I've just booked my wedding..has anyone got any advice or tips to share with me??

[fifisworld]

We are having our ceremony at a Marriott Hotel at 4pm, then having canapes and drinks with family until the reception starts at 7pm.
I have been looking though loads of magazines etc but wondered what tips anyone had, whats a waste of money etc??
We are only having about 30 ish people to the ceremony then a big party at the night time.

just chill out and enjoy stick some rescue remedy and some facial blotting papers in your little bag and wear waterproof mascara

All I would say is 'enjoy the day' and do not worry too much about other people's enjoyment.

All I can remember from my wedding day (apart from it raining all day) is the reception and making sure that everyone had a drink, was enjoying themslves, etc. that I forgot to make sure that I enjoyed myself (although, I did).

buying a fancy cake that costs a fortune is a waste as no bugger ever eats the stuff.

We bought ours in M&S (they do three sizes so you ca have tiers if you want), for a fraction of the cost of a baker shop one, and decorated it to co-ordinate with our colours and it looked fab.....

make your own table centres using cheap IKEA vases and some simple flowers to match your bouquet.

I also made all my own invitations and table settings, although I'm not sure in the end that it saved me any money, but it was much more personal. I'm Scottish and married a Yorkshireman and I did tiny silk thistles intertwined with tiny white roses, on a background to match our theme colour.

We married at 4pm and then went to a hotel for evening reception, it was much more relaxed than having the sit down meal and speeches, plus the money we saved!
I had silk flowers which worked out much cheaper than real ones, and I get to keep my bouquet!
A neighbour made the cake, it was beautiful.
We had balloon displays on the tables instead of flowers, It was a fantastic day, I would do it again if I could!
We didn't have a proffesional photographer, we bought a really good camera, and got SIL to take photos, also lots of guests take them too, my brother filmed ceremony on our camcorder.

Good luck, enjoy it

Thanks everyone

I think we are having ballons rather than flowesr on the tables with it just being the night-time reception.
One thing i was wondering about was favours, is it worth having them if im not having a sit down meal, like to use them as part of the table decoration or is it just a waste of money.
I think my aunty is doing our cake, depending on what we want, if not i will definatley look into getting one from m&s or somewhere and decorating it how i want

don't invite any children

then come on here and tell everyone about it

Make sure that there is a little window in the day when you and your new DH can get together and bit excited about being married all by yourselves. We found having the photos of us taken after the ceremony really handy, as it took us away from everyone else and we had fun just the two of us for a little while.

From now until the wedding day, don't stress about the details. It's OK if colors don't match etc. The important thing is that you and DH will be married and everyone there will be people who love you, who won't be criticising every little detail.

If you can afford it, get a professional photographer. You will treasure those photos for the rest of your life. AND get loads of disposable cameras and leave them on the tables for people to take pictures, then collect them at the end.

Alcohol is the most expensive item of a reception and people go through staggering amounts of the stuff at weddings. Buy wholesale and have it delivered to reception hall. You will have to give a small amount per bottle opened & served to the management, but still it comes cheaper.

Wear your wedding shoes before so they don't kill your feet on the night. Even then, bring more comfortable/lower shoes to dance with later in the night.

Congratulations

Fifi, with regard to favours, we made heart shaped cookies and tied a tag with the guests name onto it so they served as favours and place cards.
Very cheap to do and they went down a treat.

My fave wedding photo is on my profile page, I think its just as nice as any proffesional one

Congratulations, I loved my wedding day, it is my all time favourite day ever and that of my DH ( I know it should be the day that DS was born but it wasn't a particularly pleasant labour so don't want to remember it)

Second anyone who has said not to get stressed about anything. People are there to see you and your beloved get married and have a good time, unless they are particularly anal they won't know where the cake came from or care.

We did disposable cameras on tables and I have to say that I thought they were a waste of money. The photos came out all blurred and dark and were frankly rubbish. We do however have a number of budding amateur photographer friends who along with the professional photographer took some lovely shots. I made sure that they didn't take longer than half an hour though, I hate it as a guest when you have to wait half starved whilst the wedding party go off for hours on end. To that end we probably went overboard on the food making sure there were canapes, then the dinner then a buffet, I just hate being hungry at weddings.

My uncle camcorded and did a good job apart from forgetting that it was recording and slagging us off drunkenly during our first dance, it was deserved though.

Just remember why you are there and you will have a wonderful day.

A really lovely thing my brother and SIL did was to tie sparklers on a bunch of helium filled balloons. After it got dark we went outside, lit the sparklers and let them drift off over the hills. Cheap and stunning.

My sister got everyone to upload their digital photos onto one of those online photo accounts so they were all avaliable to all.

If you're planning your own wedding, best bit of advice I can give is to ask your most organised, unflappable friend to make sure everything runs smoothly on the day. Let them know what you have planned and why, then sit back and let them deal with the innevitable hiccups and/or major meltdowns while you and DH enjoy yourselves.

don't read any wedding magazines! They exist purely to make you spend money with their advertisers. They are very effective at making you think you need to have something (favours, matching this that and the other) when you don't.

If you are getting quotes for things (cake, band etc.) say it is for a party not a wedding - loads of people up their charges for weddings.

When you send out invitations include a timetable for the day so that people know when they are going to eat (particularly if you are inviting anyone pregnant, with small children, diabetic or otherwise likely to need to know).

the top tip I had from a friend when planning my wedding was to think about the weddings you have been to and write down all the things you remembered that were good and bad. These are usually to do with the quality of the food, whether there was enough to drink, if the speeches went on too long etc. Worry (a bit) about these things, forget about whether colours match!

Thanks everyone, theres some really good tips on here.
I have found that as soon as you say wedding the prices seem to shoot up so i'll definatley be shopping around.

congratulations fifisworld

my wedding was my favourite day ever, just like rookiemaster

my main piece of advice would be similar to a lot of others: don't sweat the small stuff. This is all about you and your DP getting married surrounded by people you love, so as long as you manage to get married (actually I almost didn't even manage this bit ) then it's been a success.

If you know the basic outline of your day - ceremony, reception really you've done the biggest jobs. The only other things I spent any significant time on were guestlist/invitations and my dress fittings.

totally agree with MrsTittleMouse about having a small window of time to just take in the fact that you're married. The whole day is such a whirl that some quiet time is really special. Although you need to balance it with rookiemaster's advice not to leave people too long with no food and nothing to do.

Also, although Bumblelion is right about enjoying the day and not spending the whole time worrying if people are having fun, I would say beforehand try to be as accommodating of your guests and their requests/needs as you can. The more relaxed and welcoming you are to your guests the more they are likely to be relaxed and in good humour on the day.

That's it. Oh and try, if possible, not to have your bridesmaid chasing you around the house at 3am the night before trying to wrestle a bottle of champagne out of your hands and just go to bed as you are told.

deffo look at the wedding cakes in M&S - I got mine there too and decorated with flowers that matched my bouquet - twas gorgeous.

Didn't bother with favours either - and no-one noticed (I think)

It's such a whirlwind of a day, make sure you take time out to catch your breath.

Get your bridesmaid to take a ton of photos when it's just you and the bridesmais getting ready, then you can make a greeat girlie album all of your own - my best mate and matron of honour actually did this for mje and gave me a beautiful album as an extra wedding present.

Deffo do a gift list at a store you REALLY love, and choose things you know you'll want - I didn't do this and wish I had.

God I'm jealous - I loved organising my wedding!

Neither my dh or I like fruit cake so we got a chocolate cake made that also doubled as the pudding - a lady my mum knew made it and it was the nicest chocolate cake I've ever eaten as well as being significantly cheaper than getting a 'proper' wedding cake / bakery to do it. We served it with fresh raspberries along with some jugs of cream and raspberry coulis so people could turn it into whatever sort of pudding they wanted, from full on chocolate-fest to just fruit and fruit sauce as they wanted. Also saved on having to fork out for a separate pudding and having to deal with mountains of uneaten fruitcake at the end of the evening.

Our meal was mid afternoon, so we had a mid-evening buffet as well - not sure what sort of food you are planning on serving. But rather than get carried away with a big buffet that the venue was saying was 'popular' (ie expensive!) we sat and thought what we liked and things that ran out quickly at events we'd been to. We narrowed it down to just little hot sausages, veggie pizza slices, cheese board, rolls (to put sausages or cheese in if required), very simple fruit bowl (lots of grapes, apples and pears I think - things that are easy to eat and not splash coloured juice on things!) and then more of the chocolate wedding cake (which was so yummy that people were more than happy to have more of it). Was significantly cheaper than getting them to do a 'proper' buffet but was very well received by people there. And the stuff that was left over we took home and used the next day - they packed it up for us, we stuck it in the fridge and it was fine as we had friends and family around, meant there was food for people to pick at without us having any hassle.

One thing that caught us out was at the end of the evening - the time went so quickly that suddenly the lights were going on and we had to get out of the room. Despite having a gift list, lots of people had brought presents with them which meant we suddenly had to find a way of getting them back to the hotel with us - or maybe you're staying in the hotel in which case it may well be much simpler, but still probably worth having a chat with your liaison person to see if they can get someone to put things safely in a locked store overnight or help out getting them to your room.

and of course as everyone says, relax and enjoy your day!