Things I have learned about wedding planning

Near the end of last week, TYG observed that ironically, we’re now very skilled in planning a wedding——the irony being we have no intention of ever using those abilities again (we’re not planning on kids and certainly not planning to find new spouses down the road). But it seems a shame not to put the lessons learned to some sort of use, so I figured a blog post would be the perfect tool for sharing knowledge with anyone who’s a)getting married and b)saving money by doing as much of the work themselves as possible.
•Start planning early.
I thought TYG was a little silly for worrying over details more than a year ago. I was very wrong. Even if you have no idea what has to be done, there are lots of wedding books available for DIY and budget-conscious weddings. She devoured several of them.
•People do not always respond as you might expect.
We had to nudge some of our friends because they never RSVPed. Some had legitimate reasons——struggling to the last minute to find vacation time, or never getting the e-invite——but some just … didn’t. Even on the day itself, several confirmed guests never showed or sent us even last-minute notice.
On the other hand we had a couple of (quite welcome) unexpected guests show up in the form of invitees’ adult offspring. Even if everyone we’d expected had shown, we prepared the leeway for at least a few extra people. In hindsight, that was smart.
•Use your friends.
This was the advice everyone gave us. This time last year, I frankly doubted that they’d be able to help much, but boy, was I wrong! Friends made the wedding cakes (one per table), prepared flowers, fetched and carried, prepped and cleaned. My friend David Rauschkolb of Bud & Ally’s provided affordable catering (and first rate!); Mari Darr-Welch gave us a good deal on photography. People’s willingness to help continuously took my breath away.
•Know your limits.
TYG initially thought we could do all the cooking ourselves, or rope friends in to help. On top of everything else we did last week, we’d have exhausted ourselves by the wedding day. Catering was totally worth spending money on.
•Prioritize.
We wanted friends with us to celebrate, so we went with a guest list of 200 (it dropped a lot by the wedding day). We were willing to cut costs where we could to get that many people. If you’d rather go with a lower number so you can splurge more, that’s fine——just know what your top priorities are.
•Disasters will occur.
Our officiant almost missed her plane.
I busted my glasses——and I would not be happy looking at wedding photos where I wasn’t wearing them. Fortunately, TYG found a place that sold screws and screwdrivers for glasses, so the crisis was averted.
•Don’t sweat the small stuff.
TYG was increasingly worried near the end that one of our friends who’d volunteered to lead a post-reception pub crawl (for those of the group who wanted to get out and drink——Eden Gardens has a no-booze policy so it was a dry reception) hadn’t given her an itinerary or a timeline. I suggested that this was unimportant: It wasn’t necessary for the wedding and she had more than enough stuff on her plate that was.
Turned out I was right: Despite some advance calls for hitting the bars, everyone was much happier crashing at the after-party, so the crawl never happened. More generally——
•Weddings are about the romance and celebration, not the decorations.
Everyone told us we should relax on the day itself. That when it was over, nobody would remember any problems or inconvenient details——what they’d remember would be the looks on our faces when we said the vows, and stuff like that.
100 percent right.