If you’ve been keeping up with my blog, you know how ready I was to be a wife and how reluctant I was to be a bride. If I’d had my way, Jake and I would’ve married in the chapel of my church, with only immediate family and friends by our sides, and might have had lunch at a local restaurant afterwards. However, I apparently married Princess Kate, because Jake was adamant that we were going to have a real wedding, with all of his friends and family.

This, but with a cowboy hat.

Because I love Jake and wanted to make him happy, I agreed to his shenanigans. In hindsight, I’m glad I did (barely), because we had a beautiful and fun-filled wedding. I can look back and remember my real marriage began with a real wedding. Despite all the stress that lead up to it, I do have good memories from my wedding day and I, primarily, attribute them to a few key decisions, which I’ve compiled into far more practical wedding planning advice than anything I ever read.

Keep the Engagement Short and Prepare for a Headache
I was convinced that planning my wedding was going to suck from the start. Jake insisted it wouldn’t be so bad, as did many family members, and several articles I read… and they were all wrong. We got engaged just before Thanksgiving and I didn’t have a moment of peace until a week after the wedding. Granted, I switched jobs and moved and dealt with Jake’s unemployment during this time, but still… it was exhausting from start to finish and only barely worth the effort and I’m glad I wasn’t blindsided by that.

Buy Your Dress on Etsy and Save Big
My dress cost $450 with rush delivery, tailor-made to my measurements, in one week. You will wear it one time. As long as it looks good in the photos, no one cares… because all those dresses look the damned same. Try some on in stores to get a feel for what you want and order online.

Get the Rights to Your Photos
The photographer is probably the only service that mattered to me. If the food was mediocre and the DJ was annoying, whatever, but those pictures are going to sit on my children’s children’s mantle one day… as holograms. That’s only possible if I own the rights, though. Prints get lost. They age. They become damaged in floods and fires. Photographers go out of business and die and even if they don’t, they probably don’t have your wedding photos 15 years later. The rights to my photos were included in my package and I would’ve kept looking if they hadn’t been.

Skip the Videography, Flowers, Live Band, Open Bar, etc.
Only spend money on the important things. No one notices flowers or centerpieces or draperies over your chairs. If they want liquor, they’ll buy it and no one, no one, no one, wants your fucking beer cozy that says Heather and Tim Forever in True Love. Splurge on food, photography, your cake, whatever actually matters to you, even if it is the dress, but not everything, just because everyone says you should. We didn’t even have a videographer or flowers. Our bar was a cash bar and the free food was our favor. I couldn’t be happier about those decisions, because it saved us a lot of money on things we didn’t miss. I remember the awesome food, the beautiful cake my aunt made, how great our DJ was, and how much fun we had. I don’t remember wishing I’d had custom coasters made for everyone.

Don’t Throw a Bouquet
If you’re not 22 years old, your single friends don’t want to dive for your damned bouquet. They’re either single by choice or default and they don’t want to be publicly shamed for it. Furthermore, that bouquet cost a mint. Why would you want to give it away? I bought wooden bouquets on Etsy for my bridesmaids and myself and spent less than the average cost of one bridal arrangement on all four.

Spoil Your Bridesmaids and Groomsmen
One of the biggest troubles I have with the wedding industry, is the understanding that these people are your bitches for the day, or even the months leading up to the day, and you can be an asshole to them and make them pay for everything. I let my bridesmaids choose their dresses, with the condition that it was short, they all agreed on the same one, and they each wore the color I asked (pink for Gail, blue for Catherine, purple for Laura, all to match the flowers in my boots). They found one online, for $50 and ordered it sight unseen.

Other than that, they chose to buy matching jewelry and their optional manicures, but I bought their boots and made their boot bracelets and the t-shirts I expected them to wear the day of the wedding. I bought them brunch and gave them each a monogrammed silver compact as a thank you for being by my side, in addition to the wooden bouquets they each held. I let them do their own hair, instead of insisting they pay someone. Jake’s groomsmen got a fishing trip and engraved shot glasses and we paid for their shirts and vests and ties. These people are supporting you on your day. They least you could do is treat them.

Live in the Moment
You’re not going to care about centerpieces nearly as much as you’re going to care about the fact that you barely remember your first dance, because you were fretting over the centerpieces. Be present. Look him in the eyes. Thank God. Have fun with your new husband and your friends and family, because the time for worrying about the tablecloths has passed. You only get this once… hopefully.

Buy To-Go Boxes
Y’all this is the best piece of advice I found from all those stupid wedding planning articles Facebook has been advertising to me since my relationship status clicked over to “engaged.” After the cake had been cut and served, we put out to-go boxes for our guests with a cute chalkboard sign the venue staff penned. We left with less than a dozen cupcakes and the top of our cake and that was it. We have like two months of meat in our freezer, so really, it would’ve even been wise to put some boxes near the taco bar, but I’m thrilled we didn’t waste any cake.

Don’t Drink Too Much and Don’t Plan on Having Sex
If I could change one thing about my wedding, I’d have drank a little less, toward the end of the night. I wasn’t hungover the next day or anything, but the last of the evening is something of a blur and I’d like to remember my wedding night more clearly. I’d like Jake to remember it at all. Regardless, we would’ve been way too tired to have sex and my expectations of having anything other than a tipsy moment of helping each other undress, were unrealistic.

Write the Damned Thank You Notes Immediately
I had every one of my Thank You notes mailed within a week of our wedding. Yes, yes, I teared up at one point because the wedding stuff was never going to end, but it was so good to have it behind me and it was so much easier to write them with their giver fresh in my mind. I didn’t forget who attended the wedding and who sent one in the mail. The stores still had record of who sent what. For this reason, each note was written with care and personality and I didn’t embarrass my mother-in-law.

Delay Your Honeymoon
Jake and I leave for our Alaskan cruise honeymoon on Sunday and I am so glad we chose the 28th, instead of the 8th, which was two days after our wedding. The gifts have been opened, their trash disposed of, and the kitchen rearranged for their storage. I’ve already received my photos and my dress has been preserved. We’ve settled into our routine and had time to relax and actually get excited for our trip. Had we left on the 8th, we’d have tried so hard to enjoy ourselves, but we’d have been completely drained.

So that’s it. That’s my advice, beyond “this too shall pass.”