For the most part our wedding this weekend went off without any major problems - except for my Mother who was a total disaster. We did a small family only + BP ceremony and reception.
Will do for June:
* FI and I live together so we spent most of the day of alone. He went to a friends and the hair/makeup girl and BP came over at 2pm so it was really nice to have some down time the day of
* Get a second hotel room stocked with booze for the after party
*Print a list of the order of photos. Since his family is 25+ people it helped for everybody to know what photos they would be in and the photographer kept a list so people knew what was coming up next
* We wrote our own vows and split them into 6 parts and each read a part.
* Take more dance lessons and actually practice. FI was a disaster and kept stepping on me.
* sent out a timeline with every imaginable detail so people didnt have to ask me everything - though some people still didnt read it.
Will NOT do for June
*wear a strapless dress. I am a D cup and love dancing and it was such a pain to deal with the dres
* Have the bachelorette party the night before. We intended to keep it a calm evening but stumbling home at 3am was not a good decision
*Have a family brunch the day after. We really needed that down time and I wish we had the day to relax
* Allow people to take pictures along with the photographer. We only had 1 hour for family pictures and people kept making us hold the shot when he was done so they could take their own pictures. Even after I told them we had full copyright and could mail them a CD they kept doing it and we didnt have time for a couple of pictures because of it.
We just had our photographer and a friend man the IPod. This seemed to work out great since the group was small enough - but it was time consuming for FI and I to pick every song and determine where it would go on the list. The June wedding has a DJ but overall it was managable for those not planning on one.
We did have a friend who came to the ceremony but had other obligations so left before dinner without telling us - after we paid for him - which really pissed me off. Though my aunt invited her daugher I havent seen in 18+ years without telling me so it worked out fine