Congratulations! You are getting married and the big day will be fast approaching. As exciting and fun as planning a wedding can be, the hard work involved – combined with the expectations of family and friends, the financial burden and the sheer number of details to remember – can be time consuming, stressful, and nerve wrecking.
The wedding day itself, however should be none of these things. It should be magical, memorable, exhilarating and a precious collection of wonderful moments, many of which you had not even planned. can take away the stress, worry and even deal with difficult in laws to ensure your BIG day is exactly that… magical!
You will only be a bride once so together with experience, common sense and clever fixes to ensure your special day runs smoothly, remains catastrophe free and is full of the highs you could hope for I have put together some Top Tips from the night before you tie the knot to the day after your dream wedding to share with you.
1. Relax the Night Before
“It’s Ok to have butterflies in your stomach. Just get them to fly in formation”, Rob Gilbert.
Make sure you leave the night before your wedding free to relax and enjoy yourself with your closest friends. No last minute phone calls, leave the details to your wedding planner, this way you can start to get excited about your big day without worrying.
What you eat and drink the day before should be planned in advance. This is definitely not the time to eat loads of chocolate that can cause a break out, order a giant pizza that will leave you bloated, or polish off a bottle of wine that could cause a hangover. Stick to light and healthy options that won’t give you a dodgy stomach, you will be thankful on your wedding day… Oh and be sure to drink loads of water as it is hot in Spain and you will need to stay hydrated!
2. Make a List of Things to Pack for your Honeymoon
This is a tried tradition and it is the best way to ensure that your honeymoon get away pack is ready for an adventure. Now a fews before your wedding start to make a list of the things that you need to pack fro your honeymoon. In the beginning write down any and everything that comes to mind. As time goes by you can edit the list.
Put this list next the mirror where you brush your teeth in the morning. That way you can use the time when you brush your teeth to see if you really need those items or have you forgotten something. Using “dead” time to help you decide is so much more effective than using more valuable time.
Give this list to your wedding planner and you will see quickly that she is worth her weight in gold as she will share with you the experience of hundreds of weddings and brides to be.
3. Use an Old Suitcase as your Prep-Suitcase
Now if you are really smart you will grab an old suticase, not one that you are planning to take – you’ll see why later, and start to fill it with things from your list. Try to find one that is the same size as your final honey travel suitcase.
After a few weeks of filling up this prep-suitcase you will be ready to move everything that you area really going to need and take on your honeymoon. By using an old suitcase two things occure;
1. You remove all the stress of this being your final days as a single person or that you need to make sure that you have everything that you need.
2. You make it so that you have a final packing to do, but an easy one because you are only moving things from the old suitcase to the final suitcase.
By the time you get done you will have everything you need and your honeymoon suitcase will be lighter than you could have ever imagined.
4. Ziploc Plastic Bags to the Rescue
If you have ever been camping or to sea on a 40 foot sail boat you know how important air-tight plastic bags can be. We like the classic and amazingly versatile Zip-loc bags. The bags are perfect for packing all sorts of things and they are transparent. It is amazimg how you can easily group items and protect them from moisture, sand, or the bottom of a lagoon. Protecting them from the elements and the accidents when your out in mother nature is a major plus. Cameras, make up, mobile phones, chargers, etc… can easily be protected no matter where you go or whatever happens to you luggage.
As they are transparent they make finding anything so much faster. We can’t tell you the number of times that grooms, not brides tell us that they were amazed how easy their honeymoon was because their luggage was packed like never before, protected and visible. Yes, men really appreciate this, but women even more as we have tons of little items that seem to disappear when we need them most.
Finally, if you are going to a tropical or exotic location for you honeymoon you will find that if you group your clothes and accessories together in a Zip-loc bag you can easily change gears. Many times you will have run to change from you bathing suit to your evening wear to not miss out on the wonders of your honeymoon package. Open your suitcase and grab the outfit and accessories that are all together already in the bag and off you go!
5. Find a “Photocall” spot
When you area picking out your wedding venue is great if you think about and discuss a “photo call” spot on the grounds or inside the facility. You know that place where are the famous stars line up before they enter the Oscars or the Golden Globe Awards. Well, that area is called the “photocall” and usually found by all the logos that are plastered on a wall. You won’t have wall per say, but that might be a great idea as well. You should work with you wedding planner or the venue coordinator to find a place towards the entrance of the venue where you can easily attend arriving / departing or guests in general when you program the to receive them. We recommend that you use the time before the cutting of the cake to go to your “photocall” area and have guests say their warm wishes.
This is so much more effective and pleasing to do than having to go around the room tabel by table, get separated from your new husband or not be able to talk to all your guests.
Once you are in your photocall area have your wedding planner and special helpers start to spread the word that, “The bride and groom want to thank you before they cut the cake, could you go and say hello to them? They are right over there.”
Set up a photocall area to meet all you wedding guests @ Photo courtesy of Photocall.es
You will see that guests will get up and come to you and your loving partner to say hello. You can easily share your warm regards and gratitud all the white your incredible wedding photographer is getting great shots.
For a wedding of 50-60 guests this works extremely well and for larger parties it does well when you break the “photocall” into several different moments during the day. The key is to find the right place or places to conduct your photocall.
Oh, be sure to discuss this with your wedding photgrapher to ensure that they are there snapping memorable shots of you with each guest. If done really well these moments can be shared with your guests in your thank you messages.
6. Use Whatsapp to get Great Wedding Pictures
This wedding tip is one that we have not seen much in action, but we are sure that it will catch on like wildfire. We love it as it has produced incredible results. Throughout your wedding and the reception party your guests will be taking pictures. Nowadays almost all these pictures are taken with their mobile phones. A lot of these pictures will even rival some of your best wedding photographer pictures given the high detail found on IPhones and some Samsung phones. Plus guests often see moments that are truly memorable during the day. They have the advantage of being relaxed and having fun and surprising moments will spring up around them.
Well, the best way to get all those incredible pictures is to set up a Whatsapp Group, but one that YOU are not part of. Yes, that is right! Have a friend create the group with all the guests of the wedding and have them prep and work the group a few days before the wedding with messages that say…
“We are all going to have an incredible time at ____ and ____’s wedding and we are excited to see your participation as well. Please take pictures and share them on our Whatsapp Group.”
“Is everyone ready for the wedding of the century? We can’t wait to see the pictures that you take. Be sure to share your best on our group.”
“Hey! Look at this incredible pic of ____and ____! Just 24 hours to go. See you all there.”
These mesages will get dozens of enthusiastic wedding photographers onboard and mesages flying with some incredible images before, during and after the wedding ceremony.
Once the first images start to be shared things will really take off and that is why it is so important that you and your partner are NOT in the group. You have an important moment to attend. You can’t be distracted by all the images flying back and forth.
Find the right person to do this. Someone that is really good with techie things and loves to chat. They should encourage and praise your guests and everyone will have a good time. Now with Internet integrated in mobile phones with their phone plans or connected to the wedding venue’s wifi it is easy for your guests to share their images.
Later, when you have time you can have all the images downloaded and go through them to find the best ones.
Here is the most part of this great wedding tip… Make sure that you identify the good ones and be sure to ask for the original images. Whatsapp likes to compress images so that they can be sent quickly. Original images will be several megabytes and have great quality to be reproduced digitally.
And as all the images are in Whatsapp it is easy to ask a person to send the you the original files or load them up to your Instagram or Facebook page, just ask them by Whatapp. Google+ and Facebook love high resolution images and easily connect to dozens of online printing shops to get beautiful copies made. What could be easier or faster than that!
Be sure to share these tips with your bridesmaids and wedding planner. We would love to hear which ones have helped you and how you improved them.
Do you have any wedding tips that you haven’t seen anywhere else? We are sure that you do.
Please share them with us below in our comments section below. We would love to learn and be able to help more brides-to-be!
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