The first thing I would say is do NOT let the wedding magazines/industry tell you what to do and how much to spend on anything, it’s exhausting and would drive anyone crazy. Do it at your own pace, focus your energy and money on the things that you think will make a huge difference on the day or will matter to you five years later, and don’t get focused on things that you don’t care about. Like, you’re supposed to choose a theme these days? Our theme was ‘everyone can eat and no one cries (unless they’re happy tears)’. You have to choose colors? I asked what flowers would be in season (they’re cheaper in season), picked out a couple that we liked, and bang, those were our colors. Let the most important or easiest decisions limit the scope for the ones you care less about or that have lots of factors. We decided that having really good food from local restaurants we love really mattered to us, so that cut probably 80% of the venues; we didn’t want people to have to hang around for hours with nowhere to go between ceremony and reception, so that meant a place where we could do it all in one, AND doing most of the posed pictures beforehand (which also meant that my hair and makeup were at their best and our outfits were fresh). We spent up on photography but down on flowers (my folks saved every jar for 8 months beforehand plus getting some from their friends, we spent maybe $40 at thrift stores getting a couple of cheap vases in our colors to mix it up, and the florist put a single bud ot maybe two into most of them and that looked big and artsy but was WAY cheaper than renting vases and having proper arrangements), we spent up on having an open bar with champagne that my European husband could accept and down on invitations (I bought inexpensive but decent cardstock, a couple of templates from Etsy, downloaded a new font, and designed and printed them myself: total cost including ink for just over 100 save-the-dates, invitations, AND the thank you cards and an assortment of table labels and signs was about $200 plus stamps and a day of my life). We hate making playlists but cared about the music, and live bands were way out of budget, so we chose a wedding DJ who guided us through what kind of music to choose for what parts of the event and then made that work. Other people would have had a live band and nothing at all to take home, or no booze but lots of flowers, or want a specific venue enough to eat whatever catering they’ve got relationships with.
Because we were getting married in my hometown but don’t live there, and I love my parents but do not share their taste, we decided to hire a wedding planner: she was absolutely worth it just for the moment when I was almost set on a venue and she said she had never used it but she remembered hearing things, so she called two other planners who each told her they had a problem with rodents pooping on the beams above where the food would go! She was less expensive than I had thought planning would be, she offered different packages for how much you could have her do, and she made it really easy because for the things we didn’t know or care deeply about she could say ‘well, these three florists and these 2 DJs could work with your budget and I have had good experiences, and we’ll taste these two cake places but you’ll probably prefer this one’ which left us with a feeling of security without having to consider too many options.
The one thing I would change is our photographer. I found a few who were in budget, spent a LONG time going through their websites with a focus on the galleries, met them each for a zoom chat (we got married where I grew up, not where we live), rejected the one who was really hard to have a chat with but kept everyone else even if they didn’t feel like my kind of person per se, and then chose pretty much based on the pictures on the websites. I realised it was going to be an issue when we finally met in person the week before the wedding, and I saw his face when he saw that my hair was blue, and then again when I said ‘my dress isn’t white’: he had never experience any kind of not totally traditional wedding, he thought what we were doing was kind of insane and something we’d be embarrased by in later years, so it felt like he took our brightly colored wedding and gave me pastel pictures back. Also we just didn’t match personalities: we did a shoot before the ceremony for pictures with just us and with the bridal party to cut the length of time guests had to wait before the reception, (which I HIGHLY recommend), but his directions for how to pose and the shots he had in mind made us both feel pretty awkward and resulted in a lot of pictures where neither of us look like ourselves and one or the other of us looks uncomfortable. In hindsight, I didn’t know/understand that there are clear styles in wedding photography: what I wanted was more reportage style, focused on getting lovely pictures of the guests interacting and of the little moments during the day, with a few nice shots of the traditional things, and what I got was a TON of pictures of the ceremony, the speeches, and posed groups, and not that many of the fun parts of the event. We did get a couple of magazine-level posed images, but we got a LOT of pictures that felt like they were of a different event to the one we had, one that was less fun and more formal. We had to throw a second tiny wedding the following year (because my MIL broke her elbow in three places two weeks before our ceremony so they weren’t able to attend), and we spent a lot less on photography for that but chose someone who immediately undestood what we were going for, and we were utterly thrilled with every single image we got back from that (I wish I could travel back in time and fly her out to the first wedding!), so I would say that if pictures are a thing that matter to you, it’s REALLY important that you choose a photographer a) who you would enjoy spending the day with, because you’re going to do that, b) who understands what kind of party you’re trying to throw, and c) who has complete client galleries that they will show you while you’re considering them (any decent photographer can take one or two great shots from a single event that add up and look amazing on a website, it takes a really good one to get tons of them at a single event).
We also added a videographer at the last minute (because of my MIL’s disaster), and seeing it afterward I wish I had just planned for that from the start, as she was great but it wasn’t quite as good as it could have been, if we’d planned on it from the start we could have worked with her beforehand to tweak the timing and make her more familiar with the plan (and maybe gotten a drone permit and/or done a couple of shots during our photo shoot portion of the day).
Put someone in charge of checking that your outfit looks how you want before you start to walk down the aisle- I had my veil on but forgot to put the bit over my face, which I had planned to do, and it was only luck that my train unflipped itself.
Oh- and the one thing I completely forgot was to arrange our own travel! We were never going to rent a limo for a ten minute drive each way many hours apart. I could easily have pre-arranged who was going to take us there and who was going to bring us back because so many people were driving, I just forgot, so we ended up calling people on the way to take pictures to see who was either already dressed or hadn’t started dressing yet to bring us over, and then having to canvas the room at the end of the night for who had space in their car for us! If we hadn’t had a pretty place outside the hotel were we could shoot our first look that would have been even more stressful.
Things I’m really glad of: we had a lot of people who travelled long distance that we rarely get to see, and we knew that everyone says you hardly get to talk to everyone on the day, so we booked the hotel function room (free because we had block-booked the guests there) and had a pizza party for everyone who was there the night before instead of a formal rehearsal dinner, which both saved money and meant we could spend relaxed time with almost everyone; we also rented a park shelter (for $35) for a picnic at lunchtime the day after, and anyone who was still around was invited to come by and play the lawn games and eat some of the leftover food and cake from the reception, so we felt like we did actually get to have quality time with every guest across the whole time, which I’m really glad we did. During the family/group photo part between the ceremony and reception, we put out deli trays from the posh grocery store and made some outdoor games to play (horseshoes and cornhole), so no one got bored, hungry, or had to search for things to do in a strange town, but it only added about $100 to the cost. Instead of giving people objects as favors, which are surprisingly expensive and almost no one ever uses again, we had a cookie table and invited everyone to eat some AND take some home with them in cute little waxed paper bags.