remember later. It becomes a bit of foreplay; holding each other, smooching, twirling, hugging for the camera.
- Consider having dinner alone away from the reception area while your guests are being served. They will not mind. All they are thinking is when is my table being released and what smells so good. This not only gives you two time alone to catch your breath but allows you to eat too. You can make a grand entrance back into your reception after everyone has eated and the party continues on as normal.
6. Simplify at Night's End
Wedding night should be special. Don’t overdo or over drink to the point of exhaustion as your wedding event winds down. Our venue has overnight lodging options at our treehouse that most couples opt for This makes it so convenient where you don’t have to pack up all of your stuff, change clothes, drive anywhere before retreating for the night. This is a game-changer. With the many Airbnb/VRBO options everywhere, consider finding a local one that is close. Avoid the long drive into town where the check in at a hotel is more time consuming. Make this a simple transition from party to romantic evening alone. You don’t want to look back with any regrets on wedding night.
Check out soon my Part II blog on this topic where I will address fun ideas directed more towards your guests. If they are having fun, it will be much more fun for you two as well.
~ Margie