Top Wedding Tips from Real Couples and Expert Vendors
Who could be a better source of wisdom for wedding planning than a couple who have just been through the process? To help you plan your ultimate dream day, we’ve gathered some of the best wedding planning tips and on-the-day wisdom from some of our real wedding couples, along with some expert advice from our ultra-talented vendors.
Read on for insights into creating your style vision, planning organisational hacks, wedding day must-dos, and advice for managing the pressure leading into your dream day.
Your vision.
Stay true to what you and your partner want for your day – if there’s a vision that you have, don’t let trends or other people’s opinions waver what you both want to see. After all, no one will look at those photos as much as you two, and you want to be able to see exactly what your hearts and heads wanted.
While some might advise not to sweat the small stuff, that rang true for me when considering unpredictable factors like weather or minor mishaps.
However, it’s the details that truly define your special day.
Focusing on what matters to you as a couple is key, as those intricacies are what make your wedding uniquely yours. Embrace the elements that hold significance for you, for they are the ones that will leave a lasting impact. Take, for example, the sentimental touches we incorporated into our celebration. My grandma’s illustrations gracing our stationery added a layer of warmth and love. Additionally, choosing drinks and songs to honour specific family members or the life-size cutout of our fur child, Macey. These small details are what helped make our day an unforgettable experience for us and our loved ones.
Feeling stressed at an element? Get rid of it! Planning your wedding shouldn’t lead to a heart attack. It’s your day so do whatever you want with it.
Yes it’s a lot of fuss for one day, but it’s the day you’ve probably thought about a million times before, the one you’ll think about the most for the rest of your life and one day that will bring so much joy to the people around you, so don’t feel silly for caring about the little things and putting in effort to make the day what you want.
But that said, when trying to figure out what matters for you on the day, focus on how you want to feel, and how you want your guests to feel – you’ll find most of the things that impact this don’t cost much money!
Have fun with your fiancée throughout the process and when the stressful curve balls hit, make sure you face them together as a team. It will make you feel a lot closer to each other and a lot more excited to get married.
Here is my biggest hack! In the year before we were planning the wedding, Peter and I were invited to 15 weddings. For those keeping count, that means, 15 hens parties, 15 bucks parties, 15 bridal showers. That’s 60 events in a year. THINK ABOUT THE OUTFITS! We got to see 15 VERY different couples bring their visions to life. We had church ceremonies, gardens, galleries, wineries. There were summer soiree’s, autumn, winter, spring, all of it. We trialed 15 different venues, menu’s, DJs, and cakes. 15 different bridal gowns to admire, 15 different stylists. And at the end of it all, 15 newly married couples fueling us with their recommendations and referrals. It was like the wedding planning lottery, and we hit the jackpot! A big thank you to our beautiful friends.
It’s your day. Do what sparks joy for you! For us it was good food, a beautiful venue that offered a cocktail hour with a view, and a choreographed first dance. We also had a sweetheart table (our bridal party sat with their partners and other guests) and this meant we could share our meal, get up easily to speak to guests, and have a moment together. We copied this idea from our friends who said it was the best decision they made for their wedding and we loved it too
Expert insight from Natalie Drum Celebrant.
Nat articulates: “A wedding’s budget doesn’t dictate its feeling, and big spend doesn’t necessarily mean big on emotion. Instead, focus on why you’re choosing to marry, and prioritise the energy of the day. Consider your guests’ comfort (wet weather plans and a solid run sheet reign supreme!), but most of all, keep it authentic. It’s a celebration, not a performance— as I often remind my couples, I’m here to marry humans, not robots!”
The wedding planning process.
Embrace the journey of planning together, focusing on what truly matters: celebrating your love surrounded by all of your favourite people. Don’t sweat the small stuff—your wedding day will be perfect because it’s uniquely yours.
Do it quickly! We did our planning in five months, and I can’t recommend that enough if you don’t enjoy event planning.
Tyler and I initially agreed that we would only have wedding-related chat two times a week, otherwise he knew that I would get irritating (haha). On nights spent planning, we would do it over a glass of wine with our favourite playlist in the background, or even incorporate it with our dinner dates. Collaborated notes, checklists and noting important dates and deadlines on my calendar were also very useful.
Choose your vendors wisely, ones that you can trust. This will reduce so much stress both during the planning and on the wedding day itself. Embrace the wedding planning season and try and romanticise it! It is such a special time and I genuinely miss it.
Do the dance class for your first dance. It’s a great way to connect and share something together that is actually fun and you can make a date night out of it. It also makes you both less nervous having a dance that you have practiced.
Organisation hacks.
Organisation is key. Remember you are planning the day for you and your partner. Enjoy every minute of the whole process, including the planning, because the day is over in a blink of an eye.
Planning can be tedious and following up/ replying to emails can be easy to put off. It can be helpful to add events in your phone’s calendar for specific times to contact a supplier or reply to an email. Also, note the time this will take to hopefully make it seem more achievable.
Give the bridal party specific jobs. We had everything from hydration police, bouquet babysitters, and a clean-up crew to dance floor captains. We let our bridal party members know exactly what we needed them to do ahead of time so that we weren’t worrying about all the small details throughout the day (there are so many examples on Instagram and TikTok).
Similar to above – having a wedding binder which had every possible piece of information about the day meant that we didn’t have people asking us questions on the day. Making this binder throughout the planning process also meant that nothing was forgotten or missed. Caity included everything from make-up looks, hair examples, how to set up the seating chart, what the tables should look like, every song that needed to be played, every vendor’s contact details, who was in charge of bringing what, where things were to be stored and everything in-between. The binder was about 35 pages long, but it meant there was no room for error or anyone to be unsure about anything.
Expert insight from AJR Films.
Anthony & Gracie recommend: “Allow some time for congratulations on your run sheet before your family photos or group photo. They’re always such happy, natural emotions between you and your loved ones.”
The pressure is real.
It’s your day, so forget about everyone else’s opinions. I don’t think it’s an isolated experience to hear guests express their opinion about how much your wedding is costing them, and what would be more convenient for them. It’s okay for your wedding to be all about you, if people are really struggling, let them have that chat with you directly, but try to ignore the second hand stories that people are giving you from what they’ve heard.
Remember that the day is about you two! While family and friends love to provide their input/opinions, go with what you want for your day as you’ll only be doing this once (hopefully!).
Stay strong, don’t let other people’s opinions get to you. It is your day not there’s – let your personality and style shine through.
Expert insight from Silence is Golden.
“In our experience, the biggest change the vast majority of our couples would make with the blessing of hindsight is how much time and/or resources they put into entertainment compared with the other aspects of their big day.
Whether it’s a band, DJ, silent disco or anything else, the entertainment is likely going to be the biggest aspect of the day for the guests, and having a really memorable performer or attraction is what will keep your wedding on the tip of every tongue for months to come.”
Your vendor team.
Choose suppliers that you trust and where you can say, “Do whatever you think” or “I’ll leave it up to you!”. There are already so many decisions to make when planning a wedding it can feel overwhelming. Having suppliers that you trust and love the work of means that you can save yourself stress and time and let them do what they do best!
Lock in your most important vendors early or you will miss out, we booked our photographer, venue, and celebrant nearly two years in advance and Tess (our photographer) said she received another enquiry for our date just hours after ours.
You have enough decisions to make in the planning, on the day and beyond, so trust in your suppliers. They do this for a living so hand them the reins and follow their advice.
Don’t sweat the small stuff, and have faith in your vendors! My husband had no experience in events, and six months before the wedding, he was stressing that we hadn’t heard from our vendors. I remember saying to him they were busy and we weren’t a priority right now! I was right, and it wasn’t until around three months to go that it kicked up a notch.
Listen to your gut feeling, if there’s red flags do not pursue those vendors – there are really genuine vendors out there, you just have to find the right ones.
There’s a million vendors trying to sell you a million things that you “must” have. The things I’m happiest we spent money on are the capturing or creating of moments, or the alleviation of stress by outsourcing!
Getting great vendors makes a world of difference. I didn’t think it would matter as much as it did.
Expert insight from State of Nature florist.
Lauren says: “Find vendors who are great communicators, ie they get back to you promptly and are open, honest and transparent about their fees and services. Trust your instincts here! Once you place your trust in those professionals, they will do everything in their power to make your day spectacular because your wedding is also a reflection of them, their business and what they offer. Word of mouth is absolute gold in this industry!”
The intimate ones – elopements and micro-weddings.
If you’re considering an elopement, do it! You truly enjoy the day and can share those quality moments with the people surrounding you.
We are really glad we did a small and simple ceremony. If vows in front of everyone aren’t your thing, it’s lovely to have a smaller crowd at your ceremony and meet up with the rest of your family and friends afterwards for the party side of the occasion.
If it is what you really want, do it! It’s not for everyone but if you have any doubts, fears, worries about doing the grand, traditional thing in front of everyone, then why put yourself under that pressure! The fact that that day is untouchable with the happiest memories and only the two of us at the centre of it is something I wouldn’t change for the world!
Top tip: We’re going to throw a party back at home in the UK for all our friends and family which means no stress of the formalities of a wedding, we just get to enjoy the fun part with everyone and we get to wear our outfits again – win, win!
The dream day.
If you want your wedding to be a party, then make sure you’re on the dancefloor because your guests will follow your lead.
On the day of your wedding, allow for extra time! We both had really relaxed mornings and had a bit of spare time after getting ready – which meant we were calm, we felt all of the feelings and really enjoyed the day.
At some point during the night, just take a time out with your partner to enjoy each other’s company, be in the moment, and look around at everyone that you love in the same room together. It is very rare that all of your friends and family are in the same space to celebrate your love – so make sure to soak it in!
Something different we did was stay together in the same room the night before the wedding, which we both loved. We felt relaxed waking up together and sharing that excitement in the morning, and then that calmness continued throughout the day. We were not nervous or stressed at all just excited and ready to be husband and wife!
If you want fresh flowers, definitely ask your guests to take them home with them. It’s hard to think about them going in the bin at the end of the night, why not let your guests enjoy them for a little longer.
Get a digital Polaroid camera! I love when I can snap a polaroid at a wedding, but I always felt guilty when I popped it in my handbag at the end of the night. This solved that problem because our guests could take their fun pics home, and then we could download all of them off the SD card. Win-Win.
Other pearls of wisdom would be to say YES to offers of help and delegate, delegate, DELEGATE to your wedding party. Write them a list of jobs from both of you to action on the day. It is impossible to remember everything on your own ‘to do lists’ on the day – the day is huge. What we wish we had done is give one person a job to place food into our mouths (trust us, you won’t eat!) and another person to monitor our sips of champagne. You absolutely forget how much you’re drinking with expert caterers filling your glass and the two of you being swept up in all the emotion!
One thing I realised after the day was that there were a lot of people we didn’t get a photo with from our photographer so I definitely recommend making a list of people you want to get photos with so that you can tick them off.
First Look
Doing a first look doesn’t ruin the moment of walking down the aisle. In fact, it took heaps of the stress away. There was still so much raw emotion during the ceremony (both of us shedding a few tears), but having the chance to talk to each other before took away a lot of our anxiety and meant we got to spend more of our special day together. It also meant we got our photos done earlier, so we didn’t miss as much of our wedding having to do photos. We got to attend our cocktail hour and mingle with our guests, which at so many weddings doesn’t get to happen because the couple are off doing their photos.
Expert insight from Mad For You Creative.
Jess recommends: “Practice your first kiss before your big day, so you both know what you’re doing, where your hands are going, if you’re doing a dip or not – it will make for the perfect first kiss photo.”
It’s very cliché, but don’t lose sight of the reason you’re there. As long as your partner shows up on the day and you get married, that day is a huge success. The rest of it will be what it will be. You can’t control everything, and you’ll send yourself mad trying to.
I know everyone says it, and I never thought it would live up to the expectation, but it really is the best day of your life. It’s impossible to articulate, but there is no feeling quite like it. Whatever you have envisioned in your head, marrying your best friend in a room full of people you love will exceed all expectations.
