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Tips for organising a wedding


Lemonade

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Figure out what you really care about and what you don't really give a shit about, stress about the former don't stress about the latter.  Don't worry too much about pleasing everyone (especially with food), at the end of the day your guests are there to enjoy your day. As long as you like the food and most people will eat it then that's more important than making sure everyone has something they love.

 

Basically it's as much stress as you want it to be. If you (or Kirsty) think the day has to be absolutely perfect and you have to micromanage every detail then it'll be a total headfuck but you may end up with a stunning day. If you're a bit looser about everything and just want to broadly organise things then you might be less stressed but there may be things that aren't exactly to your taste on the day.

 

For us the important things were venue (wanted something near Banchory and by the river if possible, Banchory Lodge was perfect and quite affordable), band and photographer. Once we arranged those 3 everything else just fell roughly into place around it. I was keen on making sure we were happy with the food but the hotel had a great menu choice so that was easy. My wife did her thing with the dress and she also made her own centrepieces. We didn't care too much about the cake, went with a cheap supplier who fucked it up (was undercooked, hotel wouldn't serve it) then moved to America when we tried to get a refund. Nevermind, the hotel manager ran to Tesco and got some iced fruit cakes and no-one noticed the difference on the night.

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Ive heard that when shopping around for services (catering, venues, whatever) dont mention its for a wedding unless you have to because people see dollar signs as soon as they hear 'wedding'. Whereas if you say 'function' they'll assume budget is tighter. Dont know if theres any truth in that but it makes sense.

See what you can do DIY. Pinterest is an amazing resource for girly DIY projects (so my girlfriend says). She's shown me loads of easily made decorations, invites, knick knacks and such thatll cut your bill and add an artisinal flavour to proceedings (if you dont make an arse of it)

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I got married FIVE years ago now.  Jeepers.  It's a bit of a distant memory, but just echo what others have said - think about what's important to you and your future wife.

 

It is a special day and the two of you are the most important people.  I wouldn't go as far as to say "don't give a fuck about anyone else" because that won't work out too well.  For us, we are pretty laid back people and didn't want to have too much of the formal stuff and just wanted it to be a relaxed and enjoyable day and that's what we got.

 

I reckon one of the absolutely most important things is the band/DJ.  Someone that will keep people WANTING to go to the dancefloor is really important.  If that's the sort of wedding you want of course.  If you want to have a very small affair with sitting around a campfire or something then that's different!

 

Get the really important things sorted and booked as early as you can.  Weddings get booked earlier and earlier.  We were looking around fully 18 months before our wedding and struggled to get a venue on a Saturday (it kind of had to be school holidays for us as my wife was a teacher).  In the end, we hired a marquee and put it up in a field at my in-laws' farm.  It was great!

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I would say...just dinna! It'll save all the divorce hassle a few years down the line. :)

But if you absolutely have to...go for the simple registrar's office wedding, book Cellar 35 or Downstairs, Tunnels etc and have a cool evening. Use the cash saved on wedding shite for a grand honeymoon!

If the wife-to-be objects to the lack of grandeur don't invite her along.

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Surely most of what you describe above is your future wife's responsibility.

Heaven forbid you choose the wrong centrepiece and ruin her special day.

 

I would agree that centrepieces are something which should be decided by the bride. She showed me a selection last week and got frustrated with my series of indifferent shrugs. 

 

 

I'm still awaiting my invite....

 

You'll be waiting a while.

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I feel for you; my brother is going through exactly the same thing as yourself and doesn't really know where to start. I remember him being clear on the budget then just googling everything he could afford within his means; he's been looking for months and recently secured the venue which is half the battle I believe. I apologise if this isn't reassuring you! I guess you just need to look at what you and the Mrs want to get of the day, and (again I'm just going on what I've been told) that you normally don't need half of the extra shite a venue will charge you per head, so if you want something more basic it's often cheaper just to book the venue then source all of the little extras yourself. Again, this depends on venue and budget.

 

I'm the best man, so I thought I would just book a paintballing trip and that would be it. Apparently I have "more responsibility" than that. I'm still unsure what these responsibilities are.

 

The venue is definitely half the battle, we are doing that first then figuring it out from there because a lot of the venues do a lot of the services themselves. That's part of why it's such a ballache. Trying to figure out who does what. Also we can't really book anything else until we have the hotel because they kind of dictate which dates are available. It's tempting to do most of it ourselves although one of my friends is doing every aspect of his own wedding in June, I met him for dinner at the weekend and he looked ready to kill himself from the stress of it all.

 

I was best man a few years ago. From what I learned your job is to organise the stag, make sure he gets humiliated, go along to book kilts and a few cursory other obligations, nod and agree with his wife, make sure he turns up, and smile in the photos.

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Figure out what you really care about and what you don't really give a shit about, stress about the former don't stress about the latter.  Don't worry too much about pleasing everyone (especially with food), at the end of the day your guests are there to enjoy your day. As long as you like the food and most people will eat it then that's more important than making sure everyone has something they love.

 

Basically it's as much stress as you want it to be. If you (or Kirsty) think the day has to be absolutely perfect and you have to micromanage every detail then it'll be a total headfuck but you may end up with a stunning day. If you're a bit looser about everything and just want to broadly organise things then you might be less stressed but there may be things that aren't exactly to your taste on the day.

 

For us the important things were venue (wanted something near Banchory and by the river if possible, Banchory Lodge was perfect and quite affordable), band and photographer. Once we arranged those 3 everything else just fell roughly into place around it. I was keen on making sure we were happy with the food but the hotel had a great menu choice so that was easy. My wife did her thing with the dress and she also made her own centrepieces. We didn't care too much about the cake, went with a cheap supplier who fucked it up (was undercooked, hotel wouldn't serve it) then moved to America when we tried to get a refund. Nevermind, the hotel manager ran to Tesco and got some iced fruit cakes and no-one noticed the difference on the night.

 

Good advice. I guess you can't micro manage everything, though I think Kirsty will probably try. The most important thing to both of us was finding the right venue, which I think we've done, providing they're willing to wiggle on the price a bit. I don't know if they will like, we're looking at probably the lowest package so asking for a discount might be cheeky. It ticks all the boxes anyway, countryside location with scenery, traditional Scottish yet modern, nice food and a really nice ballroom. We saw a good few in the week that were great but had just one thing or two things we didn't like so much, when we did find the best one typically its the dearest but we do have good backups if it doesn't work out. 

 

Loved the cake story, I guess there has to be one disaster!

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I can't really reply to everyone individually, but thanks for all your tips and advice so far, much appreciated and I'll take it all on board.

 

I would say...just dinna! It'll save all the divorce hassle a few years down the line. :)

But if you absolutely have to...go for the simple registrar's office wedding, book Cellar 35 or Downstairs, Tunnels etc and have a cool evening. Use the cash saved on wedding shite for a grand honeymoon!

If the wife-to-be objects to the lack of grandeur don't invite her along.

 

I wish! I was surprised actually when she said she wanted the big traditional wedding because she's usually all for being different and alternative, (plus she knows I'm a tight cunt). Still, anything for an easy life ;)

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 she's usually all for being different and alternative, 

 

I've noticed that in a lot of cases any alt-cred goes out the window when it comes to weddings. There's just something about a lady's big day that gives a lot of truth to gender stereotypes (can't skimp on the ring, big white dress,etc). You think you're marrying a Suicide Girl in a barn but it turns out to be an OK spread with all the trimmings.

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Loved the cake story, I guess there has to be one disaster!

 

Exactly and it might as well be the thing that we cared least about. My Dad was actually happier with the Tesco one as he'd been bumping his gums about not having fruit cake in the wedding cake (we'd gone for one tier carrot and one tier chocolate marble).

 

Another tip for on the day, try and offload as much shit as possible onto your best man and mates/ushers. You don't want to deal with too much organising on the day, just relax and enjoy it so get them to do all the little things (sort out music for before, during and after the ceremony, pay the band, herd guests to where they need to be).

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We had a small wedding in February at Marischal College and dinner for 50 at 1906 Restaurant. All went very smoothly. 1906 did the restaurant up bonny and the food and service were amazing.  Graham Knight was our chaffeur on the day too just to make it the best wedding ever. Other than turning up I made 3 ipod playlists for various stages of the day which was very stressful.   

 

We're having the reception next month at the Forum, The Deportees are playing. 

 
I might actually become a wedding planner. 
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