Brandon and I celebrated our one-month wedding anniversary on Tuesday – yes, we did indeed celebrate one month đŸ™‚ We just both still can’t believe we’re actually married and want to hold on to this feeling as long as we can!
In case you missed it, I did a full recap on our wedding here.
I’ve received so many questions about different aspects of the wedding – instead of doing a marathon of blog posts over the next few weeks, I wrapped them all into today’s post. So, get your scroll on, and let’s dive in.
Q: Can you share the itinerary template you used for the wedidng weekend/wedding day-of?
A: Although our wedding planner handled all of the main logistics for the event portion of the wedding, I still decided to create an itinerary for the bridal party. There were so many moving parts and I wanted to make sure everyone knew where they were supposed to be at all times đŸ™‚
Q: Did you send your bridal party packing lists?
A: I sure did! Click here to download the packing list I sent.
Q: What did you do for wedding favors?
A: We opted out of the whole wedding/guest favors idea. We heard from several people that they’re usually a waste of money and I firmly believe that if we would have ordered 150 favors for guests, 90% of them would have been left at the venue.
Instead of traditional favors, we did guest experiences instead. We had a cigar roller with custom cigar tags, a photo booth with customized print outs and our personalized escort card cocktail stirrers.
Q: Did you and Brandon do a first look?
A: Nope. I knew the first time I wanted to see Brandon was when I walked down the aisle and I am so glad we did it that way. It was extremely special for us to see each other for the first time in front of all of the people that love us – I got very emotional when I saw him standing at the other end ad it still gives me chills when I think about that moment. It was just perfect.
I did, however, do a first look with my bridesmaids which I loved. Their reaction was priceless and such a special moment between me and the women I love most. I also did a first look with my dad and love that we’ll always have that private memory together.
Q: Did you get your bridal party gifts?
A: We got a ton of really cute personalized gifts from David’s Bridal for our entire bridal party. We gave them out at the rehearsal dinner so they had them for the weekend!
Q: How did you stay organized throughout the planning process?
A: Our wedding planner (Drake Social Events) used this incredible planning platform complete with checklists and to-do lists – that really helped me stay on top of things the last 3-4 months of planning. Before I started using that to-do list, I used the planning feature on TheKnot.com. This was REALLY helpful for the beginning stages of planning. You set your wedding date and they build out a timeline working backward with everything you need to do.
Q: What is one thing you wish you knew when planning?
A: Don’t forget the small things when creating your budget. You won’t believe how easily things add up! Make sure you include these smaller items in your budget:
- Tips for bartenders, catering staff, drivers, etc.
- Welcome bags and fillers (we ended up not doing these because of COVID restrictions but don’t forget to budget accoirngly if you’re planning to do them)
- Hotel valet: if you’re paying for hotel rooms for family members or members of the bridal aprty, don’t forget to either calculate in valet fees or commuicate those fees with guests
- Cake knife, garter, guest book, etc: these things aloen might not cost much but when you add together a ton of smaller items, you’ll see a couple hundred dollars coming out of the budget that you might not have planned for.
- Wedding bands and gifts for eachother: this one might seem obvious but I don’t know how we left both of these out of our budget.
Q: Any tips for couples?
A: EVERYONE says this – believe them. The wedding will fly by. Truly, honestly – it goes by so fast. I thought everyone was exaggerating but I still can’t believe how quickly the end of the night came. We ended up canceling the garter toss and bouquet toss because we wanted to enjoy more of the dance floor and bounce house and I have sero regrets. Just remember to have fun and enjoy the night TOGETHER instead of trying to stick to a timeline or list of things you want to do.