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Planning For The Big Day? 17 Common Mistakes You Should Positively Avoid
Waiting for the big day, the ‘D-day’ of your life is so exciting that it gives you butterflies in your stomach! The day when you will be finally bonded with the love of your life is an event to remember forever and cherish whenever you look back in nostalgia. Women, especially get emotional when it comes to relieving the memories of their wedding. And no wonder, for them, everything has to be perfect. This perfection is not obsessive, but rather out of love and bonding with their men. However, the planning necessarily doesn’t need to be perfect, but rather in the place and nominally good.
They say relationships are made in heaven, but weddings have to be planned in this realm. Planning weddings thus can be taxing and sometimes even confusing since there are so many things to be taken care of. However, although you need to make add-on aspects of your wedding plans, you should also focus on minimizing errors that can ruin moments at your wedding.
Here, we have listed 17 points of errors that you should avoid while planning your wedding. The main theme of this discussion is avoiding the logical blind spots that you may not foresee and then they suddenly show up as bombs during your wedding event.
So let’s begin to understand the 17 aspects of error that you positively need to avoid.
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1. Booking The Wedding Venue Before Listing Your Guests:
Having your own bungalow or private property for hosting your wedding can be cool. But when you are going to book a venue for your wedding, you should be sure of its capacity. Since wedding venues fill up very fast, the first priority is to book a venue and hence this decision gets taken in haste. As a result, there can be issues about incompatibility regarding hosting the number of people.
Therefore, always make a list of guests you are sure you would want to attend your wedding. Once this list is taken care of, you can start looking for wedding venues in your area (or a dream destination) that can hold just a little bit more than the maximum capacity of people that the venue can hold. And we are sure; you will look back and sigh in the comfort that you made the right decision.
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2. Choosing Your Bridal Party In Haste:
A bridal party is one of the most important aspects of your wedding. They are the gals (or sometimes even guys) that will stand nearby you when you are finally standing on the altar of making vows. However, never make a hasty decision when it comes to choosing your bridal team or bridal party. Your bridal party does not necessarily have all your friends. You don’t have to please everyone. Like any other aspect of planning a wedding, choosing your bridal party has to be planned. Most likely, you should choose those folks who are very close to you. This includes your close/best friends, your siblings, and even your male best friends because why not? (it’s the late 2010s/early 2020s). Also, consider that being a part of the bridal party can cost a lot, so always make sure that the people you choose can afford the dresses and the bling.
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3. A Flawed ‘Plus One’ Policy:
So what exactly is a ‘plus one’ policy? It is an aspect of calling wedding guests who happen to be the significant other/partner of your main wedding guests. So let’s say, you have called your sisters friends, by default you will also require to invite their husbands/boyfriends. This is where you may lose out on the consistency because you are so engrossed in all other wedding preparations, you may lose sight of doing something about this.
Always remember that you should be consistent in your ‘plus one’ policy. So if you are allowing main guests with their married partners, make it a consistent policy. Or if long-term partners are also allowed, make it common throughout the guest list. In this scenario, it is ideal that you keep a consistent ‘plus one’ policy for all those who are above 18 and single. This will naturally include any new partners that they might have got recently.
4. Botching Up The Postage Invitations:
Inviting folks en mass through postage can be a daunting task. It takes a lot of time to wrap those massive number of invitation cards in postage envelopes, sticking the stamps and writing their respective addresses. Now imagine the horror when these envelopes come back with a stamped ‘error messages’ that says ‘not enough number of postage stamps’. Bang! Here you go again, redoing the whole job again, which not only costs you money, but also a lot of time, time that you don’t have in plenty.
Remember, when you are sending wedding invitation postcards to your guests, they have to be square cards and these square postcards require more number of postage stamps. Never forget to do all the necessary things that you need to when sending an enveloped letter through postal services. You would definitely don’t want your post returned with those annoying messages.
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5. Not Invited To The Wedding, But Invited To The Shower:
There are folks you won’t invite to the wedding. Nothing like that you have an ax to grind against them, but they are simply not that close that you would need to invite them to your wedding. However, inviting these folks to your wedding shower should be a big no! Seems cruel? It’s not. Because if you do so, you will look opportunistic that you didn’t invite them to the wedding, but you invited them for a wedding shower where people usually offer the newlywed couple gifts. On the other hand, having an ‘office shower’ is completely acceptable since it is a default even in itself.
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6. Cursory Reading Of Contracts:
Never ever do this. If you have signed a contract with a wedding planner or a catering agency, always ensure that you are signing the contract only after going through it carefully. Given that weddings are usually expensive and time-consuming, it would reflect badly on your ability to manage things with maturity and intelligence. It is also advisable that you also rope in someone who is good at reading and remembering contractual agreements. Since you are spending a lot of money and investing a lot of hope, make sure that the contract is explored through all dimensions.
7. Letting Pinterest Pin You Down:
Pinterest can prove to be a stock of new and unique ideas. And while it can be a good decision to get your ideas from Pinterest, do not let it become the main source of wedding planning. Pinterest can show a number of awesome ideas for weddings, but always remember that you cannot implement all of them. Pinterest posts can pop up on your phone, with the trendiest and most awesome ideas, but always make sure that you stick to your original plan rather than emulate these.
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8. Spending Too Much On The Flowers:
Flowers are an integral part of any wedding. A wedding without flowers is like a pool party without a pool. Always ensure that you have just enough flowers for the occasion. However, at the same time be careful that there are not too many flowers that you may see them at places more than needed. Make a point to list down the places and events where you are going to need flowers and the number of flowers needed at those places. This will keep you away from listing an unusually large number of flowers that are more than you need.
9. Not Spending Optimally For Drinks:
This one can be a tricky decision. There are chances that you may overspend when arranging for drinks or you may spend lesser than needed. Now given that spending on drinks is going to be a significant part of your wedding expenditure, always ensure that you make it an optimal expense. You can have an ‘open bar’ option where the guests can have as much booze for themselves as they want. However, this is an expensive option and not everyone can afford it. Therefore, you can also go for the open corkage option where you can return unused bottles of booze to the alcohol manager.
10. Extending The Event Beyond What Is Needed:
The problem with many wedding arrangements is that many people unknowingly overextend it. According to experts in the industry, a five-hour reception is ideal where guests come and go with comfort without feeling that the event has been short of the ideal time. You can also arrange for an after-party for people who are close to you. The main takeaway for this point is that you should always ensure that the wedding event is not stretched too much that the bride and the groom and their families ‘fall’ due to exhaustion at the end.
11. Not Taking Care Of The Marriage License:
Marriage license laws differ from state to state. Always make sure that you have got your marriage license taken care of before your wedding within the stipulated time of its validity. For example, the time for a wedding license to expire in the state of Pennsylvania is 60 days. So if you are marrying on the 61st day, your wedding won’t be considered legal since you have married after the validity of your time. Therefore, always ensure that you are getting married at the time within the right time so that you won’t face any legal hassles at the last moment.
12. Not Factoring In The Last Minute Expenses:
Last-minute expenses are those that do not show in the budget. The best example of this is cash tips and delivery expenses. These expenses are usually not seen while budgeting the wedding. Therefore, it is always advisable for the bride and the groom to factor in these kinds of expenses that will show up at various points in the wedding. Keeping cash reserve aside is the best way to make sure that you do not have to get embarrassed when those delivery men ask for a delivery charge of when you have to tip the bartenders at the end of the event.
13. Not Eating Enough Before The Event:
This may look counter-intuitive since the bride should look slim and pretty during the event. However, this can prove to be a bad decision since the main event is going to last hours. As a bride, you may feel weak and tired during the event. Therefore make sure that you are eating enough (but not stuffing yourself) with healthy meals (like nuts, cheese, salmon, chicken, etc.).
14. “I’ll Get Ready In A Jiffy”:
Yeah, this is a very common mistake that many brides commit as a result of bad time management. Since they also have to manage and plan most of the things at the wedding event, they usually find themselves not left with enough time to get ready for the wedding. As a result, everything gets done at the last minute. This may result in a ‘less than ideal’ look for the bride and may even ruin her memory of the event. Delegate some of your work to others and have enough time to get ready.
15. Micromanaging The Photography:
Are you a photography expert? Have you done a full-time course for professional photography? Even if your answers to these questions are ‘yes’, you should not intervene with the photographer’s work. Let the guy do his job his way. Trust them. They are professionals. They know what lenses to use, how to manage the lighting and the angles. Micromanaging these guys can lead to conflict and them backing out of the event.
16. Forgetting To Acknowledge Your Guests:
We use the word ‘forgetting’ because nobody will do this on purpose. You may forget to acknowledge your guests which might upset them. So you can do this in two ways. Either the bride or the groom stand at the end of the reception and thank the guests for visiting their wedding or visit from table to table greeting their guests one by one.
17. Forgetting To Put ‘Thank You’ Notes:
Your guests should feel that you are grateful to them for attending your wedding. Always ensure that you are ordering your ‘thank you’ cards with your invitation cards. Once the event is done away with, you can send these ‘thank you’ cards to your guests within a few weeks of the event. For gifts received during the shower and engagement, send the thank you card within two to three weeks and for those gifts received before the event, send the card as soon as possible. Finally, for the gifts given on the wedding day, send ‘thank you’ cards within three months of the event.
We hope you found this exhaustive list of ‘do not’ informative and at the same time interesting. Mistakes are a part of human life, but errors can slow down things and ruin memories. Do not make errors are part of your memories. Always ensure that you are ready and loaded for the big day.
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