Wedding Advice - WWYD if you could do it over?

[Anonymous]

For reference, I had a mid-sized (roughly 170 guests), semi-formal wedding on a Saturday evening in the fall, a little over a decade ago.

Things I'd do differently:

Totally, totally agree on hiring (not asking a relative or friend) to be the day-of coordinator. I thought I wouldn't need one and wanted to save money, but this is one of the top things I'd do differently.

I'd have done smaller, much less expensive centerpieces.

I wouldn't have registered for so much unnecessary crap. I was just this afternoon going through stuff that I've never used. Martini glasses, really?? WTF was I thinking?

We were having a "no kids" wedding, and drew that line at 18 years old. I didn't make exceptions because I thought if I made an exception for a few, I'd get complaints from extended relatives (both mine and DHs). There a few "kids" that were teens at the time - kids I babysat when I was a teen - that all these years later I still regret not inviting. I should have just dealt with the backlash and invited them as I wanted to.

Had a much more casual rehearsal dinner. Who cares?? My MIL wanted to plan this all herself, but didn't know the area, so we ended up with a catered dinner in a small ballroom of a nice hotel. Way too much money for something that would have been more relaxed and fun at a BBQ joint.

Things I'm still glad I did:

Let my bridesmaids choose their own dresses, from anywhere at any price, with just a color (black) and basic style (long, sleeveless) as the guidelines. Loved, loved, loved how everyone looked together.

Had an open bar, and spent the largest part of the wedding budget on the drinks and good food.

Had a family recipe drink served at the bar - they let us give them the recipe. It added a personal touch, and everyone who had previous been to one of my family's parties (where this drink is ALWAYS served) appreciated it.

Didn't give in to my mom's demands that we have some sort of brunch for close family the morning after the wedding. So, SO glad we didn't do that. Way too exhausted the next day.



As to favors... I still like what we did. I love toffee, so we ordered a bunch of chocolate-covered toffee from a local candy shop, and wrapped a few pieces up with cellophane and pretty ribbon. We had them in a large pretty bowl near the exit for guests to grab if they wanted on their way out. We had some leftover, which we happily ate ourselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would go back in time, elope, and bank the cash.

This. My DH wanted to do all or nothing. He was fine either way - I wish we had just gone to the courthouse and banked the money, or combined the wedding/honeymoon and gotten married in the Caribbean. We thought about a destination wedding, but we got married right around the time that the passport situation was changing, so we felt it was too much of a hassle logistics wise to do that.

[Anonymous]

For reference, we had about 80 people at our wedding, and at least half of that was just DH's immediate family. The one thing that I really regret was that DH and I sort of split up during the reception as hosts of the party and spent time mingling with all of our guests but we weren't together. We made sure that everyone else was having a wonderful time (and over 11 years later I still hear from family that they loved our wedding), but we didn't actually spend much time together to enjoy the day. Admittedly, the reception was a huge party that we were throwing for their benefit since our preference would have been to elope, but if I still wish I'd been able to relax a bit more and handed off hosting duties to someone else.

[Anonymous]

My biggest wedding regret is that I did not visit around to everyone in attendance at the reception. I was all caught up in my stuff but the honeymoon has plenty of time for me/us. Need to greet those people there to support you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Check to make sure my brother and father's tuxes matched the rest of the wedding party. Didn't even realize it until after the ceremony.