The Worst Wedding Mistakes
– and how to avoid them

Nothing in this world is perfect, including weddings. But if you follow these tips you’ll avoid making the biggest wedding mistakes and save yourself a heap of heartache. Here are six mistakes and how to dodge them:

1. Organising your wedding to please others: Planning your wedding on other people’s expectations will double your stress and halve you’re enjoyment. This is partly because you’ll be steered into unchartered waters, such as types of food you don’t understand, and mostly that by the end of your big day you’ll feel resentful you’ve done everything for other people. Our solution: Write down a list of the key things you want, research what’s possible, and then stick to your edited list. Key things to consider are the sort of venue, the atmosphere (formal or informal), the type of food and the amount you want to spend. After that, stick to the lists and vary your choices only when practicality dictates, not other people.

2. Neglecting a rain plan. Everyone prays for a sunny day, but the weather is unpredictble. Having no rain plan can mean getting crammed into an unsuitable space at best. At worst you’ll be soaked. Our solution: The venue is key. There must be an inside space that can accommodate your guests. Once you’ve ticked that off, work out with your planner where the seats will go, how the inside space will be dressed and so on. With any luck, over-preparing for rain will make sure you have perfect weather. 

3. Mismanaging your numbers: Some people will tell you that you can expect 10-20% of guests not to accept your invitaion. That’s probable, but not certain. Too many guests can blow your budget, and in cases where venues can accommodate only a finite number you’ll be having awkward conversations with family or friends about why they suddenly can’t come. Our solution:  Send out a list of core invitations and get those confirmed before moving on to the second and (possibly) third waves of invitaions. That way you’ll know the number of spare sets you’re playing with at each stage. That means sending out invites as early as possible, and possibly houding a few people who don’t get back to you by the RSVP date – a job to give to a bridesmaid or groomsman.

4. Ignoring the budget. Running out of money could endanger your whole wedding if you can’t pay the venue or caterer. Our solution: Use a spreadsheet or wedding-planning software to write down all the costs you expect and build in a 10% contingency. There are heaps of online lists of what should be in a wedding budget. As you get firm costs, starting with the venue and catering, adjust the other figures as you go. The rest is up to willpower.

5. Drastic dieting. If you overdo it, you’ll feel sick on your big day and probably won’t even look good. We’ve seen our share of stressed and wan brides who looked like they needed a good meal. Our solution: Be realistic about what weight you can achieve and don’t choose a dress as an incentive for some crazy weightloss regime – if you fail, that will make you feel even worse and could lead to costly dress altertaions. To lose weight the healthy way, diet sensibly and work with a personal trainer or gym instructor who will give you professional advice.

6. Doing too much. If you want to ruin your wedding, work like a slave up until the big day and turn up feeling stressed, unhappy and exhausted. Our solution: When your wedding is over you should feel joy not relief, so take a few positive steps to make sure that happens. Set realistic goals, enlist help from others (a wedding or venue-based planner is best) and don’t needlessly add unnecessary tasks. If you start to find it getting too much, cut out the small stuff.

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