If you are about get married or our married what would you change or do different on your special wedding day.

[cava]

Im intrigued becuase been with dp for a long time and have two children think we when we do I will go off and have a party.

Nothing about the day itself - we had a gorgeous church wedding here for family only, followed by a big ceilidh back in Stirling. The only thing I would do differently is spend a bit more on my dress and the bridesmaids dresses, which is shallow of me, I know! We were on a budget, and they really weren't what I wanted.

i wanted tradition becuase i thought that was how it was supposed to be so my uncle walked me down the aisle - i wish i had more maturity at the time to have my mother walk me down the aisle it would have been the right thing to do in hindsight.

anyway - if i was goin to give my daughter advice - i would avise her to either make it a cheapo affair at the registrar with a party down the pub - or to hav ehte whole thing abroad on a sandy beach with ust the people she loved - instead of catering thousands for societies convention and one up mansship

Thats beautiful Paolosgirl the setting and church,you know im sure Its so hard to have what you really want unless your loaded or have a fairy godmother waiting in the wings then you have to make sacrifices I just sometimes wander if I can be bothered with all the hassal.

Good point Hellmouthcusty I always wanted tradition but as I got older 35 ,now its not so important I wont lie and say I love to have a big day but cant really justify the expense not now with the kids, Im so tempted to run of with my dp and kids and say I do with my daughter as bridemaid and son as pageboy.

So agree with HMC, wish I had not been bound by convention [in my own head]].
My mother should have walked with me down the aisle.
Wished the whole thing had been sooo much smaller and much more intimate.

I should have taken so much more control of the reception.
Should definitely have avoided a very expensive hotel with huge costs.
With hindsight, my perfect wedding would be either at home/garden or in a local village/church hall. Beautifully decorated with natural flowers by myself and friends. No more than immediate family and oldest friends.
No more that 40 guests. Everything very informal but lots of attention to detail.
Catering would be done by small unprofessional company, all very simple, fresh salmon and champagne. Strawberries and cream. Wild flowers and music by local band. Would start at 5pm in May/june/july and be over by 11pm.
A simple ivory silk dress, no more that 3 bridesmaid/flower girls/page boys. No adult maids of honour or whatever they are called.

Everything simple, beautiful, natural and understated. Oh for the benefit of hindsight.
Wish I had never got sucked into the whole bloated wedding bandwagon that seems to exist.

Lots of things, in fact, although I enjoyed getting married [both times].

Would have handed the organisation over to my mother so that the responsibility of hosting was not mine. In both cases I think my partners would have struggled to cope with this, but I would have enjoyed it so much more.

And I would have got over myself and let my father make a speech at my first wedding.

Generally getting over myself would have been a really good idea before getting married. I think doing it with just the kids is lovely, maybe with a party/barbecue afterwards.

When I married for the first time - I did the whole "traditional" wedding to please mothers/families etc. It was shit ...

I got married last year and this time, we were older and already had dd (and dsd), so were able to do exactly what we wanted. We had a civil ceremony and a big piss up party after. No sit down meal, no speeches, no "giving away" the bride, no bestman/attendants (other than dd and dsd in a "pretty" dress), no favours or other such useless guff. We just did the legal bit and celebrated with family and friends - food, booze and cheesy disco. We invited who we wanted and left out who we didn't (no great aunties twice removed). It didn't cost a massive amount and we both loved every minute of it

Cut the cake, talk to more people, not be so embarrassed all day, more people at the meal we had, been nicer to my MIL the week before the wedding.

I had a lovely day though!

With hindsight I wouldn't have spent £££s on a photographer to produce a 'bespoke' wedding album (which sits somewhere in the loft) as many of the guests photos were just as nice.
I'm so, so glad that we splashed out on a DVD of the day though.

I would have had a videographer as well as photographers - saw some mobile phone footage of the speeches and realised how much of it I'd forgotten!

Taken flip flops, spent the entire reception barefoot as my shoes hurt (fortunately you couldn't see under the dress!)

Other than that it was perfect, just a big celebration and party.

lalin - sounds a lot like my wedding day. It was perfect and I wouldn't change a thing .

Lucky you thedolly.
Glad someone else had my perfect wedding day.
Still happily married to DH and have 3 DC . So that is the main thing.
Just wish I had understood what is or is not important on the big day. Congratulations.

We definitely were not confined by convention and the only thing I would do differently would be get a nicer dress.

We had a fab day - registry office in Stratford upon Avon with just family & close friends (about 30 people). A Charabanc bus then took us from there to the river where we took a boat down river for a couple of hours and had lots of nibbles & Pimms & champagne cocktails on the way. Got to the venue proper - gorgeous pub on the river, where all our other guests were waiting. Had a cool jazz band playing, while champagne & canapes were served. Then had a really fab wedding breakfast, lots of fun including a magician and a caricaturist.

Then later had a samba band with dancers like these to shock entertain our guests.

We just had an absolutely fantastic day - it was everything we hoped it would be. No guest had to think about a thing other than having a good time.

But I should have got a better dress.

Have a good time whatever you do

I was 31 (to the day) on the day so I really ought to have known what I wanted. I had been planning it since I was 24 after all .

The only thing I'd change is not listening to anyone and letting them stress me out during the planning. Everyone seems to try and get in their tuppence worth about all the crap you should be doing - "oh, you must invite your cousins, neighbours, uncles, long lot sister because she sent you a card when you were a baby" etc.......and then they go in the huff because you don't agree/listen. Ignore them, they'll get over themselves it.

I would also have gaffer taped my MILs mouth but that's another story

Do it the way you want to do it and don't listen to anyone else.

Best wishes.

I loved our wedding, we had a civil ceremony in a hotel, where 80 odd close friends and family saw us get married then in the same venue had 50 more join us for a banquet meal and massive piss up.
It was very relaxed, no speeches, no formalities and lots of drinking and dancing.
We have had so many people saying it was the best wedding they ever went to (I suspect everyone says that)and came home from honeymoon to an answer machine full of people apologising for their behaviour on the day
Made a change it wasn't me, anyway!

My one massive bit of advice is to treat it like a party, thats all it is, a wedding does not a marriage make.
n all that

The only thing I would do differently is not get so stressed about it beforehand.

I'm with you on the gaffer tape, squeezycheesy . I could have used the lot!!!!

Sorry Lizzylou, but for me, my wedding was much more than 'just a party'. It was a public statement of how my DH and I felt about each other and making a commitment to each other in front of family and friends. Though we had a church wedding, it was quite small compared with many weddings I go to nowadays, and though we did have a few more people along in the evening, for us, it was drfinitely about the vows we made during the service, not the party afterwards. I realise things are somewhat different these days, when I married, it was really not very common to love together for any length of time beforehand, and I really don't know anyone in our friendship groups at that time who had children before they were married. ( not commenting upon it, just saying it really wasn't very widespread when we got married)
Anyway, whilst it may be 'just a party' to some, that is not the case for everyone.

sayithowitis - in the nicest of ways I think you're being a bit unfair on lizzylou. I have been to weddings that have been very serious solemn affairs and also to weddings that were a bit wild and like a 'party'. Both types of wedding are very nice but it is the party ones I remember as being great fun and it doesn't mean that the couples took their vows any less seriously than the others.

You know how you feel about someone before you walk down the aisle and the vows are a relatively small part of a day which essentially is for people to celebrate you joining as a couple, getting hitched, whatever you want to call it.

That is just my opinion, but it goes to show that we all view things differently and that the end result is the same no matter how you do it or how seriously you view the actual day.

I would have had a big white dress instead of understated little suit. I am v shallow.

I spent 20 months planning my wedding and fell pregnant four months before it,(was desperate for a baby and never dreamed we would conceive as soon as we stopped using contraception.)

It was the best thing that could have happened, it stopped me strssing about the small stuff and I was totally focused on the important bits - it felt just right. Plus being completely sober meant I remembered it all! It was my perfect day.

If I was going to give advice to my daughter I would say a wedding is all about the people; as long as everyone you love is there and you are married to the right person at the end of it, nothing else really matters.

Got married at 3pm instead of 4pm.

Not wasted time talking to random people who I didn't know.

Let the sun shine.. (the rain wasn't my doing though)

I get married next week and what I really wanted was a registrar wedding then a big party but here you could only do registars before 12 at the office and I didn't want to spent a fortune on a hotel as they were all boring not what we wanted !

So we are having a meal for 30ish then about another 50 in the evening and loads of things haven't worked out but can't be arsed am
not bothered now