Things you wish you did...

cactusgal

pilly wrote: »

Hired a cake!! What a great idea, never knew you could do that, probably couldn't in my day. :P I've never seen anyone but Granny eat some of the wedding cake, such a waste.

You can actually just get a nice cake, though. I went to a wedding that had a lovely carrot cake that they ordered a few days before the wedding, no fuss or frills but just very tasty cake enjoyed by everyone.

ger vallely

We went without a cake and just had dessert. It wasn't missed . Also, our children were 9 and 11 years old at the time. The 11 year old did most of the video recording. It was so lovely and still gives me warm fuzzy feelings when I look back at it. People were so much more open to talking to her than to a stranger poking a camera in their face. She had a right chat about the food with my mother, who has since passed, and it is so sweet. So if possible, I'd recommend a child doing some sort of recording.

fits

Definitely recommend a later start if you can manage it. Ours was 3pm but I wanted 4 pm initially.

MIN2511

We had a great day! I was happy we stuck to our guns and got married where we wanted, our celebrant was fantastic!
Our ceremony started @ 3pm and I was very happy that I had one bridesmaid.
I was also delighted that I didn't have a hen party.
After the ceremony, we spent < 15 minutes on pictures as we both didn't want to miss out the pub stop.
We were specific that we didn't want a sit-down meal and we were delighted with it. It meant that people ate as much as they wanted/as little as they wanted. We were expecting 100 guests, and our decisions were based on that number, many people ate multiple portions, I would have preferred if we had ordered food for 115 people instead.

We didn't have a band, instead, I asked my favourite Grafton St busker to play at our wedding - went down really well.

No booked transport, we had a guest with a nice car drive me to the church and after taking pictures we got into a taxi and went to the pub to meet friends.

While my flowers were lovely, they weren't as wild as I wanted them to be. Also, even though we spent more than average on the flowers - I didn't really notice them. My bouquet alone was €150, so I expected a lot more than what I got.
I wasn't mad about my hair, I was a bit disappointed looking through pictures seeing a dropped curl - first world problem.
We didn't have a videographer and I am indifferent about the decision.
I was all over the place yapping away and I didn't get to eat my wedding cakes!
We had a caricature artist, we miscommunicated which was a bit annoying the week before the wedding. But our guests loved it!

We had an open bar from 5-9:30/10pm which went down a treat!

All in all, 6 months down the line, I am happy with the decisions that we made and happy that we both had a great party! We have friends and family still talking about it.

Curvy Vixen

cactusgal wrote: »

You can actually just get a nice cake, though. I went to a wedding that had a lovely carrot cake that they ordered a few days before the wedding, no fuss or frills but just very tasty cake enjoyed by everyone.

This was our cake....strange photo angle makes it look tiny but it was 'normal' 3 tier size! I made 2 chocolate biscuit cutting cakes which were sliced and given out....this was an iced load of polystyrene! Much cheaper than the best priced cake we could get and I made the topper to match the bouquet which I also made :-)

pilly

Curvy Vixen wrote: »

This was our cake....strange photo angle makes it look tiny but it was 'normal' 3 tier size! I made 2 chocolate biscuit cutting cakes which were sliced and given out....this was an iced load of polystyrene! Much cheaper than the best priced cake we could get and I made the topper to match the bouquet which I also made :-)

Beautiful.

tea_and_cake

Make a list of photos for the photographer. I wanted some of me by myself with dress and veil nicely placed. Very modelesque, on the day I felt I couldn't ask for more photos and mostly had had enough. But now I slightly regret it. Thankfully still have the dress so can always do photos again.

List is crucial and let your photographer dictate to others, guests will listen and the photographer is the expert.

Lucuma

tea_and_cake wrote: »

Make a list of photos for the photographer. I wanted some of me by myself with dress and veil nicely placed. Very modelesque, on the day I felt I couldn't ask for more photos and mostly had had enough. But now I slightly regret it. Thankfully still have the dress so can always do photos again.

List is crucial and let your photographer dictate to others, guests will listen and the photographer is the expert.

That's funny coz I have plenty of those posed ones of me in the dress with veil etc at all kinds of artistic angles. It was the basic 'bride, groom + groom's family' and 'bride, groom + bride's family' that my photographers didn't do!

BnB

whiskeyman wrote: »

Our photographer took us out after the ceremony to get some photos.
We wasted too much time taking schmaltzy photos we didn't want, and don't really like!
Would have much preferred to be back at the party and enjoying chatting to everyone!

Exact same. Our photographer was a bossy sod who litterally marched us away from the church for nearly 2 hours afterwards taking photos. We were young and didn't know any better so did what we were told. We should have told him to hump off and he'll take the pictures when we tell him and not the other way around. I've seen great pictures of all our old college and school friends in the pub down the road after the wedding and the craic looks 90. Would loved to have called in for just half an hour instead of rushing off on our own.

On the video.... it was one thing I really didn't want, but we went with it anyway because my wife's neighbour was doing it. We're married 14 years now and there isn't a single year since that we haven't pulled it out at least once and we still end up in a heap laughing every time we put it on. My favourite bit of it is the very start where he has everyone coming into the church.... Wives getting pulled in late by husbands as they try to adjust their feathers etc.... great fun. Also, we have a few friends and family who are no longer with us since that day so it is lovely to remember them out enjoying themselves.

Lucuma

Oh the video is an absolute must. The day goes by in such a flash, you really need to video to actually see what happened step by step!