How can I make my wedding day special?
It’s difficult not to be swept along by the deluge of trend-setting, powerful media that sets the tone and agenda of weddings. How many articles have you seen about losing weight for your big day, how much you should ideally be spending on your wedding day, what to wear, what flowers are in fashion, what the cool dudes are eating at weddings and so it goes on. This media-driven consumer-frenzy is by no means restricted to weddings, but that’s where we work and it’s hard to witness this level of pressure both financially and emotionally on couples before the long (and hopefully happy) joint journey that is marriage has even started.
Let’s be clear, no one accepts your invitation to your wedding because of the venue you have chosen, the favours you give out, or the menu you decide on or just to see your dress. They come for the two of you, and if you are in any doubt about this motivation, immediately strike that person off your list.
All too often budgets are blown, couples getting into debt and been party to some sad conversations relating to the couples’ secret disappointment in their wedding day. Sometimes, less secretly guests do not enjoy your wedding day. So what can you do to make your wedding day special?
In this article we keep it real about all things wedding including winter weddings and elopement and hope to inspire you to be true to yourselves and own special day.
Unconventional wedding ideas
Let’s just recap. Why are you getting married? To please your mums? To ensure there’s a big party? To make sure the family gets together? For the dress? To make sure your wedding it better than any of your friends? You feel duty bound to have a big wedding with bells and whistle as you have been to so many of your friends weddings in this ilk?
If you’re answering yes to any of these questions it’s probably best not to read on. This article is not for you.
If however, it’s because you are in love with each other, want to spend the rest of your loves together and want those who really matter to you to be there for you when you make these life long promises then read on. We arrange over 250 petite weddings every year for couples for who these are their primary drivers for getting married and this article shares some of the thoughts and ideas behind the most intimate, relaxed and enjoyable weddings we’ve been lucky enough to be involved in over the past few years.
We live in a world where it’s easy to forget that what makes your wedding special is the bond you’re sealing between the two of you and the promise you’re making to one-another. Nothing else really matters. The rest is finesse.
Bring yourselves to the day
It’s little wonder lots people dread a wedding invitation arriving in their doormat. The traditional wedding format insists on many people (your widest circle) and a pretty standard formula – get ready, ceremony, toast drinks, sit-down meal, speeches, cut the cake, dancing. The venues vary, but on the whole they include table cloths and matching chair covers (because the chairs underneath are ghastly), set menus to choose from prepared by the venue chef, rules about decorations and protocol, lots of drinking and tears in the toilets.
Our experience with smaller weddings is a little different. Couples tend to bring much more of themselves to their special day. Here’s some of the loveliest ideas we’ve come across:
Home-made table decorations - beautiful paper flowers made by the bride and her bridesmaids from the pages of the couples’ favourite book, succulents grown by on the couples’ dads to decorate the ceremony table and arranged down the centre of the dining tables, handmade table runners, jam jars of wild flowers collected by the wedding party on the morning of the wedding for the ceremony room and for the wedding breakfast.
A photograph montage assembled on the day by the guests who have been asked to bring their favourite snaps of the couple to create this unique centre-piece to the day.
Homemade favours – wild flower seeds collected by the couple and packaged up with a message to scatter the seeds somewhere special.
Light a candle for relations or friends who are no longer with us along with a photograph in a beautiful frame – it’s a lovely way to remember those who we wish were with us still.
Choose a very personal theme and make it large – if your first date was at a Mexican restaurant choose Mexican food, have a Pinata, choose some Mexican themed decorations, include some Mexican traditions – the bride’s dress is traditionally sewn by female family members, throw rice rather than confetti after the ceremony.
Have an evening ceremony – this changes the vibe of your wedding day immediately. A dusk ceremony is super-romantic and can be followed by an exit from your ceremony through a sparkler tunnel provided by your guests, an evening BBQ with fire pits and toasting marshmallows and campfire songs.
Consider a winter wedding. Think candles, furs, mulled-wine, hearty food and log burners. These weddings are not only romantic and intimate they are also considerable cheaper than summer weddings.
Create your wedding playlist on the day. Ask guests as they arrive to add to a Spotify playlist choosing 2-3 tracks that really remind them of the two of you or one of you. Leave a gust book so that they can each write down what they chose and why so that the two of you can enjoy the memories forever.
Write your own vows – you can only do this is you choose a celebrant led ceremony, but its so worth it. You can say what you really want to say to each other, and believe me there will not able a dry eye in the house (or on the beach).
Have you children or grandchildren write their own reading for your wedding day. It’s always a winner and a way to make them feel very much front and centre on your special day which is often about creating families as much as formalizing a life long bond between two people.
A number of couples get in touch with us when in the throws of post-engagement bliss they decide to go down the big traditional wedding route with hundreds of guests, wedding fairs and lots of advise from friends and family. When it all gets too much and a good few couples decide this is not for them and plan a runaway wedding, just for the two of them.
Where it’s a beach hut wedding, a luxury stay in the ultimate escape for two by the sea with a garden pagoda wedding or a castle elopement we have a range of all inclusive elopement options that cost less than £3000. The focus of these wedding stays is the two of you, without any compromise on the special nature of your day. You ‘ll be treated like kings and queens and we even provide witnesses.
Get in touch today by emailing jane@petiteweddings.co.uk
