What I've Learned Since Getting Married

Dekazer

I have a few tips that I gathered when we got married on 17th December 2011 - hope they might be of use to a few of you, at least Overall, we had a great day, but I confess I found certain bits rather overwhelming, and I definitely enjoyed the honeymoon more!! I'm really enjoying looking at friends' and family's photos, and looking forward to seeing the professional ones as well, hopefully soon..

1. Don't, whatever you do, walk into a room for the first time alone! We arrived at our evening venue by bus, and I had spent the journey chatting to a friend's young daughter. On arrival, I unthinkingly wandered in with her, to a packed room and a round of applause - nightmare. Poor hubby came in a minute later and was almost ignored.

2. Leave more time for everything than you think you'll need. I thought I'd left plenty of time for the whole registry office caboodle, but the registrar was so lovely and really spun out the ceremony. Some I've been to only lasted 15 mins, but we were in ours for over 30. It meant that we didn't have time for all the photos we wanted, and were subsequently running late for the rest of the day.

3. Flat shoes for the evening - I was thrilled to get into mine for the dancing!

4. Make sure you leave plenty of time for photographs if you want them. I wasn't too fussed, but even we managed not to get everything we wanted.

5. Be very firm if anyone bothers you. For example, when we arrived at our evening venue the caterer beelined straight for me with her little problems and fusses. I had to be quite firm to tell her to talk to my father about it - I didn't want to know! It annoyed me for about 15 minutes, silly woman, so make sure you're not shy and don't get railroaded by anyone.

6. Appoint a treasurer for the day. We gave my Dad a fistful of cheques and cash, and he handled all the little expenses on the day (the odd taxi, tips, payments etc). It meant we didn't have to worry at all.

7. If you're worried about something not working out, feel free to break convention. We had thought about doing a bit exit in the evening, but we weren't sure the clear up would work out. We ended up staying to the end. I had read a poster here saying she didn't like being in the car park waiting for a taxi at the end, but we were pleased to make sure that we had cleared up and vacated ok, and I actually relished being able to have final chats and smoke a couple of illicit ciggies

8. If you're not going straight on honeymoon, and if you can possibly afford it, I can't recommend highly enough staying in a hotel for two nights. We stayed in a brilliant hotel, and I would have been gutted to have had to check out after only being there for 10 hours. We got a deal in the MSE weekly email for BOGOF nights at our hotel, and it meant we could have a leisurely breakfast in our room and spent the day chilling out, and had a lovely dinner in the restaurant before heading home on the Monday. We didn't have our honeymoon until 10 days later, so it was good to have a two night mini-moon.

9. Put enough effort into planning the honeymoon. Because we had 10 days between the wedding and the honeymoon, I left a lot of prep until then. I felt a bit rushed and could have used more time. Actually, the wedding passed in a flash and our friends and family probably enjoyed it more than we did, but the honeymoon was 3 weeks of pure bliss just for us - LOVED it.


Hope that helps. I feel strangely drawn back to this forum even now we're married (I want to stick around to see photos of all the weddings I've been reading about for the past year!!). I reckon I'll have more pieces of advice, I only hope they can help.

Cheers all,

Lucy

Little_Moo

This thread is brilliant. I should have discovered it before my wedding day.

Your absolutely right, don' t worry about the little things you know you didn't do, your guests will never know they were meant to happen. Try to relax.

Without even knowing it, when I took the walk down the aisle I was smiling and saying hello to some of our friends, everyone said it was lovely to see I was happy and smiling rather than looking worried. With the vows we stood side on, and its true that you do get a feeling of involving everyone more - my only problem was that I got the giggles facing me other half during the rehearsal :-)

Just relax and enjoy your day. It's very true that it is over FAST!! There are things I would do if I re-lived it, like I forgot to cut my cake and I wish I'd have gone for the late licensed bar. But, all said and done I had an amazing time.

fawny

Great advise Lucy. Glad you had a good day & a great honeymoon.:j

bratz81

Dekazer, lovely post but just wanted to say - you got married on my 30th birthday!!