If you’ve recently gotten engaged, then you’ll probably be experiencing two emotions. The first is excitement that you’ll soon get to celebrate your love in front of your friends and family. The second is probably a sense of being overwhelmed; after all, how does anyone begin to put together a great wedding?!
You’ll be starting with nothing and will be expected to put together a day that lives long in the memory for all the right reasons. That’s a lot of pressure! This was us about 11 years ago and as we look forward to celebrating our 9th wedding anniversary later this year, we thought we’d share a few tips about getting the most out of the big day.
It’s important to take a breather and remember that putting together a great wedding isn’t an impossible task. If you have the basics in place, then you’ll be a long way towards having a fantastic day.
The most important thing that we found is not to put too much pressure on yourself – it’s your big day so it’s important to try and enjoy it as much as you can. Having a good wedding plan in place will help set the foundations here.
Consider The Venue
You can get married anywhere — but keep in mind that the venue does help to set the tone for the day. If you’re getting hitched in a stunning venue, then you’ll be well on your way towards having a great day.
And it’ll help to bring a sense of wonder and magic to your guests, too. The goal is to have everyone say “wow” when they arrive. Take a look at a handful of venues and pick the one that makes your heart skip a beat. There are so many diferent options for wedding venues these days that it pays to look around at your options.
When we got married, our venue held some sentimental significance as it was the location of our first date and was a grand hotel in our home town – so it feel right to celebrate our big day there. So it’s also worth considering the connection you have with the venue as it’s a connection you will end up having for the rest of your life!
The Guest List
The guests will be the life and soul of the party. In other words: they’re highly important to the success of the day. You’ll likely have a long list of people that you want to be there. The trick is to ensure that they are there.
Be sure to send a “save the date” reminder as soon as you’ve secured your venue, and try to make things as straightforward as possible for everyone; destination weddings can be great, but the cost can be prohibitive for many people, so it’s normally best to keep things within the country.
It can be hard to keep your list tight in terms of numbers, especially if your venue is limited, but what we found is you’ll have a number of people who can’t attend. For us, this was around 15% but a lot of this was due to time of the year and travel (as we got married at Christmas). Consider evening invites as an option to ensure you don’t upset people by not inviting them 🙂
The All Important Food
Is there anything better than a delicious meal? Yes — a delicious meal when everyone’s surrounded by awesome people at a great event. You can make sure that your wedding meal is up to scratch by hiring outstanding wedding caterers for the job.
If you can serve your guests a great meal in a beautiful environment, then it’ll be a day that everyone remembers for a long time to come. If you’re going with a venue that doesn’t allow outside catering, we recommend a few undercover trips to gague what the food is like. From our experience we’ve found there’s 3 things guests will discuss after a wedding – 1. how beautiful the bride was, 2. how good the food was, and 3. what the music / partying was like!
A Big Party
Which brings us nicely to the big party element! This is your chance to gather all your friends and family on the dance floor! The trick to having a great wedding party is to hire a DJ who knows what they’re doing. You may also consider hiring a live band, which can set the tone before the DJ comes on.
Remember that you want your party to go on for as long as possible, so look at putting together a relaxation zone and offering midnight snacks. Do that, and people will stay dancing until the early hours.
Got Something to Add?
There’s a lot that goes into planning a successful wedding but we wanted to capture a couple of key points. If you’ve recently been married or are celebrating many years of married life, please share your top tips with us below.
Until next time, thanks for reading.
Helen, Nial, Lewis and Mason
Welcome to Pikalily, an award-winning food, travel and lifestyle blog. We are Nial and Helen, a happily married couple from Northern Ireland, who share a passion for food and travel among many things. We became parents to our beautiful boy Lewis in 2017. Follow our adventures through the blog.
