We all wish weddings are as easy as ‘eat, drink and be merry!’, but no they aren’t. It isn’t all rainbows, and butterflies, even the ones thoroughly planned get tangled in uncomfortable situations, and unwanted drama sometimes. Here are some wedding scenarios to prepare and look out for.
Think serene, solemn, and smooth sailing. That’s right, as brides, we want to ensure that everything is as breezy as possible during the ceremony. But more often than not, children who are either guests or part of the entourage throw tantrums, and scream at the top of their lungs, especially when they get hungry, cranky or bored.
How do we contain these inevitable temper tantrums? We can set up a special room or corner packed with kid friendly activities and snacks where parents can take their children to, and lounge with them.
It is also best to give the coordinator, bridesmaids, and maid of honor special guidelines on how to escort the frazzled kids and parents out of earshot.
It’s one thing to have guests bring a plus one without your consent, but it’s another to have someone self-invite themselves to your wedding. Either way, it’s both tricky to handle especially when you have limited number of seats accounted for people you actually invited.
Some would go the route of paying for an extra table to accommodate unexpected guests, but for those who want to stick to their budget and make it intimate and exclusive—best option is to create a guestlist with table assignments, and turn everything over to your MOH and coordinator. It’s important to not sweat the small stuff, and let your coordinator and MOH intervene on your behalf.
While a spontaneous toast is welcome, unguided speeches can take a while and sometimes may add up against your time table. Although a trip down memory lane is very much appreciated, continuous blabber and random ramblings get painful to listen to when you see the rest of your audience become uninterested.
Simplest solution we can go for is to give your maid of honor and best man a time limit, two to three minutes at max. Many suggest 3-5 minutes would be a good time length for speeches but we also have to take into consideration other guests who might not feel a personal connection to these speeches. The secret is to keep it short and simple.
Imagine you’re a week away from your big day, all is set and ironed out; and you start to get texts and messages from people saying they could not go anymore with all sorts of reason.
It’s super frustrating to get last minute cancellations be it from guests, suppliers, or entourage members. I would know, 80% of my entourage and guests backed out even up to the last minute–literally a few hours before the ceremony. As much as I would want to throw a fit, I have to calm down, and remember what the wedding is really about—it is about us, the celebration of our love and union, and no amount of cancellation can bring that down.
All families go through disagreements, and misunderstanding. As much as we want to patch things up, and have everyone set aside their emotional baggage for a while it’s tricky to reprimand, or tell on family members, especially the senior ones.
We all want them there. We love them dearly. Best we can do is to carefully work on keeping them strategically apart by sitting them on separate tables. We can also do a heart to heart talk with them ahead of time to lay down concerns explaining how we don’t want a scene that will ruin a day that should only be filled with love and celebration of life.