25th April 2023
Planning a wedding is one of the most exciting and stressful times in a couple’s life. It’s a time when you can showcase your love for each other, spend time with your friends and family, and create memories that will truly last a lifetime.
However, with so many details to think about, it’s easy for couples to make mistakes that can detract from your special day.
We spoke to tons of different couples about their experiences, and particularly things they wish they did differently.
In this blog post, we’ll highlight 25 different mistakes couples make when wedding planning, on their wedding day, and after their wedding.
The first mistake many couples making is announcing their engagement too soon to their wider friends & family, which means that they get inundated with tons of excitement & questions immediately after; and that can lead to stress very earlier on.
You want to take your time and enjoy the proposal as a couple, before announcing it too soon.
Tons of couples will say that they regret not creating a wedding email, or making one too late. It will be a lifesaver when it comes to sending out wedding enquiries, signing up to Eternity UK, making purchases & so much more.
If you are anything like most people, you will likely have an inbox that is absolutely saturated with tons of emails everyday, and it’s sometimes difficult to sift through the important ones.
This is definitely easier said than done, especially when every Asian household parent wants to invite every soul they have ever met to the wedding.
Jokes aside, majority of parents follow the rule of “if they invited us to their child’s wedding, they have to come to ours”. Whilst this may work well for some couples, it could be an extremely lengthy guest list for others.
Tons of couples will invite loads of people to their wedding, who they don’t really know. Quite honestly, there’s no ‘one size fits all’ solution to this, because each situation & dynamic is so different.
It comes down to what is practical, both logistically and financially. If you are having ‘strangers’ at your wedding, as opposed to your own friends, then it’s definitely more of a prevalent conversation that needs to be had, so be sure to prioritise it accordingly and always have the chat earlier on.
Planning a wedding in a world of Instagram, Pinterest & Eternity UK definitely has it’s perks, but it can also be slightly stressful with wedding FOMO.
It’s so easy to look at a cool & unique idea that someone else did at their wedding, and then want to implement it into yours. This is totally ok, unless you end up doing it with everything you see, and start to go overbudget.
Make a conscious effort to only spend on the things that you truly believe will add value to your big day.
More often than not, couples implement unsustainable wedding lifestyles, which means crash dieting or invasive treatments which aren’t sustainable in the long run. This can truly take a toll on you mentally and physically. It’s important to implement a sustainable lifestyle & form good habits.
This is a constant regret of most couples. Whilst a wedding planner is there from day one & can hold your hand throughout the entire process, they can also be quite expensive and some couples may choose to give it a miss.
On the other hand, a wedding day coordinator ensures that everything runs smoothly on the day of the wedding, and essentially saves the job of one of your friends or family running around coordinating your suppliers and guests all day long. It frees them up to live in the moment and enjoy the wedding with you.
Not to add to your list of outfits, but so many couples always overlook that they will be photographed whilst getting ready the morning of their wedding. Be sure to keep a bridal robe or something cute & comfy on hand to ensure you don’t look back at the pictures and have any outfit regrets.
It. Will. Leave. Marks!
Another overlooked mistake is to wear a tight bra the morning of your wedding, which leaves potential for the skin indents to be seen when you wear your suit, lehenga or saree, depending on the style of it.
You want to leave about an hour between the time that you are ready, and actually need to leave your room. This gives you ample time to calm your nerves, do a few first looks with your friends & family, take pictures with your nearest & dearest, and allow for any last-minute emergencies.
The sooner you are ready, the better.
You need to have comfy shoes on your most important wedding week! Be sure to wear them in, in advance, to avoid any aches & pains.
The more you know, the better. Now, don’t confuse ‘asking more questions’ with ‘micromanaging your suppliers’. You are hiring experts, not just anyone, so you want to have the balance between asking enough questions to ensure you are making well-informed wedding decisions, but you also don’t want to act like the expert and try to micromanage them. This may cause some strain on your supplier relationships and is quite unnecessary.
Some couples can often forget to communicate to their caterer that they need specific plates of food for the suppliers. If this is the case, be sure to also ask your suppliers for any dietary requirements in advance.
We love a good DIY, especially when it saves money, but you want to be cautious of not leaving too many elements to be DIY’d to the point where it stresses you out by eating into your time. It’s important to find the right balance and only DIY if you think it will be more enjoyable and add value for you. If not, then leave it to the experts!
Don’t do it! Sunset is for beautiful wedding shots of the wedding couple. In case you haven’t noticed, this is a major trend for tons of bollywood celeb weddings, where they specifically carve out time for the pheras, varmala, or couple shots at sunset.
Did you know? Katrina Kaif cut her ‘joota chupai exchange’ short, because she wanted to get the golden shots with Vicky Kaushal.
So many couples set out a rigid structure for their wedding photographers & videographer, whereas ideally you want to leave some open gaps for them to go with the flow and capture candid moments throughout the day. Give them enough leeway to be natural & trust their experience.
Speeches are great. They truly are. Especially when they are the optimal length of time!
You want to ensure that everyone who is giving a speech is briefed on the amount of time they should spend talking. Sometimes, couples regret not doing this and some speeches end up being quite long and making you overrun.
We absolutely love a good table centerpiece as much as you, but tons of couples say they regret getting decorations which blocked the guests’ views of the couple & dances. This often ends up forcing guests to stand up out of their seats and block the people behind them even more.
In addition to this, you will get guests half-covered faces in pictures, and won’t be able to capture their reactions as well as you would like.
We do live in a world of social media, and often you want to be able to share your moments or look back on them straight after the wedding, but your photographer or videographer will likely take a few weeks to get back to you.
You want to allocate either a friend of a dedicated wedding content creator to capture the vibe – trust us!
So many brides don’t allocate a family member, maid of honour, of friend to be the main point of contact for your wedding coordinator or wedding suppliers. You don’t want to be in charge of coordinating any logistics on your wedding day, so do the handover in advance.
Sometimes couples leave their thank you cards to their wedding guests & suppliers too late, to the point where it’s just always lagging on the back of your mind. Be sure to allocate some time a few weeks after the wedding to specifically go back to everyone & write your supplier reviews.
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Welcome to Real Couples, where we speak to couples about their proposal, wedding planning process, the lead up to the big day, and any advice
Welcome to Real Couples, where we speak to couples about their proposal, wedding planning process, the lead up to the big day, and any advice
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