Whatever your wedding budget, these are the five biggest issues all couples face when planning their wedding and my advice for how to deal with them…
THE GUEST LIST
Whether it’s narrowing this down due to venue restrictions, budget restrictions or simply because you don’t want to invite someone your parents are insisting on coming, every couple faces guest list dilemmas. My advice is this – if it’s going to severely spoil your experience of the day – then inviting them should be a hard no. Otherwise, consider making the compromise. Particularly if parents are paying. Ultimately it’s probably not worth the upset it’ll cause if you’re on the fence.
If you’re needing to cull people you’d actually love to invite if you had more capacity, see this as a test of how much you want someone to come. If they are that important to you, then you should really be considering different venues with more capacity. If that thought makes you want to cry, then tough guest list decisions will need to be made. And remember things might change along the way; always have a reserve list and some spare invites in case of dropouts.
OVERCOMPLICATION
It is so easy to think you need a Champagne tower, a magician, ballet dancers, fire jugglers or a myriad of other things to ‘entertain’ your guests, but I promise you really don’t. What you need is a day that has considered timings, flowing drinks, plenty of food and music throughout. Even if this is a playlist, rather than live acts – using music to set the tone really makes a huge difference.
SOCIAL MEDIA OVERWHELM
As soon as you’re engaged, you’ll be bombarded with wedding-related social media content. It’s so easy to get caught up in the excitement of this and start overspending, or worse – thinking that your wedding isn’t going to be good enough. Please please remember that influencers who are getting married are often being given things FOC and that as an influencer, a wedding is a huge opportunity for content creation (excuse me while I die a little inside). I personally think it’s a great thing that you don’t have to monetise your wedding day. Surely some things should be sacred?! You can enjoy your day in the moment rather than thinking about capturing moments for a reel. I promise I’ve done countless weddings where we haven’t had a rota of Instagram moments to checkoff, instead there have just been real life moments of wonder and joy!
OTHER PEOPLE’S OPINIONS
Ultimately if it’s not someone you really care about then I advise the nod, smile and walk-away approach. Everyone will have an opinion on the decisions you make for your wedding. From the very start, throughout the planning process and even on the day itself. As a wedding planner, I’ve seen guests’ snarky reactions to all sorts of things from the décor, to the bar set up, to the food. Trust me, it says more about them than it does about you.
THE TABLE PLAN
It’s the ultimate relationship test. Seriously though, if you can create a table plan for your wedding without killing each other, then your marriage is going to be a sure-fire success. My advice here would be that whoever it is you end up upsetting (ie not putting on the top table), make sure you give them some personal attention on the wedding day itself. And if you have any empathetic family members, ask them to be the ones who aren’t sitting in the ‘hot seats’ – a bit of private communication as to why you’re having to make certain decisions goes a long way!