ladies who have been through it all...

TriSaratops10

I'm a bundle of nerves right now, with the wedding ~3weeks away. I'm worried that I'm forgetting to do something, so what things did you not think of until someone told you (or that you wish you had known)? Thanks so much!!!

golden1215

To relax and enjoy!!!

Seriously, stuff will be forgotten, but as long as its not your dress, husband, photographer, minister or bartender- you're fine.

shan87

I love Golden's advise.

hkiesling

Right before I left the dressing room to walk down the aisle, I had everyone step out for a minute and just stood there by myself.  I was all nerves, too, and I wanted to take a deep breath.  That's when it really hit me that I was GETTING MARRIED (not just planning a super-huge party).  I started to take it all in and it was a fantastic minute.  It's really the last chance that you will have to be by yourself for the rest of the night.  I highly recommend it.

maybe984

The most important thing to realize is that you WILL forget something. Or something will go awry. Or you'll run out of time for that one last DIY project you wanted to do. It's inevitable. But it's also 100% okay. Chances are, no one will notice except you (and maybe your DOC... but they'll forgive you...)

We ended up running out of time to finish the ceremony programs, I didn't have enough servers for dinner, and I ended up scrapping all but 2 of my DIY projects. Oh, and I forgot to include water pitchers in my supplies rental... so my servers and DOC had to hand-fill water glasses.

But you know what? I'm still getting emails and phonecalls from guests telling me it was the best wedding they've ever been to. My DOC might have PTSD now, but it all worked out for the best.

debbieupper

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/local-wedding-boards_minnesota-minneapolis-st-paul_ladies-through?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Local%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:81Discussion:37191f33-e116-4aba-bbdf-d65ed0f05b45Post:da5ab65f-aca2-4f54-9556-7f63247a9ad2">Re: ladies who have been through it all...</a>:
[QUOTE] My DOC might have PTSD now, but it all worked out for the best.
Posted by maybe984[/QUOTE]<div>
</div><div>Haha, this! I feel the same way about our DOC ... did you have Deven Nelson? :)</div><div>
</div><div>This is a good question to ask -- the answers are so fresh in my mind! I think pp had perfect advice. To add to it, I would say to try to accept now that you won't be able to enjoy the wedding in the same way a guest would. You're probably going "well, duh", but it caught me off guard a bit. I knew it would fly by, I knew it would be busy and crazy, but I also didn't think that there would be elements of the day that I would completely miss and only hear about afterwards, then be sad that I didn't get to see the fruits of all my labor (<em>especially</em> if you're a DIY bride!). So I would, I dunno, repeat some mantra along the lines of "I will not be upset if I don't get to use the photo wall. I will not be upset if I don't get to use the ..." Sounds ridiculous, huh? Trust me ...</div><div>
</div><div>I also remember wishing Andy and I were tied to each other throughout the night because we hardly spent any time together. We were hosting about 200 people, so it makes sense, but I missed my new husband. :)</div><div>
</div><div>Other than that, here are some ideas ... </div><div>-Try to get everything organized, packed up, lined up and ready to go out the door.</div><div>-Label things with post-its and instructions for set-up if you have a lot of decor. </div><div>-Get your nails done. </div><div>-Get a massage. </div><div>-Spend time with family and friends. </div><div>-Practice dancing. </div><div>-Get your payments and tips in envelopes for each vendor ready. </div><div>-Put together your day-of kit (or talk to your personal attendant about doing this). </div><div>-DO have an emergency kit. We used safety pins, sewing kit, fake eyelash glue and stain remover the day-of. That kit rocked.</div><div>
</div><div>Most importantly, don't be nervous -- have fun!</div>

hkiesling

I would also add to think about clean-up.  I spent a lot of time organizing bins of decorations with notes on how to set them up, but at the end of the night, they all have to go back home, too.  The staff at Summit Manor was great at just collecting things in a central location for us, but someone still had to take charge and put them in their car.  Ask someone to do this ahead of time, otherwise, people fall into the "I would have helped, but I thought X was doing it" camp.

kristigiles

-Make sure someone always has water for you (preferably with a straw to not mess up your lipstick!) on the wedding day.  It sounds silly, but you will forget to eat and drink.  It gets that busy!  

-Give everyone in your wedding party/family a schedule specific to them.  That way you won't be getting tons of random questions on the wedding day.  It helped so much!

-I definitely agree with the clean up!  Make sure there are people in charge of this because I totally didn't think of it!  Luckily my parents and aunts and uncles were all over this so it didn't matter.

-Have all of your stuff lined up and ready to go otherwise you will definitely forget something.  Definitely have your purse packed, any bag you may need, tips for vendors... etc.  I ended up forgetting my white sunglasses, which I was really excited to get pictures with so I was sad about that

It will be a GREAT day!  Enjoy every second of it because it goes really really fast and there were parts of it that I didn't even remember later!

Izzygrim

Ditto all PPs. And BREATHE. One odd thing I missed out on at our wedding was hearing the strings play during my processional. I was SOOO excited to hear Canon in D on strings, but I totally didn't even hear them!!! So just breathe and pay attention to what's going on around you. Like hkiesling said, take a minute before you walk down the aisle to just breathe and think about what's happening. Another good piece of advice is during dinner, take a second with your DH to look around and soak it all in. It's pretty amazing to see all of those guests out there that are there to celebrate with you.

And on a bit more of a practical note - ditto the pps on delegating the clean up. I knew we had people that were going to help, but we had lots of stuff go missing for a while. The day after we were all of a sudden like, where the h*** is our guestbook from the photobooth, our toasting glasses, etc etc. Luckily our reception site had already cleaned that up for us, but we were in major panic mode when on that next day none of our family or WP had them like we had assumed. So delegate specific people to make sure specific things get cleaned up.

ENJOY. By just remaining calm and trying to absorb what was going on I really actually had FUN at our wedding and enjoyed it. I thought it would be more overwhelming and stressful and crazy, but it really was a ton of fun.

beka0404

Ditto PPs, especially the packing ahead of time, labeling, etc. I was so nervous the week of my wedding, I honestly thought I was going to projectile vomit. The best way I found to offset the nerves was by following the annoying checklists on TK and other sites. Organizing and checking things off helped. But like others have said, accept that you will forget things (um, like assembling programs? Which I realized the day before the wedding?) and life will go on. It was difficult for me to do, but trying to let my type-A personality go and just relax the day of was the best M.O.