3 Secrets to having the BEST wedding ever!
No matter what your wedding budget is, from $1,000 to over $100,000, it’s possible to have the best wedding ever, believe it or not.
Today, Carole and I will go over the top 3 wedding secrets to having a successful wedding day.
Wedding Secret #1 - Your Mindset
So the first secret has to do with you and your mindset about the wedding day. As a bride, you most likely have this amazing vision in your head, perhaps a vision board or the like.
The ugly truth about weddings is this, no matter how much you plan, no matter if you micro-manage things down to the granular level, mistakes will always happen during a wedding.
It’s a reality.
You’re going to stress over things, but let the professionals handle that mess while you focus on yourself.
I’ve been a wedding filmmaker for 22 years and counting and I can tell you without a doubt, not a single wedding went off without a mistake being made or something veering off the timeline of the day.
Not a single wedding in my career has been 100% mistake-free.
It may be something small like the flower girl started crying and she dumped all her pedals, it could be something big like rain on your wedding day or someone was 15 minutes late to the ceremony.
What we can tell you is this, just roll with the day and have fun.
Don’t worry about details, your guests are not coming to the wedding to praise you on how the folded napkins look.
Don’t worry about the vendors, if you hired good, experienced professionals, they’ll go above and beyond their job for you.
Part of having a great wedding day is to just relax and let things unfold. if something happens, laugh it off, enjoy yourselves. The guests are there for you, not the details of the day and how they are laid out.
Relax, enjoy the day, live in the moment with your new spouse.
If you do this, you’ve just eliminated about a third of your stress for the day.
Wedding Secret #2 - Your Guests
The next wedding secret is about your guests.
You will want to keep them happy and occupied throughout the day’s events. While they are at the wedding to see and celebrate you and your new marriage, you will want to also make sure they’re taken care of while on your special day.
So, for example, if you’re having an outdoor wedding and it’s hot, have iced bottles of water, hand fans to keep cool, or umbrellas if it’s planning on being rainy.
During cocktail hour, have music, finger foods, adult beverages, and also things to do for the children, that’s a huge step that couples often overlook.
We’ll tell you a little secret. If you have kids at the wedding, offer them lots do to throughout the day. The longer they’re happy, the longer the parents are happy and the longer they’ll stay.
From a table with games, puzzles, and toys to perhaps a TV with a couple of movies to watch, some venues even offer a playground to keep them occupied, the more the merrier.
With adults, you will want to go beyond having a DJ at the wedding. Not everyone dances and not everyone can hear over loudspeakers either.
We recommend having an area for dancing and an area for older guests to mingle, catch up and relax.
Some of the best wedding venues will offer additional things to do like a smores and bourbon bar, rocking chairs and a firepit, a photo booth with props, or live entertainment like a fire-dancer or magician.
That may sound funny to you, but trust me, having people entertained makes them want to stay longer at the reception.
Going above the standard DJ will keep your guests happy and you’ll get to enjoy them more.
Wedding Secret #3 - Your Pocketbook
While you may be forking out a lot of money for the wedding, the truth is this:
You don’t need to have a ton of things for your wedding day, it’s not about how much you spent, it’s about celebrating the day with friends and family.
If you’re a regular reader of the wedding blog, then you know about all the great money-saving secrets and tips that we provide, especially on the bigger ticket items like wedding venues or wedding photos and films like us for example.
The MORE that you educate yourself about how the wedding industry operates, the more you can let your bank account breathe.
In fact, according to theKnot, 45 percent spent more than they'd planned by an average of $7,319!
That’s because they didn’t have a solid upfront budget gameplan.
One of the most misleading things that couples do is simply ask how much they should spend on a vendor, sometimes they’ll state it like this:
“What is everyone paying for their wedding [vendor]?”
That’s the wrong approach.
Look to your budget for those answers.
As we’ve explained before, the wedding industry has 4 different classifications, budget, mid-range, high-end, and luxury.
Those apply to all vendors in the industry and sometimes vendors overlap within them but rest assured if you have a budget number for a vendor, there’s a great chance you’ll be able to find one within reason.
Not only are there ways to save money, but there are also ways to pay for the wedding too, like taking on a second job or using one paycheck to live on while the other pays for the wedding if you’re living together.
In any case, staying on track with the budget is key to doing it right.
Let me give you a great example that I often tell couples.
If you’re having a $5,000 wedding, you’re not going to spend $4,000 on it with a photographer. But, on the other hand, if you’re having an $80,000 wedding (they do have them) chances are you will not be seeking a budget photographer for $600.
Listen, if you only have $12 to spend per guest for food, you will find a vendor. If you only have $500 to spend on a DJ, again you’ll find someone. If you have $100 to spend on food and $2,000 to spend on a DJ, you’ll find them too.
Overall, you will want to keep your budget on track and make sure that you’re not overspending for the wedding day.
Combine this with your own sanity and keeping guests relatively happy throughout the day will make for a great wedding day that you can enjoy and be happy with too!
