Weddingbee Blog

We decided early on we weren’t doing favors. Most of our guests planned to spend the night or weekend in Newport and I went a little crazy on the O.O.T. bags. A few things happened during our planning, like unemployment and the purchase of our first home. We needed to save somewhere, so favors and unnecessary details were cut.

As time got closer, I felt like we might have cut too much.

I absolutely love details. I know most people don’t notice them at weddings, with the exception of other brides or recent brides, so I decided if we were going to cut things, details would be what we’d cut. Crazy right? I blog for this website, Weddingbee, and it’s known for the bees’ gorgeous details.

But when push came to shove and our budget got cut, we had to be realistic. We decided guests’ happiness was more important than details. We spent on areas that would benefit our guests like open bar, food, a morning after brunch, etc. Realistically, guests may have enjoyed the special little touches, but they were really more likely to have made me happy. As time grew closer, I realized having very few details would be a BIG regret. I’ve read a million wedding blogs leading up to the wedding and saved tons of detail inspiration posts and photos I loved from others’ weddings. So, we decided we’d raise our budget just a bit to include a few more details; not because it was really important for the wedding, but because it was really important to me.

I had always known we’d do minimal flowers (bouquets and boutonnieres), starfish escort cards, DIY centerpieces, table numbers, a flip flop basket, bathroom basket, and OOT bags. These details made sense to me because they were either necessary or our guests would benefit from them.

When we decided to add more details, we decided to order custom cocktail napkins, add two kinds of favors, a “just married in Newport” sign (we also already had a few other signs from that store we ended up using, too) and our postcard “guestbook.” The addition of these few details made me feel much better. I felt like these little items would add a little more personality to our wedding, and they absolutely did. More than anything, the postcard guestbook was a huge hit. Thank goodness I made so many extras, because a few guests wanted to bring home one of each style—I think we had 6 styles. Each week we receive about two cards in the mail and it brings a smile to my face every time.

While logically I know our wedding would have still been amazing without these additions, I’m so happy we added them because I’m a details kind of girl and it was fun to have the extra touches.

Are details important to you? Do you think they “make” a wedding, or are you including them more for yourself?

*This was just a sneak peek, there will be many more details to come in the Starfish recaps