I always think it's nice when a poster from previous wedding months pops in to say good luck! So..Good Luck!
For all of you outdoor brides..I was also an outdoor bride. (just our ceremony), Our guests were covered by an awning but the bridal party and officiant were not. It rained ALL day.
I freaked out about the weather and stalked the 10 day extended forecast literally every few hours to wish it would stay sunny. It didn't. But I did not let it bring me down. I had an amazing morning getting ready, and besides, we had a plan B (which everyone needs to have) but it was nowhere near as beautiful as our outdoor ceremony space.
Our Plan B was the same area, but chairs turned to face the indoor banquet room (which was very small). The guests would be still under the awning, and we would be inside the banquet room facing outdoors.
My ceremony coordinator called and told me since the rain was so spotty, we would stick to the outdoor plan. So we did, and the weather cleared up, but as soon as we stepped out of our limo, it started to rain. As we checked the radar, we predicted it would stop in 10 minutes. So we waited.
As soon as my first bridesmaid walked down the aisle, it cleared up and the sun came out. It was magical. I got the ceremony I dreamed of, and the husband I dreamed of. We even got to take almost all of our professional photos outside. It began to rain towards the end, but we got the most important photos done!
We did a letter box ceremony, which we wrote letters to each other the night before the wedding, and put them in a box we were to nail shut. We had the letters in the box the morning of, but FI forgot the hammer. Fortunately, our officiant still explained the "purpose" and meaning of the box. Nobody even noticed.
YOU are your own worst critic. If something goes wrong, or you forget something, YOU are the only one that knows that flaw. For another example, our DJ played the COMPLETELY wrong introduction music, and I didn't even care because nobody knew we weren't supposed to walk into Johnny Cash Ring of Fire. (haha)
HAVE FUN AT YOUR RECEPTION! Eat! Have a piece of cake that you paid hundreds of dollars for. I didn't get that chance. Since we did not do a receiving line, we greeted every guest at their tables, so we didn't really have the time to enjoy our cake like we could have.
Your day goes by so extremely fast. Take it all in. The one thing I tried to do was concentrate so hard on walking down the aisle. I could have forgotten everything else, but I wanted to remember my Groom at the end of that walk. I enjoyed my morning so much with my BM's at the spa we all had our hair/makeup done at.
Back to the day going by so fast- my Dad's parents were told to stick around after the ceremony for pictures. I guess they didn't "get" the memo. I had no professional pictures taken with them, and I'm really upset about it. I was just so busy worrying about everything else, and everyone getting photos with us, etc. I didn't realize the impact it would have on me until after the wedding. To me, grandparents are some of the most important people at your wedding if you're lucky enough to still have them in your life. So make a MUST TAKE PHOTO list to give to your photographer the morning of. Make sure you have names of attendants that need to stay for photos that way there's no possibility of missing them.
What it comes down to, is even if you have to fight a little bit of rain, you're going to get married anyway. If not absolutely everything goes perfect, you will still have a fiance' at the end of that aisle, waiting to be called your husband.