For the bride-to-bes

not from my wedding!

It’s been almost a year since my wedding, and as I see others plan for their wedding on Facebook, I can’t help but reflect on my process last year. For one thing, I’m SO glad that I’m done my wedding. It’s quite stressful to keep predicting the weather when you have an outdoor ceremony. And even though I had most of my things ready and bought, I couldn’t stop thinking about how everything will come together on the day of – I kind of like to micro manage, and won’t settle for anything less than perfect. So since this is supposed to a “once in a life time thing” of course I’m going to make sure it’s perfect. Looking back, I realized I spent WAY too much time and energy worrying about the wedding day. I’m glad to say that I was able to let go of most of the worry the day of to actually enjoy the true meaning of the wedding day - celebrating our union with our friends and family.

So if you’re reading this and planning your wedding, don’t worry – everything will turn out fine! And if you’re stressing about the tinniest of details, I bet your guests won’t even notice. The one thing our guests commented on was how down to earth our whole wedding was – the guests only really care about the stories, the experience and the food – not so much about the decorations.

Now if I were to tell my past self what I should be focusing on, here’s what I’ll say:

- Find a good photographer and videographer, their experience were essential to the flow of the day. Having a videographer also allowed us to review the whole morning’s activates at the reception – especially for some people that couldn’t make it. I don’t regret spending money on either of these!

- Simple decorations goes a long way. We were debating if we should get chair covers (our place had really outdated chairs) and the chair covers made a huge difference! It made everything look sleek and uniform.

- Don’t spend so much time on finding table decors. Most people don’t even notice it and it took up too much space on the table.

- Writing down the whole day’s schedule out was helpful. It gave us an idea of where we should be at a certain time. The photographer even said I was the most on-time bride she’s seen ;)

- I should have made a more detailed list of photos I’d like to take…the photographer ended up running around a lot gathering people… although we had a really patient one, so she was awesome!

- We had way too many food left over at our wedding. I wish there was a way that we can donate them or have people bring some food home. It was such a waste!

- I was debating for a long time where to have our ceremony. I finally ended up doing it in the small backyard of my parent’s place. Although I was reluctant at first (it was outdoors and had no backup plan), I was really happy I did. It was a special place in my heart since it was at the place I grew up in, and it made the whole ceremony more sentimental and intimate. It also cut the travel time for the wedding party!