Wedding Mistakes to Avoid When Planning Your Big Day

Stay Hydrated Throughout the Day

A common mistake we see many times is not staying hydrated throughout the day. The number one time of day when the couple needs a bottle of water the most (sometimes a towel to wipe off sweat) is during the portrait hour between the ceremony and reception.

Sadly, no one really gets the couple anything because everyone’s focused on a couple of things,

1. greetings each other and chatting

2. heading over to a ‘happy-hour’ while photos and video are being taken

3. they are part of the immediate family and are waiting to get pictures done

We recommend that you have a small bag with two bottles of cold water, an ice pack to keep them cold and a towel for the couple nearby. The best person to carry this around is typically one of the moms or the maid of honor.

This bag can be one of those small, insulated packs that can easily carry a couple bottles of water for the bride and groom.

I’ve seen where the couple has been thirsty and needed something to drink, yet no one was getting them anything to sip on in between taking images. It’s one of the most important, yet most overlooked line items at weddings and it’s something that you generally won’t find on a list of wedding things to do.

Don’t Micro Manage Your Day

Roughly 32% of brides try to micro manage their wedding day.

Listen, it’s a great idea to draw your guests a map to the venue, it’s another to plot out bathroom breaks for your vendors.

One of the key things that you are doing is hiring professionals to cover your wedding. While there are different subcategories within the wedding industry, like catering, flowers and photography, we all understand what jobs we need to do and how best to do them at a wedding.

I remember dong a wedding last year where the wedding planner and the bride wrote out page after page of photos they wanted with the photographer. The problem was they didn’t let the photographer have the list and it made things much harder to photograph by not being able to look at the list and cross each line item off.

Well, since the couple didn’t involved the photographer, the happy-hour turned into two hours and by the time they had finished, some of the guests had left which made the wedding party upset.

Had they worked everything out ahead of time with the photographer (and videographer) they would have been able to do everything in a timely manner and things would have had a better flow.

Be clear about what you’d like to have happen at your wedding, but please don’t micro-manage the vendors to the point where they can’t do what they need effectively.

Trying to Please Everyone

Something I find a lot of times is the couple trying to please everyone at the wedding with accommodations, special things and the like. I’ve seen brides trying to make their mom happy with all sorts of details about the day, I’ve seen groomsmen having special liquor just for their siblings because they complained about wanting them at the wedding.

Well, truth be told, this is the couples wedding and they should have whatever they want without interference with trying to please every guest, every wedding party member or family member.

Do what you feel is right and do what makes you happy at your wedding day. Don’t try to please everyone by offering or doing everything.

The truth is you will NEVER please 100% of people 100% of the time in your life, so why try to please people at YOUR wedding then they should be there to celebrate you and your spouse to begin with?

Focus on what is important to you, focus-on the wedding day, focus on your spouse. Everything else is secondary.

Let’s Recap

Sometimes the smallest things can make a world of difference at a wedding and it can prevent any issues that may pop up from time-to-time, TRUST us, it happens more than you think.

• Make sure you have an additional 10-15% on your dinner menu to cover those you’re not thinking about on the guests like like vendors, unknown plus-one’s and those wanting more than just one plate of food.

• Connect with your vendors to get a better idea of how long ‘happy-hour’ needs to be. Sometimes it’s less than an hour, sometimes it’s two hours. There are lots of variables like the number of family members and wedding party that all play into the length of a happy-hour.

• Consider having an staged or earlier fake-exit for your older guests and those with children, otherwise, they will not be able to send you off.

• If your wedding is going to have some kids, plan on having something for them to do. The more entertained they are, the less stressed their parents will be and the longer they will stay at the wedding too.

• If you’re having an outdoor wedding, have a secondary plan in case of bad weather. This is very important.

• Stay hydrated throughout the day and have someone carry around a bottle of water for you and your spouse during picture taking time.

• Be specific about what you want at the wedding, but don’t micro manage the vendors. Sometimes, we need to changes things up if a situation arises and sometimes, we just need to go to the bathroom for two minutes when nothings going on.

• Focus on you, your spouse and your wedding day. Stop trying to please parents, friends and guests. They should be there to celebrate you no matter what you have for a ceremony and reception.