Getting married is like having a child, suddenly everyone wants to tell you what to do. I’m no exception. In fact, if you’re newly engaged, you may want to sit next to someone else at dinner, because I will not shut up about your wedding. It’s insufferable, I know, but I’m powerless to stop myself.
Anyway, here’s a little dose of unsolicited advice for those of you fortunate enough to live out of earshot:
Take a group photo. Nearly all the people you love are here, in one place. This isn’t likely to happen again until your funeral.
Be prepared. I had a kit on hand for minor emergencies. Having all my little fixes in one place made it easy for anyone to grab me a pair of scissors, some clear nail polish, a flask of bourbon. Here’s a bridal emergency kit list, but you’ll find a zillion of them online. Bridesmaids, if you’re extra helpful, telling the bride you’ll assemble this kit is a thoughtful gesture.
Let go of traditions that bug you. I’m a tall girl with an unfair advantage in the bouquet catching game. It often felt like an obligation to catch the bride’s bouquet before it fell on the floor when everyone else stepped out of the way. Of course then, you must grapple with the look of mild terror on the face of Boyfriend du Jour. So at our wedding, we called everyone onto the floor and announced that catching the bouquet meant prosperity beyond your wildest dreams.
The 6’8 Dutch guy caught it, and he’s currently my husband’s business partner. Fingers crossed, but I have heard a glowing crotch is auspicious.
Do something fun with your guest book. We had a friend take polaroids of guests, and it was such instant gratification to flip through it the next morning. Plus, we still look at it every once in a while.
Plan with a sense of humor. Sure weddings are solemn and import laden, but receptions can be fun — whatever that means to you. Worry a little less about whether something is appropriate and consider whether it will add to the celebration. Crazy straws at the bar? Candy cigarettes as wedding favors? Yes.
Consider consumables as attendant gifts. I got cool necklaces for my bridesmaids and the female attendants on Bryan’s side, but the groomsmen and ushers got port. Looking back on the now-outdated necklaces, I think the guys did better.
Choose your financial battles. Decide what’s important to you, spend your money there, and aim for festive with everything else.
For us, the bar was key, so we did it up. But Bryan used to work in catering, and both of us agreed that once the crowd gets over 100, you really have to pay through the nose for wedding food to be memorable. We decided to make the food fun and celebratory instead. In lieu of passed appetizers, we had a popcorn machine and a cotton candy machine out front. We brought in a BBQ truck for dinner so folks would have some solid food to offset the cocktails.
We were among the first couples to order cupcakes from Citizen Cake — before they upped the prices to reflect the trend — which also meant we didn’t need to rent cake plates and forks. Later in the evening, we had passed Krispy Kreme donuts as a snack. The food was casual for sure, but there was plenty of it, and the bar was a masterpiece.
So those were my big lessons from our wedding, but what are yours? I’m curious to hear pet peeves you have as a wedding guest, what you’ve loved about weddings you’ve been to, what you took away from your own wedding? Spill. I have an anniversary party to plan.
Mighty Girl 
Sometimes you should pick good talent but then let them do what they do best. I gave my florist some guidelines, and what I was going for, but let her suggest to me how exactly to achieve it. My bouquets were out of this world gorgeous, and way better than if I had planned them myself!
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not so much a pet peeve as a regret: if your mom says “i wanted to take you, your sister and your future sister-in-law out for a girls’ afternoon & spa”, the correct answer is “yes” – not, “we were going to go get the marriage license right then”. you will still kick yourself 9 years later. sorry, mom!
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my pet peeve about being an attendant is other attendants seem to think that somehow the day is about them. i was in a wedding where the bride said she’d like us all to wear the same tone of blue but could be in different dresses and different shades if we wanted. she took us all shopping and found a couple lines where all the dresses would clearly go together and there were like 20 to choose from. and almost *everyone* complained! it floored me. she ended up telling us just to get whatever black dress we liked. our job is to sort of blend together and support HER and help HER and make HER look beautiful beyond compare. there were plenty of those dresses i wouldn’t have chosen on my own, but (with one exception) they didn’t make me look anatomically out of the ordinary so i was willing to wear whatever she liked.
sorry, it was four years ago and i’m still stunned. my advice: tell your girlfriends you can’t pick your bridesmaids till your husband-to-be decides on his groomsmen then see who still volunteers to help (and actually does so). bridesmaids are self selecting if you give them time to do so. š
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Ooh, this is great, keep the advice coming! I’m in the midst of planning my own wedding.
I like the polaroid guestbook idea. I’m thinking about having disposable cameras at each table. Pretty sure that was an idea I read on this blog?
So far the best wedding I’ve been to had food and alcohol served basically all day. A small brunch after the wedding, a formal late lunch reception, and a very informal (everyone had changed into jeans by this point) post-reception dinner. Cocktails with brunch, champagne and wine with the reception, and beer with dinner. I’m hoping to recreate this with my own reception, especially since 90% of my guests will be coming in from out of town.
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For my own wedding, I do wish I’d followed the advice to spend on the things that matter to you. Our wedding was very homemade, which I loved, and I gave most people total creative control for the things they were doing. That worked out well with food, cake, flowers, favors, etc. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out so well with photographs – my mother was the photographer, and while she took some great photos, I have yet to see all of the prints. 7 years later. Annual reminders have not helped – I’ve even offered to pay for professional printing. Every time, she insists that she will do it. I don’t care who does it, I’d just like to have all the photos! Fortunately, friends took many candids, and we had disposable cameras on hand for all to use, which are truly the best. But I do wish we’d paid the extra $ for a professional photographer.
Current pet peeve about friends’ weddings: not allowing children. I understand that not all weddings may be entirely child-appropriate, but I do think it should be up to the parents to decide, especially if they are coming from out of town. It would be very inexpensive to even hire a couple of teenage babysitters and provide a “kid’s area” if you really don’t want them to disrupt the grownups. But honestly, my 3-year-old daughter has loved the weddings she’s been to, is very well behaved, and would have boogied on the dance floor all night if we’d let her. And in some cases it would allow us to stay longer and have more fun, rather than having to worry about getting back to our own sitter.
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Accept that, if your mother is involved in the planning, she will try to “give” you the wedding she never had. It may not be the wedding you want. The irony is that she will tell you about how *her* mother interfered when *she* got married. The best way to deal with this is to keep finding tasks for her which are not that important to you but which suit her interests, so she feels like she’s contributing and you don’t have to fight over stuff you care about most.
If you have fewer than fifty guests, don’t register for fancy china, because you will end up with 2.5 place settings.
If you have out-of-town guests coming in, schedule activities before the wedding that let you spend time with them more individually, especially if they’re from very disparate parts of your life. One of my favorite pictures is of a high school friend, my college roommate, and a long-time online friend who lived out of state all helping me tie bows on favors the night before. Getting everyone involved in wedding preparation (we did our own flowers and decoration) is a fun way to mix all those people you loved together before the rush and formality of the actual big day.
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I loved my wedding. It was simple and relaxed. I enjoyed the whole thing and wasn’t stressed out at all.
I was working at a church when I got married, and I would practically hyperventilate every time I started thinking about the guest list and how to keep it under 350 people. We decided pretty quickly to make it a family-only wedding, and that was one of our best decisions (and we still had 45 people there).
We did away with most of the wedding reception traditions. The bulk of our budget was spent on a lovely dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants. We took the place over for the night, had a menu with 2 or 3 options for each course and provided good wine, beer and champagne. We had a tower of profiteroles instead of cake, and served dark chocolate sauce and raspberry sauce to go with them. Yummy! And we had time to go around and talk with everyone there.
What I’d do differently:
We had two family members taking photos, one shooting in color and one in black and white. They did a nice job but I should have put someone in charge of the photo shoot, because in many of the photos people are looking at different photographers.
Overall, though, I was thrilled with the whole thing. My husband and I had a day that was special and meaningful for us, surrounded by people we love who enjoyed themselves thoroughly. Since my wedding cost considerably less than my sister’s, my mom generously used the difference to pay off my car, and we started our marriage debt free. Best. Gift. Ever.
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CD’s were the craze wedding favor when we got hitched almost 5 years ago. I had gotten some at previous weddings that were such a hodge-podge though and really wanted to avoid that.
Music at our wedding was important so our CD was filled with music both from the ceremony and reception. Our friends still tell me how they listen to it and think about our wedding and dancing away the night at our reception. I love that we gave them a favor that will always remind them of the day they watched us become a family.
I think my biggest pet peeve about any wedding is when people just go through the motions of what they think a wedding is supposed to be and everything is generic instead of personal.
You’re inviting us to share in your most important day- be personal and make it really about you as a copule! Have fun and revel in your happiness and everyone else will too!!
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Ours was a destination wedding so everyone needed a hotel. And we had everyone stay in the same one – which was AWESOME. The hotel was not extravagant but very comfortable – we worked with the hotel to get a good rate, worked with the cook to put together a bbq friday evening and casual brunch sunday morning. There was a pool and a bar – and the best part – the bar shut at 11pm but the hotel management didn’t let that stop our guests – they let them take over the bar and told them to just write down what they drank – needless to say the bar was open til 6am…
At the friday night pre-wedding bbq, we organized “teams” of two people for a little bocce/boule match. I usually groan at being paired up with a stranger on false pretense, but it was amazing, as confirmed by several guests – they got to know people they otherwise might not have the night BEFORE the wedding which meant more fun at the reception the next day!
We did a polaroid guest book too – AND left disposable cameras on every table – admittedly most of what you get back is a shot of someone’ elbow, but there were a few gems in their too.
We spent the night before the wedding apart and didnt see each other until I walked in – I found it romantic – however, on the practical side, it would have been nice to get some of the family and couple shots taken care of before the ceremony in order to spend more time hanging with people and partner – because those portraits seemed to take foooorrrrevvvvah.
I always tell the bride – make sure you eat! we spent dinner walking around or listening to speeches ie we barely sat at our table. suddenly dinner is over and you are going on nothing but a few classes of champagne and the night is long – you need more fuel – or make sure a girlfriend saves something for you!
but tip number 1 – comfortable shoes!!!!!!!!!!!
And overall – i would agree that the best weddings had an open and flowing bar and a FANTASTIC band or DJ – music is SOOO KEY do not underestimate. We were careful to set up the bar close to the dance floor to facilitate continuous movement and not as close to the tables – once people sit down, it can be hard to get them up again.
The biggest major drag at a wedding is one that ends to early in my opinion. I have been to weddings where we were kicked out at 10 – boooooooooooooo! In my opinion, no one should leave before 5 am!!
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I was never one of those little girls who dreamed about her wedding day.
THEN my husband and I got married at town hall for $15 with no one there but my EVIL (trust me) Mother-in-Law, and my husband’s brother.
Now I’m obsessed! I can’t get enough of wedding shows, cake shows, wedding dress shows. It’s like porn. Actually going to weddings makes me sad, I’m jelous. I want one. But my husband assures me that finding a place to live is more important.
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My brother got married in his new city, 6 hours from ‘our side’ of the family. After the ceremony, a double decker bus picked us all up and took us for a tour of the city. We stopped at a lovely park and while the wedding pictures were taken, the caterer showed us with appetizers for the guests. It was awesome and thoughtful.
At my wedding, we couldn’t think of a nice centerpiece for the tables, so instead of dessert, we had a cake made for each table and they served themselves. It was beautiful and an ice breaker.
My pet peeve? Lateness. I actually arrived at the church before some of our guests! And between the speeches and the dancing, we had 5 minutes for everyone to have a body break and get a drink. At our reception, you would have seen a LOVELY tableau of my brother handing me something and me giving him a heartfelt, tearful “thanks” – he was giving me my watch back!
Oh yeah! And get a comfortable dress! Make you sure you can walk up and down stairs and DANCE in it! Seriously, during the dress shopping I was doing the YMCA, just to be sure.
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If you have to get the guests tipsy to get them to “sit through the ceremony”, either you’ve got crappy friends or the ceremony is wayyyy too long.
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There are so many comments leaving me nodding my head, but I have to say my biggest pet peeve for weddings is the over-the-top conspicuous outlay of cash for so many things that will be forgotten by the first anniversary. There are so many ways to make an event special! Spending more and more money is way down on my list. It’s not always the bride who’s behind it, and certainly the wedding industry throws fuel on the foolishness – but whatever the cause, the ka-ching ringing in my ears always makes me feel like the bride and groom have either got something to hide or something to prove.
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Our wedding and reception were in the same venue so when guests arrived we had the bar open. People enjoyed our non-tradional ceremony even more with a glass of wine!
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Since we had a lot of kids at our wedding we didn’t do a cake, instead we did an ice cream sundae bar. A few different ice creams (including a sugar free option since we had some diabetics in attendance) and lots of toppings. It was awesome.
Rather than a traditional guest book, we bought a magnum of Cab from the winery where we got married. We had guests sign that, and then on our first anniversary we had a party with the awesome people who helped us pull the wedding together and drank the wine.
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I hate to say it, because I know it makes me sound like a terrible person, but I’ve been to far too many weddings where I can’t hear a word of the entire ceremony because I’m sitting behind a wailing baby. I love children to death, but when I go to a wedding I want to be able to enjoy watching my friend get married … which is very hard to do when you can’t hear a word being said.
For my own wedding (someday!) I’m hoping to find a polite, kind way around this, but I haven’t found the perfect solution yet. My best thought would be to find a way to provide childcare during the ceremony so that the adults can enjoy the ceremony, and then during the reception give them the option to continue leaving them with the provided care, or bring them into the reception area. Is this an ok idea? Is it still rude and offensive?
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I got the wedding of my dreams after having been a bridesmaid over a dozen times and a caterer for years. My husband and I got married outside in Wellies in a thunderstorm with his (local) family and my friends present. We were on our land in upstate NY in March. We picked the date because his insurance was running out April 1. I’m soooo romantic. We moved in together in June (when his renovations were done) and had a blowout party for 150 people in October. Our best out-of-town friends were put up in 2 neighboring lake cottages. The festivities lasted for 3+ days, culminating in a lovely bash with an amazing band. Liquor, roasted marshmallows, and barbecue flowed like water. Good times. I wish we had done the group picture.
Best wedding advice ever – don’t become a born-again Christian in college and get married at 19 just so you can have sex. The reception will consist of deviled eggs, ham, jello molds, and Kool-Aid. Ugh. My high school best friend really dropped the ball with that one. She also made me wear the dyed aqua kitten heels and flammable dress, as well. Not easy to pull off without a drink. Or 6.
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Our wedding was very untraditional, relaxed, barefoot on a lawn bowls green. My advice:
1) Pay for an impartial photographer. A good friend of ours is a professional photog and offered to take ours as a wedding gift, but she got caught up in the day (and very drunk). The ensuing arguments to get the photos from her nearly a year later nearly cost our friendship. We all eventually got over it.
2) On the day DELEGATE. You’re done planning, worrying. Enjoy and let someone else deal with a disaster.
3)We thought is was really important to have the reception at the same place as the ceremony, as everyone gets in the mood to celebrate right after you’ve said “I will” and it’s a real buzz-kill to have to travel to another venue to party.
4)As a guest I personally think any kind of registry is SO RUDE! I think it’s so outdated as all my friends who have gotten married have already set up a house together so I think the original idea isn’t relevant in most cases. Plus it take all the fun out of being generous and giving a gift.
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Elope.
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So fun to read everyone’s advice, and have the chance to add more.
I’m a big fan of the receiving line; as a guest, I hate not having a chance to meet and thank the families of the bride and groom. For ours, since the wedding was outdoors and at the same location as the reception, guests could get a cocktail while waiting.
We contacted the music department of a local college for the string quartet that played for the ceremony and cocktail hour; they were wonderful and inexpensive. They played a piece near the beginning of the ceremony that gave me a chance to take a few deep breaths and get centered before the vows.
I’m very glad we splurged on the beautiful location and excellent photographer and also glad we didn’t spend too much on the food, despite being foodies. The photos are still with us, but it’s rare for a wedding meal to be memorable.
Two of my mom’s best friends coordinated everything day-of allowing my mom and I to relax. They arrived with tiaras, titled themselves “queens of the day,” and took care of everything.
I’m also a fan of edible/disposable favors. Ours were truffles made by a local chocolatier in origami boxes with a little note that told the story about our engagement, including the truffles we ate that day. And my dad’s speech where he referenced those “damn boxes” was pretty memorable.
My biggest advice is to not feel like you have to do everything you see in magazines, blogs, websites, etc. Latte bar! Signature cocktail! Homemade favors! Handpicked bouquets! Just pick a few things to focus on and let everything else go.
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Ah – it makes me so happy remembering our big day. I too love to talk weddings, so I have a few bits of advice.
One of my favorite things we did was this. The night before, we hosted a cocktail party (it was a destination wedding, so virtually everyone travelled.) We got our photographer to shoot pictures of all of our guests (about 75)- posed, but not formal. Then overnight, she printed them in B/W, placed them in sliver frames, and used them as place cards and favors for each of the guests at the receptions. For all the couples, she just did 1 photo, and managed to gracefully handle the singles as well (ie., a picture of my then-single sister with me).
Even now, six years later, our friends have their pictures displayed in their homes. It was a little spendy, but worth it to us.
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We wanted something modest in scope, but I couldn’t hack the extra planning and weather-related insecurity of an outdoor wedding. We found a good compromise by having a brunch wedding at a restaurant that isn’t normally open for brunch (they do have a catering arm that does brunch, though). They cut us a deal on the space because we were getting food through them, and the extra rental cost for dishes etc. was minimal. Brunch food is also much cheaper, even when you go local-seasonal-fancy, and made it easy to accommodate our many vegetarian friends. Also the bar tab is cheaper – we had lots of mimosas but didn’t have to worry about a huge bar tab.
Other good decisions we made:
– For dessert, we had a local gelato shop come by with their gelato bike and everyone got as much as they wanted.
– For flowers, I scoped out the farmers’ market a week before our wedding, picked the farm whose flowers I liked the best, and asked the farmer to set aside two buckets for me the next week. My mom picked them up and my sister arranged them (in vases that the restaurant had). Total cost: $100, and they were absolutely gorgeous.
– Our ceremony/brunch reception was about 70 people, and then we took a break and hosted a blowout BBQ at our house. That let us have an intimate gathering as well as the chance to invite anybody we felt like – colleagues, soccer buddies, new acquaintances we wanted to get to know better, neighbors…
All in all, we loved our wedding and actually had a great time ourselves.
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Another vote for karaoke! We had an awesome guitar duet for live music during the ceremony (and they stayed through cocktails) but then it was DJ and karaoke. And it was SO MUCH FUN. So, so much fun.
Also, don’t let anybody tell you what traditions you need to follow. Personally, I HATE CAKE. HAAATE. But pie? Oh god, PIE. We had wedding pies from an awesome greasy spoon diner we loved it was AWESOME.
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My best wedding advise: ELOPE! That’s what we did. Elope then have a party for everyone later. Unfortunately, I did not plan the party, my sister-in-law did and it was more of a house-warming for her new home. If I had to do all over again, I would through an evening reception at a local bar or restaurant, have pleny of music, and like you, focus on the bar. Oh, and, my husband is a diabetic, so we didn’t want cake and she (the SIL) ordered an icecream cake. Ugh.
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We rented a big ole farmhouse on Whidbey Island, WA. Same cost for 4 days as half a day at a reception hall in Seattle. We also had the wedding and reception at the same place, which cut down on going from A-B. Some thought it was weird to have a “wedding compound” where all the wedding party stayed for many days, but it gave a feeling of a vacation, and honestly, my husband and I were shacking up for years before the wedding, so a private wedding night seemed kinda fake.
Old college friends got a cabin not far from the farm/compound, so if people wanted to whoop it up hard for an after party, they had that option while others of us just sat and talked all night long, then crashed. It was a blast.
We also focused on food/booze and working with local vendors.
No regrets at all.
That said, I’m sending this post to my best friend who is now a bride to be. My first task as maid of honor . . .
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but I have heard a glowing crotch is auspicious.
I once heard Marlon Perkins talk about how some animals use a glowing crotch as part of their mating ritual. I suppose that is appropriate for it to happen at a wedding.
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We totally did away with the traditional stuff that we thought was dumb – mainly the garter toss (who wants to look at their parents/grandparents while their new spouse has his face all up in your lady bits?!) and the bouquet toss.
My advice is this – it’s YOUR wedding. Lord willing, you’ll only do it once. So go with what you want, not what’s popular or what your mother/mil/sister/friends want. They got or will get their chance, this is yours. So if you want to say screw it and elope to Bora Bora, go for it. And if you want a big, fluffy church wedding with all the trimmings, go for it. But own it because it’s (hopefully) the only one you get.
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Oh yeah- one more thing. Go with what’s in season. I got married in August and we had daisies. LOTS and LOTS of daisies! Our favours even said: “He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me, we tied the knot!”
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The more over-the-top, very cookie-cutter weddings I go to the simple my “dream wedding” becomes!
Tram-accessible mountaintop in Alaska (ski hill from childhood, holla), July. Invite list will be family and VERY close friends. Maid of honor = only sister, groom can have as many dudes as he wants. Everybody rides the tram back down and we eat. No music, no dancing, no wedding cake. Sweet and simple and mine. š
Wedding pet peeves: lame DJs and obvious elitism in the seating chart. Single females don’t want to sit at the kids’ table.
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Seriously, don’t even bother with a wedding ceremony for friends. Just have a civil union for your parents and siblings so that you don’t completely break your mother’s heart. Schedule the reception the day after. No one cares about your wedding ceremony. Sorry to be mean, but there is nothing you can say in your wedding vows that hasn’t already been written. Plus, it only serves as an impediment to the party, which is why everyone showed up. Don’t bother with a DJ; technology has made them obsolete. In fact, just throw a party and ditch all of the tired traditions. C’mon ladies, really? 99% of us look terrible in all white, it’s a fallacy, and frankly our slavery to patriarchal tradition can be embarrassing. You wouldn’t think of of taking a job that requires you to fetch someone’s coffee, but you are more than willing to spend countless hours and $$$ on a dress you’ll only wear once? That said, we got hitched one day and threw a party the next. The hall and the food were the biggest expenses. After that, we filled the hall with our creativity and ingenuity, and did the entire thing for a song. No one will ever forget our reception, and it has yet to be topped by our peers. Agree on the group photo; we got one and it is awesome.
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You can ask me again at this time next week (we’re getting married on Saturday) but my best advise from the planning-stage seems to be to trust the pros. Have a good idea of what you want and then let the professionals take it from there. Your photographer, florist, baker, etc. has so much experience – use it to your advantage!
Now, let’s see how that works out…
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Umm, your group shot is awesome! And, I still ? the red shoes so much.
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LOVE the red shoes, that is. Not ? them.
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I just got married on July 24, 2010. I was extremely pleased with all of the little personalized details my husband and I added to our wedding.
1. We took dance lessons together and had a choreographed routine to perform for our guests for our first dance. It was an awesome way for us to bond in a new way (I had to learn how to let him lead, for once) and our guests were amazed. His family had never seen him dance. I changed out of my wedding dress into a short, ruffly, little number that matched the colors of my wedding in order to do our dance, and then did a quick change back into the ballgown for the remainder of the night. We had a blast, and people were incredibly impressed.
2. We had mad-libs regarding wedding and marriage advice tucked into our programs (which we printed ourselves) and they produced fantastic results (some dirty, some sweet). We had a blast reading them once we got back from our honeymoon!
3. I picked four shades of turquoise/blue and eight different styles of short dresses for my bridesmaids to pick from. Each girl got to pick the color and dress style that suited them. The colors went well together, and our pictures looked awesome because the colors really popped.
4. I’m a teacher and my hubby is an engineer. We gave out pencils with our wedding info on them as one of our handouts. My mother thought that was cute.
5. At the reception while people were eating cake, we played a slideshow to music of pictures of my husband and I as children, then us dating, then our engagement photos. All the saps cried like babies.
6. I had my best friend (who is professionally trained and went to college for vocal performance) sing at our wedding during the ceremony while we did our unity sand ceremony. My husband’s aunt performed our wedding ceremony, and my cousin’s wife and her mother played the piano and violin as I walked up the aisle. It was awesome having family members and friends provide the music and conduct our ceremony- it made it so much more personal. Plus they didn’t cost nearly as much as “professionals.”
7. Our ceremony was was outdoors, the unity candles would have blown out and that wouldn’t have been very positive symbolism, so we opted for a sand ceremony. We have the glass bottle with the sand as a memento of our day.
8. Like you said, determine what’s most important to you and spill the dough there. We printed our own programs and our madlibs, I made the flower girl buckets, my throwing bouquet, and the aisle decorations. My mother’s friend did my flowers (she did an absolutely fantastic job) and decorated our arch for us. Point is, we made sure to use the talents of the people we knew and loved first before calling in a professional in order to save money and add more personality to our wedding. We splurged on the deejay because there’s nothing that can kill a reception faster than bad music. Our guy kept everyone, even us, dancing until midnight.
9. We even drove our wedding cake (dissembled) 6 hours from our home town up to where the wedding took place because it was about $300 less for the cake (which was delicious). I DO NOT RECOMMEND THAT. We had to drive two separate cars up in order to have enough space, and had to blast the air conditioning the entire way so that the cake wouldn’t melt. We bundled up in sweatshirts and had to make rest stops to thaw outside. While there are really cute pictures of me assembling our wedding cake on our wedding day in my shorts and my button down shirt, it was stress that didn’t need to be there.
10. I suggest for any bride to choose their maid of honor carefully. I had my oldest friend (we’ve known each other for 21 years) as my MOH because, duh, seniority, and it was awful. She’s flighty and when she’s in relationships cares more about him than anything else. She got into a fight with him at my wedding and left the dance floor during the dollar dance…She was MIA all night. I was basking in new matrimonial bliss the entire night and paid her absence no attention, but now I’m having a hard time forgiving her. So, I recommend picking the most responsible and motivated friend you have, someone you know you can rely on no matter what, rather than your oldest friend.
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