I must tell you that there are some things on this page that I would not consider having at my wedding. I have them listed here because you find them at many weddings and I am trying to cover all of the areas on this subject.
Each wedding is unique and is a reflection on the bride and groom. It will end up being a highly emotional event by the time it is finished. You will have to decide on what kind of wedding you want to have. In my view as a Pastor who preforms the marriage cerimony for couples, the major decisions about the size and place of the wedding should be made by the bride and groom. If someone else is paying for the wedding, they need to respect the wishes of the couple getting married. They can make suggestions to the couple but they should make sure that the couple is not afraid that they will pull out their financial help if the couple wants things different than the person paying for the wedding.
Everyone is touched by weddings in their lives. Almost everyone of us will be or will have already gotten married who is reading this. If you arem't married yet, chances are that you have had a friend or relative who has gotten married and you have gone to the wedding or been involved in it.
I read the other day that the average couple spends over $29,000 on their wedding. When I read this, I thought to myself that this is way too much money to spend. Some couples take out a loan to have this kind of a wedding. Some coupled have their wedding paid for by a relative such as the brides parents. No matter how you get the money for your wedding, remember this. You could have a smaller wedding and take the rest of the money to use for a down payment on a house or something else such as pay off a school loan or other debts. You don't need to go into a marriage owing a lot of money.
Weddings are big money makers for many companies. Actually to get married you only need a few things. They are -
The blood work (Check your state laws because some don't require blood work).
The marriage liscense - Make sure you call city hall to see what is required for you to bring. Also make sure that you know how long a marriage liscense is good for once you get one. You don't want to have a wedding with a liscense that expired a few days before.
The Bride
The Groom
The Pastor (Or someone else who is qualified to marry you) Usally you have one Pastor to do the wedding but you can have two. Sometimes the bride and the groom both want their Pastor to marry them. This is a good solution if you can't agree on who you want to marry you. Also be sure to find out what he may charge. Some Pastors have a set fee and some will take whatever you want to pay him.
Two witnesses
The date - Make sure that it is a good time for everyone involved in the wedding.
A place to get married. I will refer to the place the wedding is taking place as the church.
The rings
I believe that the industry want people to spend too much on engagement and wedding rings. They tell us to spend two months salary on the engagement ring and 3-5% of the total wedding budget on the wedding rings. This means that if you make $25,000 per year that you would spend $4,167 on an engagement ring. If you make $50,000 a year that you would spend $8,334 on a ring for your bride. I don't know about you but I wouldn't let my wife out in public with an $8,000 diamond ring on her finger. I can't imagine what kind of a ring that someone that makes $100,000 or more would buy. You can put your money into other things that you actually need.
Whether you have a big wedding or a small one make out a budget before you even start your planning.
Figure out how much money that you have to work with and stay within that amount of money. If you see that this will be costing more than you have to spend you will have to cut back in some area. Figure out what is important to you and cut back in the other areas where you can. Remember that traditionally the brides parents pay for the wedding. No matter who is paying or who is helping to pay for the wedding, you have to see what is avalible before you start your plannning.
Many parents will will offer to give a certain amount of money that the bride and groom can use for the wedding or can use for other things such as a down payment for the house or to use on the honeymoon.
Things to take care of before the wedding
The Bridal Gown.
Pick a gown that will flatter you. I have seen some really beautiful dresses that were made by a friend or family member. Make sure that you can afford it. Some people are now buying a wedding dress that they will be able to wear after the wedding. Otherwise your only other option may be to save it for your daughter.
Tux
Tux for the groom and the groomsmen or not. Matching suits? Traditionally, the grooomsmen and male family members will follow your lead.
The wedding invitations
The invitations can be made on your computer or you can order some very expensive ones from a company that specializes in wedding services. The choice is yours.
Guest Book
Guest books are great. Everyone should sign it either at the wedding or the reception. Years later you can look at the guest book and it will bring up many nice memories of the people that showed up.
The Rehearsal
It is important to have a rehearsal the day before the wedding. This is where the Pastor will go over everything with the wedding party so that everyone knows where to stand and how everything will happen during the actual wedding. It also helps the person in charge of the music to know what songs to play at what time. Usally after the rehearsal they have a rehearsal dinner for the wedding party. Since the brides family traditionally pays for the wedding, the grooms family pays for the rehearsal dinner. This can be as formal or informal as you want it to be. Immediately prior to both the rehearsal and the wedding, no one in the wedding party is to consume any alcoholic beverage, etc. The bride and the groom will be responsible to make this rule known to all other members of the wedding party.
Photographs of the service.
When I do a wedding service I tell the official photographer that they can take the pictures that they want to. They can get behind me to take pictures if the want to. My reasoning is that this is their day and they will cherish these pictures for years to come. I have never had a photographer do anything that I thought was out of place yet so this has not been a problem for me. Please keep in mind that some Pastors have rules concerning pictures during the ceremony based on their experiences. You must conform to his wishes in this matter if you want him to preform your wedding.
A place to meet to hold all of the people that you have at the wedding.
I heard of a wedding that filled the church and had standing room only. If this is the case with the place that you want to get married in, make sure that the people coming wouldn't mind standing if they had to. Also make sure that you have plenty of seating for the elderly, the handicaped, and the young that may have trouble standing for the entire ceremony. Also make sure it is avalible on the day you will need it and reserve it in plenty of time to make sure that someone doesn't reserve it before you do.
Someone in charge of the wedding music.
Make sure that the person in charge of the music knows which songs you want played while people are being seated, what song will be played for the marching of the wedding procession, any special songs during the wedding, and the exit music. I preformed a wedding where they didn't make everything clear and there ended up being no exit music.
Someone to decorate the place for the wedding.
This can be the bride and friends or family. It really doesn't matter just so the church is decorated before everyone arrives.
Flowers
Flowers are usally a big part of a wedding. They can add the finishing touches to the outfits of everyone invloved in the wedding. They also will add a lot to the enviornment of the wedding. They should be the same colors as the color theme of your wedding. When you are choosing a florist, you may want to ask them if they have pictures of their work. If you are familiar with their work, you may not have to worry about that. Make sure that they will be able to deliver the flowers you need on the day you need them for the wedding.
A place for the reception after the wedding.
A wedding reception is a party for the couple, their friends and their family to celebrate their union before the couple takes off on their honeymoon. Some people will have the reception at the church fellowship hall. Some people will have it at a banquete hall or at a park. You also need to make sure that you reserve the place you want to have the reception as soon as you are able to.
A DJ or someone else in charge of the music at the reception.
This can be a friend of yours or a professional. Just so they can do a good job for you. Make sure that the music isn't too loud or too soft for the people.
Someone to provide food at the reception.
You can have the food catered in by a professional catering service or some friends or family can take care of it for you. If you want to cut costs you can have a pot luck reception where the guests bring in a bowl or platter of their favorite dish. Many people are starting to do this.
A nice addition for the wedding ceremony
The unity candle
I have loved this tradition ever since I first learned about it and it has been in many of the weddings that I have performed. There are variations to the unity candle but the one that I like the most would be like this. You have a three branched candlestick on the alter of the church where the couple is being married. When the brides parents come up to be seated they light one of the candles. When the grooms parents come up to be seated they light the candle on the other side leaving the center candle unlighted. After the Pastor pronounces the couple to be man and wife they step over to the candles. The groom takes the candle which was lit by his parents and the bride takes the candle lit by her parents and they light the center candle and blow out their individual candles. The Pastor then asks the groom to kiss the bride and they leave together as the ressional song is being played.
The Reception - It can last anywhere from thirty minutes to several hours. Just make sure that you give good directions to the place as I have been to weddings where people have gotten lost on the way to the reception. That can really ruin a persons experience at your wedding.
The Toast
Usally at some point during the reception the bestman will give a toast wishing the couple a great future together. Others in the wedding party may also offer up a toast including the father of the bride and the maid of honor.
Dances
This is an option which many people have depending on their views on dancing. For people that have this option, there are usally several dances that are included in the reception.
The first dance usally belongs to the bride and groom.
They usally will have a dance where the bride dances with her father. After the groom finishes his dance with the bride he may escort her over to her father for their dance.
The money dance- This is where you pay money to dance with the bride or groom at the reception. Many couples use this money to help pay for the honeymoon.
After the money dance they will invite everyone to come to the dance floor who wants to dance.
Cutting the cake
After the meal the couple will usally cut a small piece of cake and feed it to each other. After this they will cut cake for the guests.The cake is usally at least two teirs tall with a statue of a bride and groom standing on top of it. Often times they will have a sheet cake to cut for the guests also. The very top of the cake is usally sent home with the bride and groom to be put in the freezer. Then they will eat a slice on their anniversary for several years or just finish it off on their first anniversary. If I were you I would not smash the cake in each others faces. I have been to weddings where at least one person got pretty mad at the other one. One brides mother got pretty upset at the groom at their wedding because of this.
Alcohol
Many people have a bar at their reception where you can buy drinks. I personally do not like the idea of serving alcohol at the reception. I would feel pretty bad if I knew that someone had a few drinks at my wedding or reception and then was involved in an accident. I have just seen too many problems that result from drinking alcohol. You may also have a friend or relative that won't go to a wedding or receception if they serve alcohol. There are many weddings that don't allow alcohol. If a couple has their reception in the fellowship hall of a church that I am pastoring, they know that there will be no alcohol allowed on the property.
Decorating the car
It is a tradition for people to decorate the bride and grooms car sometime during the reception with things like just married written on the side of the car and streamers all over it. Some people ge to great lengths to pull a lot of practical jokes on them while decorating the car. Be careful how far you go and what you do to the car. While they were decorating my car they tied aluminum cans to our back bumper. My brother also tied another set of cans to the car and tucked them up under the car where they couldn't be seen. When we got to a local hotel we cut off the cans and thought all was well. On the next day as we were headed to our destination we were on the interstate talking when we were pulled over by an irrate police officer. It seems our cans had fallen down and were being dragged along just like the ones that I had cut off the night before. Only thing was that these cans were coming off of the string and almost hit the car following us. The police officer stated that the man behind us had to swerve to miss the cans and almost had an accident. I was shocked and told him that I had cut off the cans the day before and at first he didn't believe me. He finally let us go after we cut off the remaining cans.
The Honeymoon
Organizing and paying for the honeymoon have been the traditional responsibility of the groom. Make it a place that will be fun for you and your new bride. You may be able to go to a theme park or you may only be able to go to a local fun spot in the area.
After a while reality kicks in. Hopefully it waits a while and doesn't come in your first week or two of marriage. You will have more disagreements because you are now living in the same house. You will disagree on what to spend your money on, what to eat, where to go at times and so on. You need to talk about your disagreements and see what what is good for the two of you as a couple.
In your marriage vows you say "for better or worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health..." Most people don't mind the better, the richer, and the health part of that vow but they get upset with the worse, the poorer, and the sickness part and may want a divorce. Remember that when you make this vow that it is to God and to your spouse. Just because things get hard to deal with doesn't make it ok to call it quits. You are a team and as a team it is up to the two of you to work things out.
Don't go into this marriage with the attitude that if it doesn't work out that you can always get a divorce and move on with your life. If you have this attitude there is a good chance that your marriage will eventually fail. Go into this marriage with the attitude that it is "Till death do us part".
Have a family alter.
A family alter is when you get together with your spouse (and eventually with your children too) and have a time when you read the Bible together and pray together. You can discuss what you have read if you want to. That way you can teach and learn from each other. Hopefully this will be done every night (or morning). When you make time for God in your marriage it will be a better marriage.
Don't try to change the person after you are married. I have talked to many engaged people that have the attitude that "I can change this bad habit of his after we get married." I have found that this is usally not true. Usally the bad habits get worse over the years, not better. and if you nag him or her about a bad habit you can make things really bad for your marriage.
Don't correct their grammer constantly, espically if they are from another part of the country than you are or from a foreign country. Each part of the country has certain ways of saying things that may differ from the way that you say it. This doesn't make it right or wrong, it's just different. We all tend to believe that we say things correctly and if someone says it differently then they must be wrong. That is part of the person that you marry. Don't bug them about expressions that they say or about the way that they may pronounce a certain word. There are enough rude people where you live that will make fun of their accents. It is your job to lift them up, not tear them down. If it is important to them, they will change the way they talk. When I first got married, I used to correct my wife's grammer. She would not say things the way they should have been said. As the son of a mother who's favorite subject in school was english I thought it was my responsibility to teach her the right way to speak. The only thing it did was to make her mad at me. I learned the hard way not to critisize the way she talked. Later I realized that it wasn't that big of a deal and there were a lot more important things in life and in a marriage to worry about. If it is really that big of a deal that you don't think you can live with the way they talk then don't marry them because you will have problems with this for the rest of your life.
Watch out about criticizing how they dress. You should have a long enough dating time to know about their fashion sense. You can make someone really mad at you if you are not careful. If you have expectations about how they are to dress make sure that they know them before the marriage.
Have a DATE NIGHT!!!
Go out on a date one night a week for the rest of your marriage. You may go out to eat and then go out to a movie or you might go out hiking or on a bike ride. Make sure that it is something that you both enjoy and will have a lot of fun doing. The date doesn't have to cost much money. Some people just like to walk on the beach holding hands and sitting down in the sand to hear the ocean waves. This is cheep and very romantic for most couples. It is up to you what you do and how you spend your time. The important thing is to have this time together at least once a week. This will really help your marriage out. Make sure that you keep this up after the children come along. After you have children it becomes even more important to do this. Make sure that nothing interferes with your weekly date. Don't get too busy to have your date. Hire a baby sitter if you have to. If your parents are able to or you have some good friends or other family members that are able to help you out, take advantage of their help. Don't be like a friend of mine that wouldn't even let her parents babysit her newborn because she didn't trust anyone to take care of her. I told her that her parents were more qualified to take care of the child than she was since they had raised several children and she had raised none.
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