You are unique as a couple; your relationship is unique, and your ceremony is unique, especially if you’re having it custom-designed just for you.

Yet there are some things that most weddings have in common. Here’s practical advice from those who’ve just got married to those who are just about to get married:

1. Remember to breathe – or you’ll simply pass out and not experience your wedding at all! Something is almost bound to turn out not exactly as planned, but the wedding WILL go on, and you WILL be married by the end of the day. Enjoy every moment, as the day goes by so quickly it’s almost a blur.
2. This is your day, so don’t worry about anyone else and don’t let what they want or think is right and best affect your choices and decisions. If you want to arrive at your reception in the beaten-up jalopy he picked you up in on your first date, go for it – if you can retrieve it from the scrapyard!
3. Remain true to yourselves; you want your wedding to feel and be different from any other wedding you’ve ever been to. Listen to your heart and do what you really want to do.
4. Just do the bits you want to do. Don’t worry about the traditions and rituals that people around you are doing or usually do if they don’t mean anything to you as a couple. Work out your top three priorities (see my tip on The Heart of the Matter) before you get anyone else involved. Then when family and friends offer to help, accept their offers gladly, because then all the help you receive will be contributing to your vision of what you want for your wedding.
5. If you’re eloping, make sure you get the best photographer you can afford. They are the only photos you’ll have, and you want them to be the best they can possibly be.
6. If you want to save money or just get more involved, use your skills, to design your invitations, make the party favours, sew your dress, make the decorations or do the flowers. It will make everything more personal and special.
7. Most of all, have fun together, love each other, and take the time to take it all in and enjoy it so you will experience and remember every moment of your wedding day.

Catherine Kentridge

Where and by whom: Your celebrant ceremony can be held anywhere you wish with exactly the words, rituals, customs, readings, music and traditions that you want.

To change or not to change your name: You and your fiancé/e may wish to take on each other’s surnames, totally, or by double-barrelling, or creating a new name that combines the two – thus the marriage of Rogers and McGregor can become Mr. and Mrs. Rogers, Mr. and Mrs. McGregor, the Roger-MacGregor’s, the McGregor-Rogers, or the McRogers. The only boundary is your own creativity.

Wedding planning and planners: Choose your own to suit your budget and your style

Rehearsals: Choosing to have a rehearsal of your ceremony is a smart move. It will give you an idea of the timing, flow and feel of their ceremony, and in advance, you might practise the first dance.  It’s a dress rehearsal of your wedding ceremony, going through every aspect of it, from walking up the aisle and positioning your bridesmaids and groomsmen, to all the actual words – except the vows, which you will save to say on THE day.

Choosing Your Wedding party and Witnesses:  With a celebrant, you’ve got total freedom of choice of who and how any are in your wedding party. You can invite your children, nieces, nephews, children of friends, the family dog, to be part of the bridal party. And you can choose who will be your witnesses. Just beware, family and friends may fight for the honour of having a role in your ceremony!

Choosing whom to invite: You will be being married in the presence of those you love and cherish, the people you have chosen to invite. It’s entirely your decision as to whom and how many of your family, friends and colleagues you invite.

Choosing what you wear: For every bride, the wedding gown is a matter of vital importance, on which endless hours are spent researching, and then more endless hours on fittings till it is absolutely perfect. And the decision is entirely yours- though anyone lucky enough to come dress-hunting with you will offer tons of advice about what suits you. As long as you feel beautiful in the dress, it’s the right one!

Choosing your Wedding Bouquet: Which flowers do you love best- what are your favourite types of flowers? You can base your choice of which flowers to have in your bouquet based on colour, scent, shape and what’s in season or available. Be creative with colours and types of flowers and greenery.

Choosing the rings: Will you both exchange rings, or will only one of you receive a wedding ring? It all depends on your preferences and your respective traditions. Will you make your own rings? Will they match? What metal will they be made of? Or will they be tattooed rings, which can never be lost or tarnish? It’s up to you.

Catherine Kentridge

You can use the time-honoured, repeat-after-me, “For richer or for poorer” vows. There is a great deal to be said for this. These vows have been used by millions of couples over the centuries and have the weight and power of history and tradition behind them. They have been used in countless novels, movies, and plays. These traditional marriage vows are what you expect to hear at most weddings.

Personalized wedding vows

However, you may wish to personalize your ceremony by writing your own special vows. You could combine the traditional vows, repeating them after the celebrant, and then read your personal vows to each other. It’s your perfect opportunity to write down and express your deepest feelings about each other on your wedding day.

A great way to start is to sit down and think about what it is you most love about each other, and why you are marrying this man or this woman. And then you could think what are the promises you want to make for your life together? Perhaps you’ll say to yourself, ”I love him because he can always see the bright side of any situation.” You turn that into a vow by saying, “I promise to learn from you your wonderful quality of always seeing the bright side of any situation.”

Mixing wedding vows and laughter

You can mix humour and in-jokes with more deeply-felt vows. One groom promised his bride “to always clean up after you cook, as we both deserve to eat well, and neither of us wants to eat my cooking.” Of course, most couples include “I love you” in those vows. You can keep your special vows secret from each other as a surprise for the wedding day. To keep the secret of the wedding vows, at the rehearsal I’ll hand you each a cue card with your words that you read silently to each other, to give you a sense of the timing. Of course, on your wedding day, you read them aloud to each other!

And tears

All I can say is, both of you should be prepared with linen handkerchiefs, or lots of Kleenex. The vows are the emotional heart of the ceremony, and brides and grooms have often found themselves overcome with the deep feelings the vows bring out.

Catherine Kentridge

Allow time for Wedding Prep

Wedding planners usually do an excellent job of creating a timeline with some space for the unforeseen built into it. For example, if you are getting hair, make-up, and nails done on the day of the ceremony, ideally have the aestheticians come to you, so you aren’t rushing from one appointment to the other. If that’s not possible, make sure you allow yourself time to get from one appointment to the other, and still have plenty of time left to dress and get to the wedding venue at least half an hour before the advertised starting time (i.e. the starting time you put in the invitations).

Wedding Photography at the Venue

Likewise, if you’re having a photo shoot somewhere other than your home or wherever you are getting ready for the wedding, build in lots of time to get to the venue. You don’t want to be like the brides who had a photo shoot in the far south-west end of town and the ceremony in the far north-east, and arrived a good 45 minutes after the ceremony was due to begin. Neither the brides nor the guests, nor the musicians, were in the best of moods when things finally got underway. Ideally, schedule your photo shoots at wherever you are getting ready for the wedding and then also at the venue itself. That way, at least you are on the premises!

Baby at the Wedding

OK, now let’s assume you’re safely at the venue and things seem to be running according to plan and on time. Then your baby, who is still breastfeeding, decides to go to sleep just as you are about to process up the aisle…but your plan was to carry him up the aisle in your arms. Or perhaps he has a meltdown, picking up the tension and excitement from all that flurry of activity going on around him, and there is no way you can do anything or go anywhere till he has calmed down. Well, just give him whatever time he needs to calm down. As long as word gets out to the guests as to why there is a delay, they will be understanding.

Weddings and Pets

If a pet happens to be part of your procession – the dog-as-ringbearer-routine – and the dog has just started throwing up, or is refusing to do its business so there will be no mishaps during the ceremony, just relax, and give it time, and let your guests know what’s happening. What nobody likes is to just be left hanging wondering what’s going on.

Punctuality and Politeness

We all know that traffic is often unpredictable, taxis are late or don’t show up, the bus you hired to bring guests from their hotel to the venue inexplicably fails to materialize. What to do? Ideally, find a balance between respecting the value and the time of those who are at the venue on time, and giving those who are not on time, through circumstances beyond their control, a chance to be at the ceremony. This can be a difficult balancing act. It’s important to check with the celebrant, the musicians, the photographers and the venue, as to what flexibility they have with delaying the ceremony.

Should you delay the Wedding?

Delaying the ceremony can have a knock-on effect on the rest of your wedding day. There are often tight timeframes for cocktails, music, beginning the dinner, or where the celebrant or photographer has another engagement and can’t delay. Don’t make the assumption that because it is your wedding day, everyone will just jolly well go along with whatever you want, delays and all. That is selfish and discourteous. Be aware that, even if celebrant, musicians, and photographers are willing to stay longer, you may incur additional charges for the extra time they will be spending waiting for things to begin. Also be aware, that you will need to make a cut-off point beyond which you will not wait, tricky as this can be if some of the bridal party or your parents are not there.

Finally, do realize that there are some things you can’t control. Know that by the end of the day, you will be married, and all the stresses will be forgotten in that joy.

Catherine Kentridge

If you’ve decided on a formal venue for your wedding, such as a banquet hall, hotel, stately home or a country club, this choice will affect a great many factors to do with your wedding. These may include cost, size of guest list, attire for you and your guests, type of invitation, time of day, music, and food. A formal location may also require working with their staff and/or hiring assistants, such as the venue’s wedding co-ordinator, or a wedding planner.

My experience with the resident wedding coordinators or planners at the many venues where I have conducted weddings, is that they are invariably very pleasant, helpful, and efficient. They make your wedding their top priority, recognize its importance and that everything to do with it should be exactly what you want and hope for.

The venue co-ordinator is the best person to answer any questions, large or small, that you may have about your wedding at their venue. Both for the rehearsal and on the day, this person will make sure everything goes as smoothly and calmly as possible. The best co-ordinators take the stress out of your day and allow you to be totally excited and joyful, knowing that all practical details are taken care of.

Hiring Wedding Planners

 Hiring an independent wedding planner is a good idea if you’re having a large wedding, or one with complex elements. You can choose to hire a professional planner or designate a friend or relation to help organize the event and see to the details.

There are many tasks with which a wedding planner can help. A planner – amateur or professional – can take care of catering, entertainment, processions, size of wedding party, flowers, invitations, finding someone to do the photographs or make the cake, or the dress, and may make recommendations about which celebrant to use as well.

Advantages of Formal Wedding Venues

There are some important logistical extras that formal venues are often better at providing, such as a special room or suite for the bride and/or wedding couple to get ready in before the ceremony and to relax in afterwards. Formal venues also always have a Plan B in case of rain, wind, hail or snow.

And their staff are equipped and experienced in dealing with just about any emergency that can arise – from thread and pins for sewing up tears in gowns and dropped hems, to flowers, printing services, and photocopying, to sending cars or taxis to fetch stranded guests, to providing microphones for the ceremony or reception, to calming words to nervous couples or their friends or relatives.

Disadvantages of Formal Wedding Venues

Two things to be aware of when choosing a formal venue: First, no matter how lovely the place or the setting and how helpful and professional the staff, no matter how beautiful the table settings and decorations of the ceremony location and the reception hall, it is always going to be less personal than if you had chosen a less formal place to get married.

Second, a formal venue often has more than one wedding scheduled on any given Saturday, Friday, or Sunday, so you may be under a tight time constraint, for photos, ceremony, cocktails and reception – and all of this can be stressful.

Whatever you decide, it’s your day and it will be wonderful!

Catherine Kentridge

If your style is more casual, you may gravitate towards a more relaxed wedding venue. The ideal venue will probably not need much research.

You will have chosen the venue for your wedding because it’s meaningful and special to you and reflects who you are and your style. Perhaps you have chosen a restaurant, pub, or your own garden or a spot at a remote park, or where you and your partner first met or created happy memories.

Weddings at more casual venues tend to be smaller than at the more formal locations. From a hundred wedding guests to as few as a dozen, or even just a couple of the most important people in your lives.

Benefits of the casual wedding

Apart from being less expensive, sometimes even free, you can make the place more your own. You can have practically free rein in choosing food, decorations, music, and entertainment, time of day, and your schedule of events. You won’t have the pressure of having to start or finish at a set time for photographs, ceremony, cocktails, and reception.

I‘ve conducted wedding ceremonies at informal venues ranging from living rooms to ballet studios, gardens, beaches, national parks, and on board ship. Each one had its unique qualities and reflected the style of the couple getting married there.

Remember!

It may be harder to have a backup plan if the weather does not co-operate, or if you have a sudden flood or power outage.

You will likely have to attend to every detail, large and small, yourselves, (which some couples love to do anyway, and others just don’t. They may prefer to focus on the ceremony, for example) rather than hiring a wedding planner or having an onsite wedding co-ordinator.

It may be harder to improvise if there are glitches, as there would be fewer resources of people or technology to fall back on than there would be at a formal venue.

Balanced against all that is the joy of getting married in a very special place, and doing it your way, in every way.

Catherine Kentridge

You know how it goes:  no sooner has the proposal been made and accepted and the engagement ring put on the wedding finger, than the burning issue of when and where to get married looms. And the minute you announce your engagement, absolutely everyone will want answers to those questions.

They’ll also want to know the season, formal or casual, destination or … The decisions are so numerous, in every way – from choice of location, time of day, time of year, cost, formality, informality, that the whole matter can be overwhelming.

Here’s help so you can focus your choices and get a better idea of what will be the right venue, in every way, for your dream wedding.

6 Questions to help you decide where to have your wedding

1. Is there somewhere that is very meaningful for you – such as where you first met, the place where the proposal took place, a favourite vacation spot, the family flower garden, horse farm or cottage?
2. If there is such as place, would it make sense to get married there? How easy is it to get there? How many guests could comfortably fit there, whether it’s indoor or outside. Where would guests stay, how easy would it be to get a celebrant to do the wedding? Also consider the options for catering, photography, and music—can you fulfil your wish list in this location and is it ideal?
3. Do you want somewhere formal or informal, traditional or not – a banquet hall, museum, art gallery, country club, restaurant or bar, or your own garden?
4. What size wedding do you want—a small intimate one or a larger affair with several hundred guests?
5. What do venues for weddings cost? And to answer this, it would be worthwhile to pick a range of places and make some enquiries. A good starting point might be to contact a venue where you attended someone else’s wedding and which you really liked.

You can then plug some of these numbers into your wedding budget as you begin drawing it up. This will help focus on the type of place that will suit your needs best and fit what you have available to spend – e.g. restaurant versus banquet hall, friend’s garden versus country club, local versus out-of-town?

6. What’s the most important element of your wedding?

 As with just about every aspect of your wedding, from budget to venue to guests to clothes to vows and celebrant, it all comes down to, what is THE most important part of the wedding for you?

Once you have answered that question, everything else will start to fall into place. There is no right or wrong answer. Go with the wedding venue and type of wedding that feels perfect for you.

Catherine Kentridge