Best decision and biggest regret?

[jshailes]

Hi all. My fiance and I have just set a date for 8 weeks time so we've got a busy few weeks ahead! I was wondering if I could ask about your wedding days, and in particular what your favourite decisions were (and maybe the ones you would change if you did it again) to help us plan the big day. TIA

Best - having friends we hadn't seen for a while on our oval 'top' table, and our parents' generation at another table so they could all chat and get to know each other (they suggested it).
Floor-length dress so my dancing looked fab despite zero talent!

Worst: agreeing to let my parents pay for our dream venue. It was fab, and meant my godmother was just down the road (though she was too ill to attend in the end), but my mum got more and more overinvolved and batshit and it was horribly, horribly stressful (until the actual day).
The evening was in the pub we'd planned to have the whole do at, and was fabulous.

@jshailes We vaguely knew the band as we had seen them play before but we let them know that it was a party, not a formal wedding & they made it happen.
They were incredibly personable & mingled with guests at the in between dinner & the evening while they were setting up their gear & subtly got some song requests during that time, made a note of important people & a feel for the party & it influenced what they played. It put people at ease & then when the band called out certain people for not dancing, it was a bit of a joke & people wanted to get up!
I think if you want people to be up & dancing you have to lead the way😅

Congratulations OP, hope you enjoy your wedding planning & big day!

Best decisions; going abroad to get married on our own, we had a fantastic wedding day & honeymoon combined time just the two of us & it was so stress free! We had a evening party at a local hotel a few months after with friends and family, no table plans to worry about, I got to wear my dress twice and have my hair and makeup done twice.

We decided to make our own wedding bands at a local traditional jewellers, it was such a fun day and we were able to have exactly what we wanted but for much cheaper than you pay in a jewellers! We paid for his time teaching/helping us and the insurances and then the price of our chosen metals, hubby chose palladium and I chose platinum.

As we were going abroad I decided to purchase a silk bouquet and it was one of the best decisions I made; I was able to include all my favourite flowers and ones with special meanings like my late grandfathers favourite. I have them on display in my living room and they still look perfect, I love looking at them everyday! We used a company called Silk Blooms but I have just looked them up to send you the link and they have sadly gone into liquidation 😔 but I'm sure there are others out there who you could use.

I bought my wedding dress from a preloved/ex display store and saved a fortune, my dress only cost me £325 and I loved it. I'd tried on dresses which were ridiculously expensive in other shops and they just didn't compare.

Worst decisions; we don't really have any worsts!
I didn't get any chance to have any food at the party we had as I was too busy chatting to everyone and dancing! We did have a close disaster on the wedding day, which is something we now look back and laugh at; we were taking photos on the beach and decided to try to take an arty photo of our handprints in the sand with our wedding rings. We couldn't get the handprints clear enough so went closer to the waters edge, husband had put his handprint down and his ring was in the sand, I was leaning down and doing mine with my rings in my hand ready to put in the sand when I saw the biggest wave coming our way! I managed to grab his ring in time but got absolutely soaked trying to get up the slope of sand away from the wave! Unfortunately the photographer didn't catch the moment on film as he was too busy laughing!

Best we had a small wedding (19 people) and spent all the money on a fantastic honeymoon, we left around 3 in the afternoon to go on our honeymoon

Worst, wish we had had an even smaller wedding and gone away just us 2 and not had to listen to family members moan about food and drink, and we paid for everything. Also the fuss over the bloody dress, its a dress, now in a dusty box somewhere in the attic

Best: everything

(Apart from)

Worst: Best man

Got married two weeks ago

Best - Photographer. Somehow booked a superb one pretty cheap (winter wedding), just got the photos back and they are just out of this world

Worst - Not eloping. If I hadn't got two teens who would've been gutted not to have been there I would've.

@TheReef, I don’t think we told anyone we got married for about four years.

Best decision was marrying at 5pm and having a party straight after- no awkward sit down meal which would have cost a fortune. We just had a big buffet of bacon rolls and chips!
Worst I think was not going for the wedding car that I really wanted. I went for a free one offered by a family member which was lovely of them and we were so grateful but there's a kind of car that's special to my heart and we couldn't bring ourselves to spend £300 on a 15 minute drive.
Also recommended a quality photographer with the skills to put together a decent photobook and a really good DJ to get people moving!

Best decision- videographer who used 2 cameras

Worst decision- the groom

Worst was listening to other people. From our first dance choice, to our venue and bridal party. My parents influenced the whole thing. Half tempted to split from dh so we can do it right again! I wahted a small registry office with minimal guests followed by a trip down the pub. Ended up with a massive marquee with too many guests in too small a space. The wedding party consisted of people we don't like and our first dance meant nothing too us. Best part of the day was marrying dh and grabbing a maccys on the way home in full white dress and veil!
Best decision: the man!

Best decision - trying on a wedding dress at a charity shop - bunch of unsold stock sent there from a local fancy wedding dress shop (Cheshire).
Worst decision- dumping some family members off the invite list in favour of some of dh's grumpy mates that we have never seen again

@MuscatelGrapes how did everyone take the news?

Best 1) booking great photographers even though they were quite expensive. 2) agreeing for the chocolate brownie that I couldn’t finish for dessert to be put in our room for after by the lovely lady who was our venues planner. It was delicious at 4am 🤪

Worst: regret someone not filming the speeches. 2) agreeing for someone to be bridesmaid when it wasn’t right for either of us. I tackled it pre wedding and jt was sorted by the wedding but it was an emotional upheaval when I should have just stuck to my guns

@TheReef, fine, actually -- but then it wasn't some kind of 'Ta-DAAH! WE GOT MARRIED!' announcement, in fact (this is a while ago), I think it leaked out only because of something legal related to inheritance/pensions and one of us unconsciously said something that let the cat out of the bag.

And it's hard to get wildly excited, for good or ill, about a low-key wedding four or more years ago!