What would I do differently if I was to have my affordable & sustainable wedding again?
I like to think I had an affordable (£5k) and sustainable wedding. Local small venues (not ‘wedding’ venues), no car hire, local food supplier, handmade dresses, handmade scrap fabric decor, and locally picked flowers and greenery. But as wonderful as all this was there are a few things I wish I had spent some extra pennies on that would have made everything run smoothly. Here I’m sharing my experience on this and what I would have done differently.
Planning book, planner hire or venue rep, which one do you need?
If you are having more than family and friends at a restaurant lunch after a simple ceremony then you are having an ‘event’. An event takes planning, logistics and quite a few skills to make it all come together and run smoothly. I had the skills to manage everything for the planning and lots of lovely help from family, but because I wasn’t hiring a formal wedding venue that came with staff this is where the challenge was.
On the day there was still coordination to do and I shared tasks with family but they were also there to have fun too.
What would I do differently?
In my experience if I was to do it all again and hire a ‘non-wedding’ type venue then I would hire a coordinator for the day.
What would I get an on the day coordinator to do?
So many little things come to mind! At one point we didn’t have music so hubby and brother had to go and sort this out, the coordinator could have done this. Also hubby totally forgot to make the drinks/dinner playlist and a coordinator could have taken-over and sorted this issue. Dinner was late being served and people kept approaching me to manage it. A general smooth running of the day would have been money well spent. We had a bring your own dessert buffet so they would have helped prepped take home parcels and clear up too. It all did work out but would have been that bit more relaxing having someone hired to sort things.
Do you need a wedding planner?
I think this really depends on many factors; are you time poor? Can you afford it? Does the event have many small working parts that would require skills and time to make them all work together? I think for a small sustainable wedding at a local venue a full planning service is unlikely necessary or budget friendly. But if you are planning a wedding where the logistics are much more complex and the ideas bigger than you can execute (although I’d love to learn more from industry experts if big can also be truly sustainable, I’m skeptical) I think a planner could be a brilliant way to spend some of the budget for a wonderful wedding experience.
2. Wedding Decorations and clean up.
Usually if you are booking a local hall type venue then you will likely be part of if not the whole of the decoration clean up crew! The following day we (the bride and groom) had to go into the venue and take down the decorations and load them up etc. This did ruin the lie in as we had to do it around 9am. The night before at the end of the party our friends had to clear all the tables to a corner of the room in prep too.
What would I do differently?
Hire someone to do it! It’s not a lot of work and so unlikely to be a big spend but I really wish I had planned in more time to chill as part of our ‘DIY’ wedding. I loved setting up all the decorations but did not enjoy taking them all down and loading back into the car (luckily we had our camper van to fit everything in). If you are getting married at a local community hall or have hired a house for the event I think booking cleaners would be a good way to spend some of the budget.
OR hire decorators..
Decorating the event was very much my jam and I probably wouldn’t give this up if doing it again, or at least not totally, but my sister and brother in law had a lovely experience hiring decorators and decorations. This way she had nothing left over to sort at the end, and more time to chill with zero set up and take down to do.
3. Photography and Video
It would have blown the budget so we couldn’t add this in at the time but I look back now and having a little bit of video would be lovely. Since our wedding we have lost family members and to have something that we could see them move or hear their voice on, on such a special occasion, would now be so special. If we had children then also it would be lovely to have some footage of them all cute and little on such a day.
Back then, video on smart phones was very new and pretty rubbish (and we had a phone and camera free wedding) so it’s likely now that if you allow one or two people that are good at filming on the phone to capture some video you can get what you need without the cost. Having said that now I have been working in the wedding industry for a while I have come across some stunning videographers that I would definitely hire if I had the budget!
