Would Do Have a DW, of course!
OOT bags—they were so easy to assemble once we got there and everyone loved the little gifts and snacks.
Stay two weeks—it was nice to have a week before the wedding to settle into our rental house and take care of last minute local details. Having that extra week after everyone left was really good for us as a couple too, since the first week didn’t feel entirely like a vacation.
Professional hair and makeup at our rental—I never could have done my own makeup as nicely as she did and it looks really great in the photographs. It was also calming to be pampered at my own house the day of.
Welcome dinner—Ryan’s family hosted a cookout at their rental house and had everything decorated in our colors. Most of the extended families hadn’t met before, so that was fun.
Day after brunch—we hosted brunch at a local restaurant. We had the bar area and were able to just hang out and spend a little time together before everyone started to head back home. We wore our “game over” shirts and loved one more morning of being bride and groom.
Spend the time on the little details—our little wood flowers, the starfish table names, our postcard guest book, the bottom of my shoes… all of those little details really did make a difference and didn’t go unnoticed.
Trash the dress—so fun!
Buy white sun glasses for some fun photos. DH told me I didn’t NEED them (and he was right) but they look so good in some of our beach pictures.
Wouldn’t Do Run our own sound—we decided not to replace our live musician when he ended up being double booked and we couldn’t find someone else we liked as much who was still available. We should have gone with a DJ I guess. The problems ended up being their equipment, not us, but I’m sure a DJ would have had backup equipment or been able to solve the problem with the connection inside the speaker that the delivery guys couldn’t figure out.
Stress about set up and how things would go the day of—our venue coordinator was (surprisingly) wonderful. She wasn’t the best about answering our questions and getting us information ahead of time. It was really stressful not being able to get the details along the way, even the week before the wedding. We just had to trust her that it would all come together once we showed up, and she definitely pulled through. We had nothing to worry about. In hindsight, that’s just part of the “island time” and I shouldn’t have worried about it.