but are good to bear in mind…

1. 1. You can’t do everything, budget is key, but prioritise what’s important to you.

      Although there are sooo many pretty Pinterest photos and I too, can lose hours looking at flowers, place cards, doughnut boards etc. it is important to bear in mind, that you will have to budget and prioritise for your big day. The best weddings I’ve been to have been when the couple have focused on what THEY really wanted. When Mr de P and I were planning, we sat down and wrote a list of all the ‘elements’ of a wedding and which were really important to us and split into the ‘must-haves’ and ‘nice-to-haves’. And let’s be honest, for almost all couples, this differs. We’re all unique, which in my humble opinion, is great. For some people who’ve dreamed of turning up to the church in a flash sports car, a horse and carriage, or they want to secure the best band because music is their life! I would honestly say that when it comes to planning your day and bookings – book the things you want first. This might sound strange, but as soon as we knew our date the three things we booked was our band, the caterer and, in our case, the tipi. This way, as food and music and the outdoors are so important to us, these were the ones we chose to do first so we were guaranteed to enjoy those parts of the day.

      For me, as you can imagine, the quality printing for our wedding invites was a priority. That said, hands up, in order to accommodate for the larger budget of invites, we sent an email as our Save the Date, and I was fine with that. We were able to use our engagement shoot photo and ‘hint’ at the colour of our big day, but more importantly, got the date in our friends and families diaries. I’ll also be doing a blog post soon about recommended timings for invites so watch this space!

   2. Something will not go to plan on the day.

      For our wedding, admittedly, quite a few things didn’t go to plan – I forgot my bouquet and arrived half an hour late, and it

      rained so we had to change the whole ceremony. As well as this, this is one of the photos that didn’t quite make it into the wedding album, but is when I put my husband’s ring on the wrong hand – oops! Our photographer captured it perfectly and it gave us a laugh whilst looking through our photos:

      

   3. The night before your wedding, you are likely to still have one job to do.

      Mine was crafting the set list and choosing our Spotify music for the signing of the register. Another couple I know were desperately trying to make their order of services a few nights before and had a whole family production line (hopefully, if you use my services, this would not happen, but if that does happen, it’s totally okay.)One of my friends realised that her dress didn’t have the – I want to say ‘back bustle?!’ it’s basically this thing that means that your train of your dress is bustled up underneath so that when it comes to your first dance, it’s not dragging on the floor and you’re able to pull out those moves. (Great tip btw – ask your seamstress!) So her Mum was an absolute star and got her sewing machine out the night before and was working until midnight.

   4. NO ONE tells you how awkward your first dance is.

      That’s the part of the day where you get some great photos, but, seriously, for me, it was terrifying!! This photo was taken and looks lovely – but what you don’t see is that I’m whispering in my husbands ear… I love you, but ahhh, I don’t like this!

      

   5. Ok. So some people might tell you this, but you have to remember it’s YOUR day.

      It’s not everyone elses’ – it’s you and your partner’s. While you’d absolutely love to be able to make everyone happy, not everyone will be. I say this with love too. When you look back on your wedding day, one of the best things is seeing your family and friends enjoying themselves and you really want to do that, but also what I remember is seeing the smile on my new husband’s face – we created a day that was ours and reflected us as a couple.