Mrs. G's wedding tips

So with five weeks of marriage under my belt I have a limited amount of marital advice but I do have some advice for any bride to be. These are some things I learned during the wedding planning process. They were either things I think I did right or things I wish I'd done differently. Some things are very practical and some are less tangible pieces of advice. At any rate here are mine; if you have any please share!

1. Don't stress about the guest list. The people who you go back and forth about inviting--just don't. I don't mean this in a harsh way but only the people closest to you are dying to come to your wedding. Everyone is happy for you but people understand if you can't invite them and they probably aren't chomping at the bit to get their invite anyway.

2. Number your response cards and keep a list of your guests with their coordinating number. Not everyone knows to put their name on their response card when they return it, so help yourself out.

3. There are SO many details to a wedding and a lot of them are optional and most of them are expensive! Ask yourself, "If I were a wedding guest, would this matter to me?" If not, don't worry about it. For example one of the things that wouldn't matter to me as a guest are centerpieces. So I used the centerpieces my reception place provided and called it a day.

4. I bought "extra" favors just in case...don't do this. Keep them cheap and keep the number ordered/made in line with your guest list. Not everyone took one with them and so we were left with tons of matchbooks. Since neither of us smoke it will be 50 years before we ever use all of them.

5. Programs are another thing to keep cheap or nix altogether. I knew I didn't want to spend a lot of money on them so I made my own using preprinted programs from a church supply store. I printed them using a Word document. The pack of 100 was $6.99 and it took an hour to print and fold them all. I was happy with them; they were pretty and we really saved on them. However; in the end we had MOST of them left over. People either don't take them or throw them out ASAP. If you don't want one for your scrapbook, I'd say to skip them. While you're at it, skip menu cards and escort cards.

6. Open seating! We reserved three tables for us, our parents and our wedding party and their spouses. Other than that, let people sit where they want. You'll save money on the escort and place cards. You will also save the time it takes to organize a seating chart and if you print the cards yourself, you'll save that time too.

7. Don't try to control everything. Pick people who are good at what they do, (photographer, reception venue, caterer, DJ, etc.), and let then let them do it. Be flexible. Make sure they consult you about things you want to do but then let it go. Take their suggestions, especially about time lines and logistics. Remember; they do this every weekend and you don't. They might have something to offer in this way.

8. About the bar--You know your guests...are they going to miss the bar? If not, don't pay for one! Most of our guests were not drinkers so we didn't want to pay for an open or semi open bar. We had a cash bar for beer, wine and liquor. As a courtesy, (and I stole this idea from my friend Courtney's wedding), we put two bottles of white zinfandel on each table. We bought them cheap from a party supply store and I made simple tags on card stock to hang from each one. It went over beautifully! We were right about them not drinking because we had most of the wine left over. Make sure to ask your venue about this before planning because of liquor laws.

9. About the menu--Keep it nice but minimal. If you haven't noticed, we were all about saving money. We didn't put a dime of our wedding or honeymoon on credit and we aren't cash rich so we had to balance cutting back with having a lovely wedding. One of the places this can be challenging is the menu. The trick here is to find a caterer that does a great, professional job of presentation and service. Our menu was very simple: hot roast beef and hot rigatoni with meat, potato salad, vegetables/dip, bread, cold cuts, etc. This is food people like! And we got so many compliments on how good the food was! Besides, the food isn't the star of the show...the cake is!

9. Spend money on the cake and the photographer.

10. I loved our wedding invitations but we spent too much on them. We couldn't agree on the print-your-own kind so we ended up ordering them. This is another one of those things that get thrown away by everyone but your parents. We could have saved a couple hundred dollars if we had made our own. You can get beautiful stationary for this at places like Michael's, Target, JoAnn Fabrics, etc.

11. Thank you notes--I used stationary from the $1 bin at Target. They are adorable and cheap. They were mismatched but who is going to care? Don't order them when/if you order your invitations. No one cares if they match your invitations or wedding colors. Also, write these up as your gifts come in.

12. This will be tempting but don't make dress shopping the first thing you do after getting engaged. If you give yourself six months before the wedding, you'll be fine. Also, if you are someone who shops better without 20 people talking in your ear, go by yourself. It might annoy some because people think this needs to be a group outing. But take my word on this: I bought three dresses because I couldn't sort through the opinions. The third was the charm and I bought it on my own on my lunch break.

13. I highly suggest not being engaged more than 1 year. Dragging it out sounded miserable to me and I'm so glad I was only engaged for 10 months!

14. Go on your honeymoon the next day. It might feel crazy but once you get where you're going, you'll be so glad you aren't back to work and waiting weeks to start your honeymoon trip.

15. Relax. In the end none of the details matter! Stay organized, plan ahead and then enjoy that last week. Roll with the punches, stay friendly and I promise you won't lose your mind. Things will go wrong, (we couldn't find the ring bearer's rings and he walked down the aisle empty handed). You're getting married and its all about the people who are there. If the people you love most surround you and you are focused on the fact that you're joining into the miraculous union of marriage, the day will feel perfect!

What are your tips?