Wedding planning is a busy time, and not everyone hires a wedding planner. If you are planning your wedding yourself (and even if you do have a planner) here are a few things you need to think about. These items and to do's generally get overlooked in the rush of planning and can make your day stressful. Things are different even from when I got married we are a tech-heavy world so here a few things to think about!
14 Things You Don't Think of When Wedding Planning
Who will clean up?
Depending on where you have your wedding, you may be responsible for the wedding clean up. I'm sure after your wedding the last thing on your mind is staying late to clean up.
So make sure to designate who will help with clean up. Generally, your maid of honor and bridesmaids will be in charge of this, try to corral the groomsmen to help as well.
Related: Save Money on the Wedding Venue – 17 Cheap Wedding Venue Ideas
What decor do you want to keep/sell/donate?
Make a list of things you want to keep and have taken to your house for your maid of honor to hold onto until you get home from your honeymoon. Let them know what can be trashed and what can be donated.
This will help save you from having to sort everything when you get home. This also saves you from having something you wanted to keep be thrown away for forgotten about.
This person should also gather the wedding gifts for you.
Who will take your dress home?
If you are changing out of your dress and into another dress to leave the wedding to head to your honeymoon, make sure someone you trust is taking home your dress and taking care of it.
On a side note if you are heading from your wedding to the airport you will want to change out of your dress for sure!
Tipping.
Make sure you plan tipping vendors in your budget. If your DJ rocks the party make sure to tip him. Don't feel bad to withhold a tip for poor performance as well.
So make sure to plan some tips into your budget. People to consider tipping: Wait staff, DJ, delivery people (such as cake deliveries) and the bartender.
If you have a wedding planner, then ask her who else there might be on the list to tip but also pay attention if the bartender has a tip jar out and your guests are tipping you can skip his tip.
Online Reviews.
Following the tips above make sure to leave online reviews for the people and services you used including the venue.
They will appreciate the good rating, and if they aren't good, it will help others make good choices for their wedding. Just be fair an honest and include any pictures you can.
Feed the Vendors.
This isn't a must, but it's always appreciated if you plan some extra food for your DJ, Bartenders, Wait Staff, wedding planner, photographer, etc.
Have a Backup Plan.
Have a few backup plans. If you are going to be outdoors have an indoor plan, even with an indoor wedding, have a black up plan, if you are moving from one venue to another from your wedding to your reception plan for weather and traffic.
Have an idea in the back of your head in case a vendor flakes on you. More then likely everything will go off with out a hitch, but it's best to be prepared.
Get Cashback
Remember when you shop online for wedding items (and even in store!) use Ebates for cashback. They even have special wedding cashback offers!
Signage
Make it easy on your guest and posts signs on where the wedding and reception are, where to park, where the entrance is, etc. The picture below is a great example.
Entertainment for kids.
If you have younger kids at the wedding, then plan a table with some coloring books, activities, and games.
If you are thinking of planning a no-children wedding, keep in mind the parents of kids, especially coming from out of town, will most likely not come due to baby sitting conflicts.
Either provide child care or be prepared for a smaller turnout. Personally, my husband and I will not attend wedding where our kids are not welcome even if it's family.
List of photos you want
Search Pinterest and magazines and make a list of wedding photos you want to get with your wedding photographer. This will make sure you don't miss one and allows your photographer to plan properly.
Don't forget to include things like certain dances, candid shots, etc.
Tech chargers
We live in a high tech world so provide a small charging station, and your guest will be able to snag even more pictures for you!
Ask guests for pictures taken
Make sure to ask your guests for pictures they took during the day. They can tag you on Facebook, and you can download them, or they can text them to you.
This is the best way now to get candid pictures of things you might have missed! This also lets you skip the cost of disposable cameras on the tables.
Related: Cheap Wedding Invitations – 14 Ways to Save Money on Wedding Invites
Include social media, make a hashtag
Following up from the above tip, encourage social media sharing, for you to grab pictures AND for those not able to make it.
Create a hashtag such as #MKJonesWedding and make sure it hasn't been used before so you can snag all the pictures you want!
Put (handmade) signs around the wedding and on tables to encourage people to sue the hashtag.
Videos
Have a few friends video the weddings, the reception and more. You might not want to go all out on a professional wedding video but having the videos from your friend's phones will be a cherished memory.
What tips do you have for the bride to be?
I don’t think it’s fair to punish couples who want an adult celebration by refusing to come outright. Some couples are young and want to have a party, or don’t want a crowd of babies. Kids are great but can be a handful. Personally, my immediate family has a large number of kids, so I simply can’t invite 15 more or it’ll be a zoo. But each to their own. 🙂
See we are out of town, so if kids aren’t allowed our choice is to either A) Drive the kids to grandparents house (if they aren’t going) then drive to said wedding which normally isn’t in the same town or even state the grandparents live. Or B) try to line up a babysitter is a city we don’t know and leave our kids with someone we don’t know and won’t have more than a day to get to know, which for us isn’t an option. So unless the wedding provides child care (which we will happily chip in to help pay) and it’s on site (so we can check in on our kids) we won’t go. You’re right though it’s everyone’s choice. I also don’t feel my kids, who are very good at big events and weddings, should have to miss the event of a family member getting married just because other kids can’t behave or parents don’t do their job. But that’s my opinion and once you (general you) have kids you understand this more.
I completely agree with you!! I don’t even have kids yet but if anyone told me they didn’t want kids at the wedding I wouldn’t want to go if my kids couldn’t. I would just send them a present unless it was my brother getting married then I would go but a cousin or somebody’s second or third wedding I wouldn’t even want to go if my kids weren’t allowed.
Ummm you should absolutely feed all of your vendors who are there for the ceremony. DJ, photographer, bartenders, caterer, they should all be fed.