Wedding guest list dilemmas

How to resolve your guest list disasters

One of the very first areas that you will need to address when you start planning your wedding is your guest list. Guest numbers seems to be an issue that can rear its head in various forms throughout the planning process; from impact on budget to questions on etiquette and planning challenges.  As always, tackle decisions on your guest list head on and decisively.  Here are some guidelines to help you.

- See more at: http://www.getwed.com/articles/wedding-guest-list-dilemmas-au-en/#sthash.BUjG4UxV.dpuf

How do I start to plan my wedding guest list?

As a couple, decide on your shared vision for your wedding. Do you want a small affair involving just very close family and friends, or are you keen to gather as many of your nearest and dearest together as possible?  Do you want to invite people for the whole day or will you have a separate guest list for the ceremony and evening reception? Create a draft guest list with all those people who you definitely want to invite. This will give you the basis for your venue search as well as a starting point for calculating your wedding budget. You may decide to increase your wedding guest list if your venue capacity and your budget allow.

How many wedding guests will accept the invitation?

Normally, as long as you provide sufficient warning and your wedding is easy to get to (for example, not a ‘destination wedding’) most people make the effort to attend a wedding. You can generally assume that between five and 10 per cent will decline a daytime invitation and often around 20 to 30 per cent for an evening invitation (some at the last minute, so watch out!). However, always ensure that you don’t invite more than your venue can accommodate, particularly for a sit down meal.  Also remember that civil ceremonies are only licensed for a certain number of attendees, including the photographer and other staff, so don’t exceed the maximum. The last thing you want on your wedding day is people being turned away at the door.

Who should I invite to my wedding?

It can be tempting to simply invite everyone you want to be at your wedding, but in practice it is rarely that simple and there are often a lot of politics to take into account when creating your wedding guest list. When tackling questions of etiquette, always try to be sensitive and considerate towards your guests as well as your own wishes. Often, couples are under pressure to invite family or friends that they otherwise wouldn’t have considered. Or they might feel pressured to invite that estranged family member, to avoid the awkward ‘where is cousin Richard?’ questions on the wedding day. It is predicaments like this that can put the bride and groom in a difficult position.

Should I allow guests a ‘plus one’?

Depending on your venue size and overall budget, you may choose to allow guests a ‘plus one.’ Some brides and grooms may be ‘lucky’ that the majority of their guests are already married or have partners, which eliminates the need for any plus ones (and also eliminates the small talk when meeting someone totally new!). But on the whole, the happy couple wants their guests to be happy too. This usually means allowing them to bring along their most recent conquest, friend or colleague to enjoy the big day as well. Despite the high chance that you will never meet your guest’s ‘plus one’ ever again, it’s worth it just to know your friend or relative had someone to share the day with.

Should I keep my wedding a child-free zone?

A common guest list dilemma is whether or not to invite children to your wedding day. Having children at your wedding always runs the risk of disturbing the romantic and refined ambience of the ceremony, or turning the reception into a child’s party, full of sober parents and ‘knee slides’ on the dance floor. The dilemma here is that you don’t want your friends or family members missing out on your wedding day due to their children. This dilemma is probably best dealt with on a case by case basis – speaking to your friends with little ones and gaining their opinion is always useful.

- See more at: http://www.getwed.com/articles/wedding-guest-list-dilemmas-au-en/#sthash.BUjG4UxV.dpuf

Top 7 most common wedding mistakes

Every couple hopes for their big day to be perfect; a smooth-running and drama-free occasion that would make royalty proud. However, it’s inevitable for certain elements to go awry and for the odd mishap to arise. But what are the most common wedding mistakes brides and grooms continue to make for these problems to materialize? Here are the seven most common wedding mistakes.

1. Forgetting the final dress fitting

Either you’ve trimmed down to your ideal wedding weight or you’ve filled out slightly from all of that stress eating you’ve been doing; either way, it’s essential to arrange that final dress fitting a couple of weeks before the big day. One of the biggest mistakes brides can make is neglecting to arrange this final fitting, then facing panic on the morning of their wedding when they realize their dress simply does not fit. Resorting to safety pins to secure a saggy bustier or feeling sore from a too-tight gown is avoidable so don’t let it happen to you. Every bride should feel as though they could wear their dress forever.

2. Neglecting to book a make-up or hair trial

Imagine turning around to face the mirror once your hairdresser or make-up artist has ‘worked their magic’ only to suddenly feel sick and faint; ‘what have they done!?’ It is imperative to book yourself in for a make-up or hair trial prior to your big day unless you totally trust the professional or if you’re keeping your hair and beauty simplistic (aka hard to go wrong). Feeling self-conscious on your wedding day will distract you from the more important things and will leave you despising your wedding photographs later on. Don’t see your hair or make-up trial as a waste of money and view it more as insurance.

3. Forgetting to pay the suppliers

With so much going on before the wedding day itself it can be all too easy to let things slip your mind, but forgetting to pay the final installment to your florist, car hire or catering services could end disastrously. Your suppliers should always send reminders for the final payments, but if you’re a stressed bride or groom then these polite prompts will most likely go unnoticed. However, facing the reality of a stranded bride and hungry guests is enough to label your wedding a disastrous day.

4. Getting too drunk

Having one drink too many the night before your wedding, or indeed getting a little too merry at the reception, is a common mistake among brides and grooms. Don’t forget that your wedding day is likely to be the most captured day of your life, with guests armed with cameras ready to snap you at every moment, but the embarrassment will never leave you after looking through drunken photographs or after being filled-in by your guests on your drunken antics. Likewise, don’t ruin the most important day of your life by having a hangover from your wedding-eve tipples; an early and sober night is in order instead.

5. Not specifying a playlist

This may seem like a minor consideration in and amongst the wedding planning, but letting your DJ or wedding singer loose on the tunes for your reception could be the biggest wedding mistake you make. Unless you want your least favourite songs blasting out to your guests – those tacky hits that everyone pretends to love or even songs that remind you of less happy times – then be clear with your wedding entertainer and make a list of no-go songs. "Twerking" has a time a place, and perhaps your wedding isn’t it. 

6. Not sampling the food

When selecting your wedding reception venue or caterers, the most important thing is to try the food before you commit to handing over a deposit. Hungry wedding guests being presented with a cold plate of undercooked food is not the recipe for a happy wedding reception. The worst scenario would be to not have any vegetarian options for your meat-avoiding guests or for the meals to be evidently frozen and heated up in a microwave – far from the lavish wedding meal you had in mind. The biggest mistake would be to not specify a set menu and then be faced with your least favorite cuisine – there are only certain surprises that are welcome on a wedding day.

7. Overrunning

Timing is everything; not least on your wedding day. Some couples arrange a rehearsal dinner prior to the wedding and it is common to have a wedding rehearsal before the big day. These preparations can go a long way in ensuring everything runs on time. It’s an idea to give the best man, groom and father of the bride a time limit for their speeches and have set times for the drinks reception, meal and evening entertainment. Guests waiting around needlessly or chefs having to keep tens of meals warm while the speeches overrun is best avoided if you want happy guests and a stress-free day.

Top 15 Must Haves Inside a Bridal Kit

You don’t have to be an events coordinator to have your own bridal kit.

If you are great friend of the Bride-to-be, no matter what role you play during your friend’s wedding- Maid of Honor, Bridesmaid or simply a guest, it would be wonderful to help her one of way or another.

The Wedding Girl Scout

Besides being the troubleshooter, one of the things I really learned from being an Events Coordinator is to be a “Girl Scout” in every wedding. Instead of having emergency kits, I have its fancy equivalent – the bridal kit.

Of course, I don’t really have those fancy walkie talkie nor do I have all the supplies in the Martha Stewart Bridal Emergency Kit, all the things I have were consolidated items that was brought about by my personal experience as an Events Coordinator.

Ceremony Helps

At first I depended on the Bridal Kit of the different Events companies I’m with but eventually, I learned to keep and replenish my own kit supplies base from the different weddings I attended. I guess as the Ceremonial head and sometimes Bridal Assistant of some weddings, I was able to put together a dependable kit which some of you may like to have if ever the situation arises.

D-I-Y Bridal kit.

When prepping up for the wedding often times one fixes and double checks the Ceremonial items. In those incidents you may like to put some items you may like to put in your Bridal Emergency Kits.

1. Hair Pins - are usually needed just in case the Bride’s headdress and veil may be off during the Ceremony and reception. These are also needed for instances wherein Flower girls and other entourage members have headdresses as well.

2. Safety Pins - this is for the Second Veil where in the Veil Secondary sponsors would be pinning it onto the bride and groom.

3. Matches/lighters - you guessed it, this is for the Candle Sponsors – the lighting of the ceremony candles and unity candles.

4 and 5. Scissors and Tailor Pins - the scissors and tailor pins were very useful to me when one time while being a Bridal Assistant, the beaded string from the Bridal bouquet loosened. I had to cut it and placed tailor pins to put the rest of the beaded string in place.

Tailor pins are also useful for the buttoniers and corsages of the entourage – usually the Principal sponsors and the male part of the entourage have them.

6 and 7. Black ballpen/Signpen and clipboard - to assist in signing the Marriage Contract which is usually the Best Man and Maid of Honor duties, having extra ballpens/signpens may speed up the process.

8. Tissue/white handkerchief - for those touching moments when the couple or the couple’s parents may shed a tear or two. It would be great to hand them these tissue paper/handkerchiefs to wipe their tears.

9. White ribbon - just in case you want to decorate those matches, lighters for the ceremony you may use the generic color for any wedding – white.

10. Silver/white pouch - sometimes, some brides don’t have their bridal pouch where they could put their make-up, mobile phones, and other personal little thingies that they maybe needing, so it would be great to lend them something like a silver/white pouch for the ceremony.

11. Pain relievers - for headaches and other on-the-spot sickness people at the ceremony may encounter.
12. Small glue gun - just in case, there are some instances like the flower decor at the match would suddenly fall off, you can fix it immediately at the place where you are doing the preps.

13. Fresh mints - for fresh breath anytime and anywhere.

14. Needles and thread (white and any color – depending on the Wedding Theme) - for rips and seams.

15. Straws - The very white wedding gown would be trashed, if she gets some unwanted liquid spilt over it plus her lipstick will be drastically affected if the bride drinks. So not to dehydrate the bride make sure you have some handy straw.

There are perhaps other things you like to add like nail polish for runs etc. it’s really up to you. Remember every wedding is like a play, whatever happens the show must go on. So it would be great to nip every problem in the bud no matter how small it is. Thus in doing so you get the merit you always need and a badge of gratefulness from the couple who are having their special day. So add if you must but never subtract, every wedding may use these items one way or another, so be the Wedding events girl scout.

Source: http://spotlighttheatre.wordpress.com/2013/09/15/15-must-haves-inside-a-bridal-kit/

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