What Should Be On My Wedding To Do List?

There are so many things that you need to have organised for your big day, from big things such as the venue down to smaller details like the table decorations. It’s easy to feel overawed by the amount of things that you need or want to do for your big day, and you might even have a pang of doubt in your mind that you’ve overlooked something important. However, for a wedding to run smoothly there are only a relatively small amount of things that have to be arranged to make sure your big day runs without any hiccups.

Booking The Ceremony

This will differ depending on whether you’re going for a religious service or a civil ceremony, but the first thing you’ll need to do is ensure that you’ve notified the relevant authorities of your wish to marry, and have a date booked in and confirmed for either a priest or registrar to oversee the wedding ceremony. Once you have your preferred date booked in and agreed, you can then proceed with planning for the rest of your wedding. Making too many cast iron plans before you have this date confirmed could set you back financially if you end up having to make changes and alterations.

Choosing a Venue

There are many scenic wedding venues you can choose from across the UK, no matter whether you’re looking to host just the ceremony, the reception or the whole day. As secular ceremonies are becoming more popular, it’s easy to host both the wedding ceremony and the wedding reception at the same venue. It takes a lot of hassle out of having to line up the availability of two separate locations, and can make it easier on the day as you and your guests won’t have to hop over to different venues.

Picturesque manor houses and country retreats are all the more popular with people wanting to escape the hustle and bustle of city living for the weekend, and they can offer a lot of space, a number of different function rooms and even accommodation for visiting friends and family. By looking for venues that offer comprehensive wedding packages, it can really take the hassle out of wedding planning.

Catering

Good weddings are synonymous with good food. There’s much to consider catering-wise when it comes to a wedding, but the three main areas are: the wedding breakfast, the wedding cake and evening food. The breakfast won’t happen straight after you wake up, rather it’s the meal you have after getting married, and it’s when the speeches will generally take place too. The wedding cake is the thing you’ll ceremonially cut as well as something the guests will all tuck into, so you’ll want to make it look good and taste nice. And when it comes to food served during the evening, this would usually be in the form of a buffet, and could even include a hog roast.

Entertainment

Usually the wedding reception is a place for everyone to let their hair down and have a bit of a celebration. This might involve drinking, but it almost certainly involves dancing. And if you want to dance, you’ll require some music. There are two favoured ways to do this, either through the use of a live band to play your favourite songs right in front of you, or you can get a DJ in to play hours of hits. Similarly, you could craft your own playlist to play through the venue’s sound system instead.

Guest List

Deciding who you want at your wedding can be both the easiest and most difficult part of your wedding planning. Deciding who out of your nearest and dearest you’ll want to share your special day with will be a no-brainer, but it can be difficult to decide who to invite out of extended family you don’t really see and friends you haven’t spoken to in years. When weddings aren’t cheap, every seat counts, and will affect venue and catering costs.

Then after deciding who you want to be there on your special day, you’ll have to divide them up into all-day guests and evening guests. This will probably come down to capacity, as venues tend to have a lower amount of space available for wedding ceremonies than they do for wedding receptions, even if they’re the same venue.

After the guest list is decided you’ll have to let everyone know through invites, which can be a painstaking process if you don’t have postal addresses to hand for your numerous guests. Other things you have to consider with your guests are any potential +1s you want to offer out and the seating arrangements for your guests.

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