Planning a Stress Free Wedding
Wedding Day Advice from some wonderful past couples that had fabulously fun and chilled wedding days
I wanted to share some stress free wedding day advice from some of my lovely couples with you. Granted my couples are already super laid back, fun loving, often creative and obviously totally awesome(!) but even the most horizontal of us can get stressed when faced with planning a wedding. It is a big deal. It is often an expensive big deal – which often adds to the pressure to get your version of it right.
it’s your wedding
Do what you wanna do!
I love to work with couples who have the conviction to do what they wanna do, who don’t feel obliged to incorporate forced traditions (don’t get me wrong here, traditions are absolutely fine and can be perfectly lovely so long it is WHAT YOU WANT TO DO) and who ultimately know that whether or not the day runs like clockwork they are determined to have the best day ever.
Anyway, I shall rattle on with my top tips another time until then I shall leave you to some words of wisdom from my couples of weddings past…
PLEASE YOURSELVES
Be selfish. We wouldn’t change anything. – Charlene & Simon
OLIVIA & LUKE
I would say – as cliche as it sounds – take everything in! The day goes by so quickly.
YOU CAN’T PLEASE EVERYONE!
It’s highly unlikely that you will be able to please everyone so stop trying! At the end of the day, you are getting married because you want to make a special commitment to your partner, surrounded by loved ones (be it 10 or 100) and that’s what the day should be about. Not about trying to please everyone else. – Phyllida & Tom
Be ‘Present’
If you are prepared and organised then there is no need to stress on your wedding day. Try and be present throughout the day, greet as many of your guests as possible who have travelled some way to celebrate your day, and have fun! Strongly recommend hiring a wedding planner or at least a day of coordinator to take that stress off you! And obviously hire Jordanna for your photographer ;-). – Laura & James
Wait for the dress
Don’t pick your wedding dress too soon! There is so much pressure on brides to get your dress sorted months in advance but there are some amazing high street, off the rail etc. options that also don’t break the bank.
DO THINGS THE WAY YOU WANT
Always bring kazoos!
Don’t follow tradition unless you really want to.
Do things the way that you want and have fun with it. Any time we worried that we were taking the planning too seriously we added in another fun element that was really us. We entered the marquee for dinner to a cacophony of kazoos which was both brilliant and totally insane. We didn’t follow any tradition unless it had a strong meaning to us.
Don’t worry or check the weather in the week leading up to the wedding. You can change it. Have a wet and dry weather plan, hire some fun umbrellas just in case and then relax. You will have an amazing day and get some great photos even if it pours down with rain. Things will go wrong, you may or may not notice on the day but you won’t care because you’ll be having too much fun.
Drink water. Have a bottle of water under your seat (or nearby) in the service/ceremony. Accept all offers of help even if you don’t know what you’re going to get them to do. As the day gets closer you will find things and be glad that people offered. Chase people for RSVPs but don’t let it stress you out. People are awful at replying and your wedding day isn’t as important to anyone else as it is to you and that’s ok. Get someone to save you a plate of canapés.
Get someone to save you a plate of canapés.
About three months before the wedding you might feel really alone and stressed, or you might bicker more than normal with your OH. Don’t let that eat away at you and worry that there is something wrong with your relationship. Wedding planning is stressful. Take a day or a week off and do something for yourself or the two of you that has nothing at all to do with weddings. – Zara & Robin
JUST CHILL
Chill and remember what people have come for to see two people they love get married! The only advice I would say is; Don’t Stress. Enjoy the planning, you’re only going to do it once so have fun doing it. But, just don’t let any of it stress you out. Chill. Remember what it’s all about. No one really cares about all the stuff that stresses you out. They’ve come to see two people they love get married and have dance. – Holly & Ged
Accept help from your friends and family
Use your friends! We couldn’t have got through the last days before the wedding and the day itself without the amazing support (and manual/physical labour) of our closest friends. They schlepped, they built things, they had difficult conversations with suppliers, they turned up early, stayed late, and four of them even went back to our venue with epic hangovers the next morning to collect our stuff, while we were swanning off on our honeymoon.
We made a big list of things we needed people to take care of, from handing out booklets to keeping our wedding certificate safe to picking up bagels for midnight (yum!) and assigned each task to someone. We realised that people like to feel involved and useful, and it makes a big difference to you – you have enough on your plate! Also, as good as your communications/relationship with the venue or your suppliers may be, there are always things that don’t quite happen as you’d intended them to on the day – in these cases, it’s amazing if one of your friends can leap to the rescue before you’ve even noticed, so you can just relax and enjoy the day. – Ruth & Dan
DIY weddings are a lot of hard work – but worth it if you can handle it!
If you’re planning on doing a DIY wedding think VERY hard if you can actually take it on… it is A LOT of work! I definitely understand the point of hiring a wedding planner now and in hindsight we may have done that. There were times we wished we had got married in a registry office and hired a pub instead! It was all worth it in the end and we had an EPIC weekend, which was exactly what we wanted. I’m not sure I would go through it again though… – Léonie & Leo
Prioritise your most important musts!
Pick 2 or 3 things as a priority and focus on getting those right. We decided we wanted to put the people coming to the wedding at the heart of it so our priorities were finding a venue where people could have a mingle, enjoy some nice food and have room to dance the night away. We were also keen to make sure that our friends, most of whom live in London and don’t have bags of money, could come and celebrate without having to shell out on getting to the wedding and back. With this in mind, a relaxed London wedding seemed the natural answer! Once we’d got that sorted we realised that we didn’t need to worry so much about everything else. We ran out of time to sort favours and no one even noticed so our advice is don’t sweat the small stuff.
We made each other’s wedding rings at The Quarter Workshop in Birmingham which was really special and added a nice personal touch to exchanging rings. It was definitely one of the highlights of planning the wedding and it’s so lovely to have a ring that’s been handcrafted by your partner. We really recommend giving it a go! – Katie & Ben
Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff
Don’t sweat the small stuff. You will inevitably find yourself in a blazing row 5 days before the wedding about the £70 he just spent on a dish rack which is the ugliest monstrosity you’ve ever seen and at £70, REALLY???!! It’s because weddings are stressful, no matter how you spin them. It’s a big old party with a lot of people and family politics and a hell of a lot of money and that inevitably means pressure. Just enjoy it. On the day, whatever happens, it will be wonderful – you will be in a room full of the people you love AND you got to choose the food and music . What could be better?! – Victoria & Dan
Stress free wedding advice
I hope this post on Stress Free Wedding Day Advice has been helpful and given you a little bit of food for thought. I like to have the last word so I would say include your family but ultimately please yourselves and stamp all your unique fabulousness over your wedding day and have fun!
Oooh and one more thing no matter how much effort you have put in before the day – once the day comes just chill and enjoy every minute. Even if things go a little awry – no one but yourselves will know unless you tell them so laugh it off and crack on with having the best day ever! WORD. 🙂 Jordanna
Fancy a Chinwag?
I love a stress free wedding, and if you’re the kind of couple who loves colour, fun and everything in betwee, then you’re in the right place.
My work kinda reflects what the inside of my head looks like: rainbow-bright colours, fireworks going off, wedding guests bouncing around to 80s funk, and at least three people laughing and/or crying. If that’s the kinda thing that floats your boat, then let’s get together and have a chat.
