thePULSEWedding do’s and dont’s
Steps from a recent bride to help make your trip down the aisle fun and memorable
Finally, FINALLY, after nearly eight looooong years of dating, he did it. I sat there awestruck looking at my beautiful diamond with twinkling sapphires on either side and couldn’t believe that he finally did it.
Wow. I was ENGAGED.
There would be a wedding — with a BIG party. Huge. And there would be bridesmaids, and flowers. And a dress (oh — a dress!) and cake! I could hardly wait. Especially since I had been dreaming of this day for the last seven or eight years!
April 2004 – There were some things that I just knew naturally, like this just had to be a fall wedding, and that I wanted a dress with a ball-gown skirt, that there would be a bagpiper at the ceremony. And, there were some things I couldn’t wait to start picking out: bridesmaid dresses, flowers, favors, reception site. One thing was for certain — I didn’t want to have to cut, cut, cut my guest list. We both have large families — and before we even started adding our friends to the list it would start out somewhere in the ballpark of 150 people. So, it was going to be a challenge finding the right balance between price and number of people while making sure that we didn’t have to resort to feeding them all Big Macs in the McDonald’s parking lot.
Now, I should probably tell you that I plan a lot of events. Each year, I run a bunch of fundraisers, dinners, receptions and all that jazz as part of my job — which brought an upside and a downside to planning my own wedding. The upside was that I had a good idea of what I liked, what worked, what didn’t work, where to spend my budget, and where the money I spent wouldn’t even be noticed. The downside was that I couldn’t get corporate sponsors (logo on dress, logo on invite, 2 tables to event?), or charge admission (although it wasn’t a bad idea) for my wedding. Regardless, I needed this to be the best event that I had ever planned.
with her new huband Gary
So here’s some insider tips from a recently married obsessive bride — and yes, the day went off perfectly:
USEFUL TIP #1: There only two people whose opinions matter when planning a wedding: the bride (Bridezilla), and her mother (Momthra).
My mom was pretty excited about my wedding too. She had been planning this day for longer than I had, with some definite ideas about what she wanted. She didn’t have a big wedding when she and my dad got married (she wore flowers in her hair and her John Lennon eyeglasses and her hair down to her knees — get the picture?) Anyway — she was ready to have a big wedding, but the problem was that this wedding wasn’t hers, it was mine (well, ours, but Gary didn’t mind what I picked out, just so long as I was happy). In the course of my adult life my mother and I had worked on an event together once. ONCE. And there was a reason for that. Maybe we were too much like each other, maybe our styles were too different. Either way — it was an experience that I wasn’t planning to repeat. Until now.
The Worcester Fife and Drum Corps, left, members of the Worcester Fire Department.
USEFUL TIP #2: Make sure that you have an idea of what YOU want, because pretty soon EVERYONE is going to be telling you what you should do.
Well, we wanted an autumn wedding. I hate hot weather, I love the leaves turning color, AND I have red hair. Besides, a colorist told me years ago that I was an autumn — so an autumn wedding it was going to be. Since Gary popped the question in November 2001, we decided to have the wedding in the fall of 2003.
USEFUL TIP #3: If you would like a particular season, you should consider whether it’s a busy season – by November of 2001, nearly all the reception sites were already booked for Fall 2002.
Mom and I piled into the car with my two best friends (Maid and Matrons of Honor) and we went on the “Wedding Tour” to find our reception site. My mom had this thing about “conversation areas” and I had this thing about “chairs”. One of the things that I always noticed as an event planner was that if you had nicer chairs, the overall look of your event was ten times better than without. We chose Charter Oak Country Club because they had it all — conversations areas, excellent food, dinner seating for up to 225 guests and, of course, beautiful chairs.
I wasn’t worried about flowers because our florist, SPROUT of Worcester, has worked with me on a number of events, and I’m friends with the owner (we were even roommates until Gary and I bought our house). Cathy helped us to pick arrangements that would complement the ballroom at Charter Oak. By coordinating floral colors with the room and the favor boxes, the overall impact was much greater.
Definitely shop around for your baker — bring pictures and look for good quality and good prices — it’s not unusual for wedding cakes to cost thousands of dollars these days, but there are good, reasonably priced bakers out there just waiting to be found.
USEFUL TIP #4: When you are at a wedding (or any event) and something impresses you or you like the overall look of something — try to pick out what elements make that impact, whether it be chairs, the height of the arrangements on the table, linen colors, or whathaveyou.
No sooner than the ring was on my hand, I had amassed a collection of about 20 bridal magazines (okay, so I had been buying them for years — they have great ideas for any event, and I knew that someday I’d need them). I tore out pages that had dresses, cakes, flowers, favors, color schemes — anything that I liked. I showed my mom the snippets and we put all the images that we both liked into the WEDDING BINDER.
USEFUL TIP #5: Wedding Binders are a great idea — I create a binder for every event that I run, and I put everything that catches my eye in it, plus menus, vendor info — and it’s all BOUND together in one place (stuff can fall out of folders).
At the Wedding Expo (a must for every bride), we looked at photographers and limousine companies, ate lots of cake and registered for every door prize. Towards the end of the day as I walked down one aisle (no pun intended) I felt something calling me. I looked over, and there was a dress. MY dress. Beaded corset top, full ball gown skirt in the richest champagne colored satin you could imagine. I got the name of the bridal salon and made an appointment to go visit my dress the following weekend.
USEFUL TIP #6: Definitely let the bridal salon people help you choose the right dress for your body type. Full-service salons are excellent places to go for this — even if you plan to get your dress at Filene’s Basement. They’ll help you select something that you KNOW will look good on you.
Next we went shopping for bridesmaids’ dresses. I chose to only have 3 of my closest friends in attendance (Gary had four attendants, but that was fine — two ushers walked my last bridesmaid down the aisle). Since they all had very different body types (from BUSTY to TWIGGY) I decided to go with the mix and match dresses from David’s Bridal — each girl in a different style that they could choose. They were affordable and since we were going with black, everyone could choose a look that they would wear again at some point. Since my Mom was concerned about black dresses for a morning wedding, we had chiffon wraps made (with gorgeous beaded edges) in rich fall colors for each maid: crimson, copper and raspberry.
The cake was literally a piece of cake. Here’s the picture from Martha Stewart Weddings — done. Here’s the number of people — done. Here are the flavors we want each tier to be — done. Then we booked the church (thank heavens) for a morning wedding, and signed up for Pre Cana.
USEFUL TIP #7: Definitely shop around for your baker — bring pictures and look for good quality and good prices — it’s not unusual for wedding cakes to cost thousands of dollars these days, but there are good, reasonably priced bakers out there just waiting to be found.
Music and entertainment didn’t turn into a big song and dance either. My favorite local band, PET ROCK, was chosen (two friends are band members — that helped). We contacted the Worcester Fire Department to get names of bagpipe players (from their Fife & Drum Corps), we booked a DJ for the music during dinner, and my favorite jazz harmonicist, Chet Williamson to play during cocktail hour (my mom did need convincing about harmonica and piano music — luckily I had Chet’s CD and that debate was settled). An old friend from my days working at Worcester Magazine was hired as our photographer, and all of our pictures have that photojournalistic feel, and there are dozens of pictures of our guests enjoying themselves.
Since we did have to pare down our guest list, we decided to have an “after party” that evening so that we could invite more people to come and celebrate and have our party last into the wee hours. We booked The Art Bar and hired a Neil Diamond impersonator since my husband and I are big fans. It was a kitschy-cool touch that really made the party unique.
USEFUL TIP #8: Don’t be afraid to keep the actual ceremony and reception as intimate as you want, and to host a more informal gathering as a celebration at a later time (afterwards, or on a different date).All in all, we had a wonderful day. Most importantly, we took a step back a number of times during the day — to take it all in and imprint a picture in our minds. Our ceremony was traditional (we’re both Catholic), solemn and beautiful – to me it was the most important part of the day. The reception was formal, but fun and the music, food, flowers — everything was great. My mom even had fun too. It was the most memorable day of my life, it was everything I hoped it would be. It was my wedding.
USEFUL TIP #9: Don’t forget what this day is all about. When you get frazzled (and believe me you will) — remember why you’re planning all this craziness in the first place. Then relax. And enjoy!
Kate McEvoy-Zdonczyk, a former sales executive for Worcester Magazine, is Director of Community Relations and Development for Fallon Community Health Plan.
