Love My Dress Wedding Blog

Notes On A Wedding, Part 6 ~ Forget What You Think You Know About Weddings

Morning folks, it's time for our regular contributor Emma Woodhouse, aka The Wedding Reporter to get a few things off her chest as part of her 'Notes On A Wedding' series. As usual, no mincing of words is involved, and we invite you to participate in the discussion at the end by leaving a comment...

For most of us, our knowledge of weddings prior to getting engaged consists mainly of insufferable family nuptials and the occasional friend’s big day. There’s a good chance that your abiding memory of every other wedding you’ve been to is of tedious boredom and mild hunger.

Bored bride? Via Glamour.com

It’s easy to forget, when you are inside the wedding industry, that the starting point for many brides is a world of tired traditions and a dirge of information from an out-of-touch older generation. This can lead to two things:
1)    A cookie-cutter wedding that adheres to ‘the way it’s always been done’ which can end up being devoid of any actual personal preferences.
2)    Astonishment amongst wedding suppliers that ideas we’ve seen for years (Bunting! Stripy straws! Signed picture mounts!) are hailed as revolutionary by brides who have only just discovered the brave new world.

Now let me clarify: this is not a judgement on one person’s choice of wedding decisions over another’s. The reason I bring it up is because a friend of mine got engaged this year and, being a bit of a bohemian, I was really looking forward to hearing about what she had up her sleeve. This, I thought, will be a very cool affair.

You can imagine my surprise, therefore, when she sent me links to venues that – whilst incredibly smart – were way more stuffy and completely devoid of character than I had expected. I couldn’t imagine why on earth she would shortlist such bland venues when there were so many other options out there that would be more reflective of her and her partner. Maybe she’s just more traditional than I thought, I wondered.

Gradually as we chatted about her other plans I was struck time and time again that her choices didn’t really feel like anything she would willingly choose. Obviously, being a big-mouthed nosy parker I had to stick my oar in and ask what the motivation was behind her decisions.

She was non-plussed. These were the things you chose to plan a wedding, weren’t they?

Like a big, blinding lightbulb turning on right in front of my face, I realised that was exactly the problem: she was planning A Wedding, not planning Her Wedding. She was drawing on what she had experience of and what she thought was expected of the occasion. I get it now.

As you sit here reading this on one of the top wedding blogs in the world, I am sure I am preaching to the converted. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t looking for something beyond lycra chair covers and gypsy sized wedding dresses.

But I also know that for many of you, you’re going to have to battle the dissenting voices who don’t understand why you won’t be having a receiving line or formal family photos; I know that some of you are going to get three months out from your wedding date and suddenly question every decision you’ve made, worry that you’re going to offend Aunty Mabel by not having a traditional sitdown wedding breakfast and wonder if you should just do things ‘normally’.

So I’m here to say that you should forget all of that. Forget everything you’ve ever seen at everyone else’s weddings. Forget whatever you’ve been told you need to do. Forget the doubters and the haters and go back to the basics

The only things that HAVE to happen in order for it to be A Wedding is that you and your partner must meet in a place that has been legally sanctioned to conduct marriage ceremonies, with an authorised official, in order to say some specific words.

And that’s it.

So use that as a starting point and work outwards and upwards from there. Pick whichever duly sanctioned premises you like; say whichever version of those words feel the closest to your heart and then go and celebrate in a way that makes your brain want to melt with happiness.

Thanks to the nature of my business, I find myself primarily at very original weddings that are jampacked with gorgeous details and personal meaning. They’re weddings that have completely disregarded the ‘Countdown to Wedding’ checklists peddled by wedding magazines. They’re weddings that had one and only starting point: what the couple wanted.

If you want to stand in a bath and be photographed on your wedding day - do it!
Image via Ruffled.com

Undoubtedly, I always end up chatting to someone or to various people, all of whom wax lyrical about the originality of the day. They’ve never seen anything so thoughtful. Isn’t it nice, they say to me, that this particular couple have done something different and yet it still feels, you know, ‘weddingy’.

I smile and nod of course. I am not so very spoilt as to tell them that the face of weddings is an ever-changing landscape. I dare not tell them that there are legions of brides-to-be out there who, like you right now, are mining wedding blogs and Pinterest and Etsy for quirky and cool ideas that are far more reflective of their personalities and symbolic of the marriage that they hope to make.

Weddings are about people, and that’s all there is to it, really.

Emma

The Wedding Reporter

 

Emma is the talented business woman and wordsmith behind The Wedding Reporter, a unique new concept in the bridal industry that offers a couture service to discerning brides and grooms who would like a literary legacy of their day. You can read more from Emma on her blog and keep up to date with all her wedding related adventures on Facebook and Twitter.

Notes On A Wedding, Part 5 ~ The Perfect Time To Honeymoon

It's been a few weeks since our regular contributor Emma Woodhouse aka The Wedding Reporter wrote a piece for her 'Notes On A Wedding' series, but she's back today, all fresh and rested from a recent holiday, with thoughts and musings over when the best time to take your honeymoon actually is.  As usual, we very much welcome your thoughts and comments. 

Over to you Emma...

If I could pick any other job in the world aside from being a Wedding Reporter, I would definitely (and without a moment’s hesitation) choose to become a professional holidaymaker. By this, I do not mean reviewing resorts or travel writing, but just living a life of long hot days and sunset cocktails on the beach.

This whim came to me on a recent holiday (and is why this is not strictly a note about weddings). About six weeks ago I decided to impulse buy a holiday deal to revisit the place we had spent the first week of our honeymoon. It coincided neatly with my husband’s birthday, so that was pretty much all the excuse I needed…

Image courtesy of Emma Woodhouse, The Wedding Reporter

More or less the second that my toes curled their way around soft warm sand I felt my inner monologue turn off and for ten days I indulged in unadulterated peace and restfulness. But what was weird was that I didn’t remember feeling that way on our last visit, right after our wedding.

In fact, it soon became apparent that I didn’t remember much about our time on the island for our honeymoon. My orientation was muddled, my memories hazy and, most telling of all, I couldn’t even remember what books I had been reading. (This is a big deal given that my favourite thing about holidays is having unlimited time for guilt-free reading.

It dawned on me that in that first week of marriage, I had been so exhausted and maybe a little shell-shocked after the extravaganza of our wedding that I could probably have been dropped anywhere in the world and been equally as grateful to shut down. The energy and build-up to the big day, it would seem, had left me too knackered to compute.

That’s not to say we didn’t have a blissful time on honeymoon or that my husband and I didn’t continue to live in that happy little newlywed bubble of magic. It was the perfect tonic and the kind of serene start to marriage that I would wish for anyone.

However, this return trip felt in a way almost like a do-over, or at least a second honeymoon. It was the first time we had been away as just a couple without any other friends or family for two years. As we dined under the stars one night, completely lost in our own stupid jokes and conversation, it felt like perhaps this was the first time we’d really spent time alone, outside the constraints of reality, in a long time.

I’ve always been an advocate of going straight on honeymoon after your wedding, in order to savour the magic of the day and help to readjust to the monumental shift that has just occurred in your lives. It’s the perfect time for having those epic conversations that last for hours and cover everything from your deeply rooted psychological issues to how many children you would like to have. It always makes me balk a little when I hear that people are going straight back to real life on Monday.

But then, on the other hand, I now realise that there is some benefit to having a bit of distance between your wedding and honeymoon, like Franky did when she went to Thailand six months after her big day. If you give yourself a little bit of time, the chances are you won’t be so utterly annihilated from your wedding that you might just be able to savour each moment of your honeymoon and appreciate it more deeply. You won’t stare dumbly at the check-in desk when greeted with your married name, waiting for your mother-in-law to appear. You won’t sleep for almost three solid days to catch up on the last six months.

So, in the spirit of my fantasy profession of holidaymaking, I suggest a honeymoon and a half. I suggest you get away immediately after your wedding because you deserve it and you will need that break.

But I also suggest saving the big one – the once in a lifetime trip, the business class travel – until a little further down the line. Not only will you make the most of it, it’ll give you something to look forward to once the brouhaha of your nuptials has died away and life is beginning to look normal again.

And obviously, I could never ever recommend saying ‘Yes’ on all subsequent holidays when fellow holidayteers ask whether you’re on your honeymoon. That just makes you a crazy person…

Emma
The Wedding Reporter

 

Emma is the talented business woman and wordsmith behind The Wedding Reporter, a unique new concept in the bridal industry that offers a couture service to discerning brides and grooms who would like a literary legacy of their day. You can read more from Emma on her blog and keep up to date with all her wedding related adventures on Facebook and Twitter.

Notes On A Wedding, Part 4 ~ What Is The Ideal Time To Get Married? 3pm, Of Course...

In part 4 of our series 'Notes On A Wedding', Emma Woodhouse, aka,  The Wedding Reporter shares her thoughts and observations on the perfect time to tie the knot...

If you’re not getting married at 3pm, don’t panic. I’m going to be completely transparent and say that this article is almost entirely biased, based on the fact that I got married when the clock hands sat at right angles. However, what I’m about to tell you is also based on a wholly unscientific observation of other weddings over the past two years.

Image Credit, Pinterest

As with most facets of my life, the claim that 3pm is the perfect time to get married is based first and foremost around the subject of food. Whilst you may not feel like eating too much before your wedding, there are other people who will, namely your guests, who are going to be doing a lot of waiting around. By having a 3 o’clock ceremony, you give them plenty of chance to eat a proper lunch and still have time to get ready without a fluster.

A mid-afternoon wedding also contributes to lowering your catering costs throughout your day. Due to the close proximity of your ceremony and wedding breakfast, there’s much less of a need to invest in canapés as your guests will not have had chance to get too peckish after their own lunches. With your wedding breakfast benefiting from a late afternoon/early evening time slot, you might also find there’s no great need for an extensive evening buffet either. Snacks for the win!

Why else should you consider getting married later in the day? Why, because you won’t have to get up so early of course! Those of you with morning and midday ceremonies may find that a 5am hair and make-up call is not the zingy start to your wedding day that you had wished for.

If, like me, your face looks like it’s been hit with a sack of potatoes if you even venture out of bed before 7.30, it’s really worthwhile considering pushing your ceremony back a bit. I also think wedding mornings are infinitely stressful anyway, so if you give yourself a bit more time to get everything done, you’ll be far more serene as you glide down that aisle.

I spend a lot of time watching guests at weddings and I always feel bad for them when they have an epic three or four hour gap between the ceremony and wedding breakfast. With the best will in the world, even the closest of friends and family can find themselves flagging in enthusiasm when the newlyweds have been spirited away for photos and they are left to entertain themselves.

By having a later ceremony time, you decrease the amount of time your guests will be waiting around. Again, from a monetary perspective, this could save you the cost of entertainment, be it musical or live acts such as magicians, to keep your wedding party amused. A well-structured and tightly timed drinks reception and portrait slot is, to my mind, far more preferable than an interminable wait with too much small talk and endless group shots.

Similarly, shifting everything a little bit later will also decrease that tricky in-between time after the wedding breakfast and before the evening reception. I much prefer to see one lead into the other, rather than allowing guests to slink off onto a sofa and feel a bit dosey after their meal. That’s not the way to get a party started!

If you do opt for a 3pm wedding ceremony, you also stand a greater chance of getting better light for your photos. This will obviously vary depending on the time of year you’re getting married, but you’ll certainly miss the brightest part of the day that has the harshest light and if you’re lucky, you’ll capture that magical time before sunset when the sky is set ablaze with gorgeous hues and makes you and your new spouse look like supermodels.

So there you have it: some slightly sketchy reasons as to why mid-afternoon matrimony is the new in-thing. I would, however, also caution that if you’re thinking of having a later ceremony time, you really will need to heed those words of advice to make the most of every minute. Time will fly even faster and just 12 hours after you walked down the aisle, you’ll be dragging your new husband out of the bar and off to bed already, so enjoy every second from 3pm onwards!

I'd welcome your thoughts; what time did/are you planning on tieing the knot, and why?

Emma
The Wedding Reporter

 

 

Emma is the talented business woman and wordsmith behind The Wedding Reporter, a unique new concept in the bridal industry that offers a couture service to discerning brides and grooms who would like a literary legacy of their day. You can read more from Emma on her blog and keep up to date with all her wedding related adventures on Facebook and Twitter.

Notes On A Wedding, Part 3 ~ The Malady of Modern Manners

In part 3 of our new series 'Notes On A Wedding', Emma Woodhouse, aka,  The Wedding Reporter, offers advise on how to deal with the more sensitive and frustration inducing aspects of planning a wedding.  Avoid the need to feel you have to throw your own chair, by following her simple steps of advice...

For the majority of people who choose not to elope, they presumably invite a vast number of family and friends to their wedding because they want to share the experience and celebration. It’s fairly safe to assume that the majority of those esteemed wedding guests will be delighted and honoured to be part of the day.

And yet…

If you’re immensely unlucky, you might just find that you have one or two Wedding Whingers to contend with. These unassuming critics are entirely oblivious to the fact that their ‘observations’ can often be taken as outright insults by the happy couple. Sometimes it’ll be an elderly relative who have, quite literally, never experienced anything like your wedding before, other times it might be a work colleague who may themselves have recently tied the knot and use your wedding as a case study to show that they are now a wedding expert.

Avoid the need to feel you have to throw a chair, by following these simple steps
Image Source Red Bubble, Via PInterest

Sometimes, the root of the problem is that weddings will make all of your acquaintances become headless chickens. You know the details inside out because it’s all you think about, but they barely glance at your wedding invitation to find out where you’re getting married or what they’re meant to select as their meal choice. We’re all just ‘too busy’ to pay too much attention these days.

I can’t save your feelings from being hurt – your adrenaline is pumping, you’re having the best time of your life, you don’t want to hear contrary – but I can offer some guidance on how to deal with wedding complaints and give those Marriage Moaners slightly less to find fault with. 

1. Not knowing where to go.
It’ll start as soon as you send out your invitations: a lot of your wedding guests will turn into morons who are unable to read instructions. It’s possible that the same people who text you on the morning of your wedding to ask you what time your ceremony starts, how they can get there and where they can park, will continue to be geographically confused throughout the day.

To avoid this, send out an email a week before the wedding to all your guests to remind them about all the finer logistical details. On the day, you can combat their confusion by making sure it’s not just the ushers who are in charge of directing people – charge your bridal party with becoming pointing people so that they can show anyone who asks where the loo is, how to get to the wedding breakfast, where the bar is, where they can hang their coats, leave their gifts, call a taxi… 

2. The Hunger Games
The old adage that you can’t please all of the people all of the time should have been coined about the dilemma of mass catering. There’ll always be someone who doesn’t like any of the menu options, or would prefer your mushroom & tarragon jus without the tarragon, or who needs to specify the exact way they like their veg cooked. I know, I’ve met them all.

My advice? Nod, smile, promise them the earth and then give them exactly what everyone else has. Unless they have real allergies, they won’t notice the difference.