Post Wedding Tips | Type A Bride

10 Wedding Tips

Boo to stress and wasted energy. 10 tips to save you from both for your wedding:

1. Have at Least 1 Wedding Day Coordinator: If you’re not going to hire one, ask for a Type A friend to coordinate for you. This is a MUST have in order to actually enjoy and just relax on your special day. A professional though will know how to handle many a complex situation that arises on such a big day.

2. Make Your Wedding Entertaining!: A wedding isn’t all about just how beautiful it is but also on how it can be enjoyable for your guests. This really helps make the wedding not only memorable for you but for them as well! A book we highly recommend is The Best Wedding Reception Ever by Peter Merry.

3. Delegate: It’s amazing how much relief this brings by the time of the wedding! It gets crazy as you get closer and other people’s opinions get louder.

4. Be flexible: People will be early. People will be late. Some will get sick, stuck at work or school, and won’t show up. The weather will not always be your friend. Be flexible and enjoy.

5. Take the Week of Your Wedding Off: I hadn’t planned to originally do this for my wedding but this SERIOUSLY helped! You’re moving and packing. Family is flying into town. Last minute things like bad weather conditions can come up and it’ll help you relax in getting it done. IN FACT: Make sure to take plenty of time off during your whole engagement to just enjoy being with your fiancé. It really matters. All work and no play = no fun and probably not a good way to start your marriage.

6. Rent Don’t Buy: This I can tell is totally a matter of preference but I recommend renting. It’s cheaper and you don’t have to deal with the storage and cleaning of anything. Plus, will you realistically ever use any of it again? Wouldn’t you rather spend that money elsewhere?

7. For Non-Priority Elements, Find Up & Coming Vendors: Try to rank which elements of your wedding are most important to you and prioritize. For parts that aren’t at the top, go for the up and coming vendors. These vendors are eager to prove themselves and you can usually negotiate a better deal.

8. Verify RSVPs Closer to the Event: By sending out e-mails closer to the wedding, we received cancellations and surprise invites from 10% of the guests. I don’t know if we would’ve been notified of them if we hadn’t asked. However, this helped us fill in seats or rearrange them accordingly.

9. Prepare for No-Shows: Research shows that the average wedding has 5-10% of people who say yes in their RSVP still not show up. My personal experience from weddings I’ve attended are 10-20%. At our wedding, about 6% did not show up. This may not sound like a lot but it is a lot of money when you multiply the headcount with the prepaid cost you already gave to the caterer/venue. What solutions can there be? Perhaps, overinvite. Have a back-up list of guests. Don’t have seating arrangements so people can easily be added in without moving others around.

10. Register at Bed, Bath & Beyond: This tip works for events other than weddings too: i.e. baby showers, graduations, house warming, etc. Why might you ask?

• CASH Exchange: Return gifts AND gift cards for cash!

• Discounts: Get 10% off any items not purchased on the registry. Granted: their stuff on its own is expensive.

• Easy for Guests: $100+ items have free shipping. This store has the easiest registry to use in navigating in-store that I’ve experienced. 20% off coupons are found everywhere to help your guests save money. Free gift-wrapping is always offered.

• Registry Incentives: PRO: Get free stuff for registering and for completed items. It does make your registry look absurd as you can register for 12 sets of forks, 3 sets of pans, 8 sets of glassware. BUT you get lots of neat free stuff just by registering. By mere registering and a few completions, we’re got some these free items: Pfaltzgraff set of 4 Circumference shooters, All-Clad Stainless Measuring Cups, Yamazaki Salad Serving Spoon, Cuisinat 10” Heart-Shaped Pie Baker, Cuisinart $25 off coupon, Cuisinart CD & Recipe Set, Calphalon Stir Fry Wok Set, Santoku Cutlery Knife, J.A. Henckels 4” TWIN Grip Parer, Yamazaki Tablespoon, Analon Advanced 5” Santoku Knife and Royal Doulton “Precious” Tea Light. CON: The only pain is filling out these forms and getting them all from Bed, Bath & Beyond. Blah. It’ll take a few hours to go through all of them.

Note: These tips are only for your wedding. Please please please make sure you spend plenty of time building your marriage during your engagement period as well. We’ll discuss that later. _________________________________________

For the brides and grooms who have already crossed that finish line and gotten married, what do you recommend to reduce the headaches in planning a wedding?

Composedly Yours,

Drexelle

The Type A Bride