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This month our two brides take us through the adventure that is figuring out  guest lists and dealing with random dramas...
Sarah Edwards is the winner of our Diary of Bride competition - she's a Wellingtonian nzgirl who is planning on getting married next March. Our other bride is Lauren Andrews, co-creator and owner of the recently launched wedding planning website, theBIGstep.co.nz. With Lauren as an insider in the wedding industry and Sarah as the typical nzgirl, we thought it would be awesome to show you the two different sides behind wedding preparation! With just a couple of months to go before our brides walk down the aisle, they've been super busy dealing with guests lists and dramas...
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Sarah
Oh my! Only a couple of months left to go, we are on the down hill slide and hopefully Dave and I, and our bank accounts survive the ride. I never planned on getting married and for years laughed at the whole idea of it. So I have been surprised that none of my friends or family have pointed this out and rubbed my nose in it. Instead they have all been very supportive. My Mum keeps thinking that she should be doing more and my Dad has been busy organising food and things for the Barbeque the next day. Dave’s parents and brothers are all overseas and have all booked their flights and will be here for the big day. My bridesmaid Katie’s husband is a drummer in a fantastic covers band from Manawatu called Twisted. They regularly play at bars and weddings all over New Zealand and are playing at my reception. Dave, Katie and I worked in bars for a few years while studying. Twisted was one of the bands that played where we worked and is how Katie met her husband. So knowing that they will play at our wedding will just top the night off. The only sad part is Katie will be part of the wedding party all day and her husband will be playing the drums at night so they won’t actually get to spend much time together; luckily she loves the idea and has even been giving the boys instructions on what they are allowed to play. Our venue can hold around 120 people and we decided that ideally we want to invite around 100 people. We wrote our guest list and it quickly reached 130 so we realised that to invite everyone would be impossible; some decisions had to be made. It is not nice dividing everyone you care about into the A list and the B list. We decided that even when it came to family, the people we spent the most time with were to be invited first. We got it down to 100 people and sent out the invites. I have always been terrible at RSVPing and I now realise that this is the biggest crime you can commit when you have been invited to a wedding. The bride and groom just want to know, even if you can’t come. If you can’t come there are bound to be people waiting on the B list that can be invited. My main advice when dealing with family and decisions on the guest list is that you just can’t please everybody. My recommendation is saying “I will think about that”. Very non committal, you don’t get anybody’s hopes up. So to all the people we couldn’t invite we would of loved to have invited you all and we are sorry that we weren’t able to – there is a Barbeque at our house the day after you are all invited to that.. Lauren Well, after hours of designing, screen-printing by hand and sewing each one together, our invites are finished and are now all posted…and we are receiving RSVPs on a daily basis! I love going out to the mailbox, finding the little envelopes sitting there and reading all the notes our guests have written to us. We also sent e-vites through our theBIGstep.co.nz wedding homepage, so we are managing our RSVPs using the Guestlist tool on the site. Sending e-vites via our wedding homepage means that we can supply guests with loads of information about our wedding that we couldn’t fit on the invite. Our wedding homepage has heaps of information about us and our wedding, as well as links to our wedding register, accommodation websites and rental property contacts in Riversdale. Guests who receive the e-vite can RSVP through the site and write a little note to us – it’s a very cool tool, and it’s FREEl! Check out our wedding homepage here. We have budgeted for around 120 guests. Most people are replying “yes” to the invite, although we have had a handful of guests decline because of other commitments – the wedding is on a Friday, so some people are not able to get out of work. Getting married outside of your city is not the most convenient option, and if you choose to do so, it is more than likely that not everyone will be ecstatic about having to travel and find accommodation. Most people are really excited about having a weekend away with us, but I have to admit…we could have planned a much easier wedding. If there is one thing I’ve learnt over the past few months, it’s that it is impossible to please everyone, and from what my married friends have told me, the only thing you can really do is please yourselves. When it comes down to it, you need to make sure that you and your fiancé are planning the wedding you want. I think it is important for all involved to not lose focus of what the day is really all about. In my opinion, a wedding should be about close family and friends coming together to celebrate the union of two people who have chosen to spend the rest of their lives with each other. For the bride and groom, their only focus on the day should be getting married to the love of their life and having a wonderful time celebrating this moment with their favourite people. Reece and I, along with our bridal party and families, are very excited about the 6th of March – it’s been a long time coming, with Reece and me celebrating our 13th year of “going steady” on the 10th of January! The excitement level has definitely jumped up a notch or two over the past couple of weeks, and we are now starting to get all of the last minute details sorted and finalised. Our bridesmaids and groomsmen are busy planning our hen’s and stag dos – Reece and I aren’t having much input in these, but from the sounds of things, both parties will be held on different weekends and both outside of Wellington. One disappointing bit of news is that my bridesmaid Sarah, who lives in London and has just had a baby, will not be coming back for the wedding. It’s really sad, but I always knew there was a possibility she may not be able to get back…so I had prepared myself for the worst. So, I am going to ask another one of my good friends to be my bridesmaid – I know who I want to ask, but she doesn’t know yet…so I will let you know once she does! (537).jpg) |
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