Some Advice

Some Advice

July 29th, 2011 @ 4:39 pm by Mrs. High Wire
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So far I can’t say I have any regrets about wedding planning. But there are some things I look at and think “man, I so would have done things a little differently if I had just known better” and other cases I’m thinking to myself “Whew, thank goodness I planned for this or I’d be in total deep water right now.” I thought I’d share some of what I’ve picked up on:

Don’t pre-stamp anything. I accidentally did twice as many as we needed and now we have a ton of stamped giant envelopes with no destination as well as stamped RSVP envelopes that are addressed to our house and are totally useless. (Peeling off the stamps does not work at all by the way. We tried.) Oh, and our invites wound up costing us $.64 in postage instead of the usual $.44, so I definitely could have used those extra stamps to our advantage. Instead, I had to order $60 in more stamps.
If you get to a point in your planning where you think all the big stuff is done and all the little stuff will have to wait until the date gets closer, ignore that instinct. Keep saving money, keep working on projects. You’ll have so much to do and pay for at the end that you’ll wish you wouldn’t have taken that little break in the middle.

Don’t promise anyone that they’ll be in your wedding party or that you’ll use someone as a vendor until you are 100% sure. It avoids some serious awkwardness and the potential for hurt feelings.
Even if your venue has an event coordinator, hire your own. Your own coordinator’s priority is to you. An event coordinator’s ultimate responsibility is to the venue, and they can quit working from them in the middle of your planning if they want to. (Which is what just happened to us. I’m so glad we hired our own day-of-coordinator.)

What is your best piece of wedding planning advice?

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16 Responses to “Some Advice”

Member

ThePinkPeony (message) 264 posts, Helper bee

No new advice, but I just wanted to UNDERLINE AND BOLD your advice about not telling people they are in your party/a vendor/INVITED TO THE DAMN WEDDING unless you are totally positively 1000% sure. We are still ten months out and already maybe kinda sorta totally broke that rule and now want to smack ourselves. DO NOT LET THE EXCITEMENT GET TO YOU! Count to ten before promising ANYTHING!

7/29/11 @ 5:00 pm (reply)

Member

mrskesslertobe (message) 1,813 posts, Buzzing bee

Keep the evelopes and put labels over your address so you can still use the stamps!

7/29/11 @ 5:01 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss High Wire (message) 754 posts, Busy bee

@mrskesslertobe: That’s a good idea! I just can’t deal with the thought of all this wasted postage. Ugh.

7/29/11 @ 5:03 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Pony (message) 4,171 posts, Honey bee

Exceptional advice HW! I especially agree with #2!

7/29/11 @ 5:18 pm (reply)

Bee

Mrs. Elephant (message) 6,182 posts, Bee Keeper

There were so many little things that added up close to the wedding, I was so glad that we had saved more than we needed to cover it all.

7/29/11 @ 5:21 pm (reply)

Bee

Mrs. Tartlet (message) 3,207 posts, Sugar bee

Yes to all of your great points, especially #4! A venue coordinator definitely doesn’t equate to a wedding coordinator, and we would have been up a creek had we fallen into that trap.

7/29/11 @ 6:17 pm (reply)

Member

theoddbride (message) 316 posts, Helper bee

Place the envelope the stamp area over some steam, the steam should help loosen the adhesive so it can be reused again

7/29/11 @ 6:59 pm (reply)

Member

maery1 (message) 263 posts, Helper bee

I believe you can cut out the stamps and put on new envelopes too. The key is you can’t TAPE over it to stick it onto new envelope. They will return it (b/c it won’t get cancelled in the machine and you could potentially reuse.) You either need to glue on or use double sided tape underneath. I’d just cut them all out at once, put in an envelope and buy a roll of doublesided tape for when you need to use them.

7/29/11 @ 7:35 pm (reply)

Member

kamiie (message) 115 posts, Blushing bee

Excellent advice! I wish I had known these things before I got married

7/29/11 @ 11:28 pm (reply)

10.

Bee

Mrs. Hippo (message) 1,008 posts, Bumble bee

My venue coordinator (who I loved!) changed jobs two weeks before our wedding! Luckily by that time everything was already taken care of and I had my own day-of coordinator, but I totally second this advice!!!!

7/30/11 @ 1:07 am (reply)

11.

Member

lisaelanna (message) 315 posts, Helper bee

Looking back, I would have to say, about planning:

1. Take plenty of time to look around at what other people have done before you make any decisions about your wedding.

2. Don’t be afraid to change your plans. People started immediately questioning every detail of the wedding the instant I got engaged and so I made some decisions right away about colors and formality, etc. As I learned more about the wedding world I wanted to change them but felt like I was locked into doing exactly what I’d already told other people. But honestly, who’s really going to care if you told them your colors were blue and yellow and you decide you like red better? Not that I don’t like how my wedding is turning out, but I wish I’d let myself be a little more flexible.

3. Don’t let your family bully you into using their contacts/family members hobbies if you don’t want to. My FMIL pushed and pushed and pushed me to use her sister to make our wedding cake, claiming that she’d done tons of cakes before, even having worked as the baker for the local grocery store. I HATED the one she did for my FBIL’s wedding (the only picture of her work anyone could find) and so I put my foot down and went with someone else. Later on I found out from another family member that the cake she’d made for him couldn’t even stand up - they had to push it back together and take the cake cutting pictures super fast before the tiers slid off again. Thank goodness she’s not making mine - I’d be very stressed.

7/30/11 @ 1:15 am (reply)

12.

Member

mkewed2010 (message) 508 posts, Busy bee

I definitely agree with all of your advice! I have so many prestamped envelopes as well! Also calculated my invite postage wrong (due to the rigid nature of my invites) and had to buy ugly 17 cent stamps.

7/30/11 @ 9:08 am (reply)

13.

Member

Mrs.Anchors (message) 365 posts, Helper bee

Great advice! ….I did the re-stamping too. Hahaha… and yes, they are difficult to peel off…I just stopped.

7/30/11 @ 10:49 am (reply)

14.

Member

daisyfields816 (message) 107 posts, Blushing bee

I was just thinking to myself, “these can wait.” But this was the kick in the butt I needed. I’m working on my *can wait until later stuff* right now. Thank you!

7/30/11 @ 9:40 pm (reply)

15.

Guest

Katie

Oohh love the ‘don’t take a break after all the bigs things are done’ suggestion, I was getting complacent!

8/1/11 @ 5:49 am (reply)

16.

Bee

Miss Ladyfingers (message) 1,119 posts, Bumble bee

Great advice. I’d also put in there, once you make your budget and your saving goals (if you’re like us and stupidly had zero savings and are saving for your wedding AS YOU GO), increase your budget and your saving goals by at least 20%. We had a big shocker in the rental area when our rentals are now estimated at $500 more than they were 3 months ago, when our caterer suppsedly “overestimated’” our rentals. I’m also a big proponent of being as organized as possible - for me, that means day planner, blackberry calendar reminders, and multiple spreadsheets with running expense tallies, saving goals, week-by-week to-dos, and the like. If you’re less anal than me, you might have less. But I didn’t want to get to a month out and realize I forgot to order the cake topper that takes 12 weeks to make.

8/2/11 @ 12:42 pm (reply)