First of all congratulations
General Tips:
1. Have as much sex as possible now, as once you're hitched it slowly declines as marriage goes on LOL. j/k
2. When organising things remember the "W tax". Mention the word "wedding" and everything mysteriously hikes in price.
3. Try and call in favours and ask friends/family if they know or have links with: photographers, DJ/MC, florist, venue owners, jewelry designers, graphics designers, hair and makeup. Anyone in those industries will save you decent money.
4. If you hold the reception and ceremony at the same place, costs of transportation will be lower. If in same state/area you can get ready at home and her at the venue perhaps.
5. Whatever future wife wants, future wife gets. It's HER dream wedding remember
6. Relax and enjoy the day, take everything in and don't stress. That way you'll enjoy yourself more and it'll fly by.
7.
BE ORGANISED. The more organised you are the less stressful things are.
We used a program called
i-Do Couples Edition (Windows), as well as their other software Tabula Rasa (for seating charts). There is a cloud version but I have no idea how good it is. I'd have happily paid double for the software as it was a godsend. Regularly keeps you updated with things as they approach on a simple screen, and reminds you of milestones (e.g two weeks before call the florist, etc), and allows you to order everything in a way you print it out for wedding planners/venue. Does meal plans, Save the Date stuff, even full budgeting. You can say "I only want to spend $20000 all up", and it'll work with that, and as you add the costs of things in, it'll lower your remaining budget. Or you can say "I want to spent $3000 on the venue", and it'll work with that (and let you know if you are under/over budget), and it goes really in depth. Can't recommend it enough. Even after the wedding you can input what gifts you got from people, send out thank you cards, and everything else. It really is a complete package, and dead simple to use.
Specific Wedding things:
1. Destinations / venues are a very personal thing. Only you two can decide it.
My good mate had a destination wedding (Hamilton Island), as did friends of ours (Fiji). We decided waterfront and had it at Newport Mirage (as we had family/friends from interstate/regional and they could accomodate us all there).
I've been to church weddings, beach weddings, weddings at Stanwell Tops. Destination weddings can be combined with a honeymoon, and also used to cut down numbers to only those you truly want there (but at their potential expense).
2. Decide early if you are having a full theme, partial (mild) theme, or none at all. We had a partial Fijian / tropical island theme due to our honeymoon destination (seating chart was done up with tables named after Fijian islands, wishing well was a treasure chest, and we made a little diorama plaster island with mini figurines of "us" on it).
3. Decide early on if you want kids at the wedding or not.
4. Numbers are a tricky thing. Remember as you increase the amount of people the price goes up and you end up having a situation where "well if we invite the great 4th cousin twice removed on my side, we need to invite the 5th cousin on your side". I think we had about 70 at our wedding and it was a good number. Friends and family and that was it.
5. Video is subjective. I wouldn't bother (personally) as how often will you watch it. It's also a massive cost.
6. I honestly wouldn't bother with cars. Bit of a wank, an unnecessary expense, and really adds nothing to the day. That is unless you reach out and have friends/family (or someone they know) with a nice car.
7. Save the Date cards (etc) need not be expensive, but get organised early if ordering from like VistaPrint/Snap/Etsy/etc.
8. Bonbonnieres are personal things as well, and need not be expensive. Etsy, Ebay, alibaba are all places you can get decent ideas from. You can even make your own. We've got things from lollies in jars, to deckchairs with candles, to salt and pepper shakers, and even stubby coolers.
9. Decorating the venue yourself can cut costs but be VERY time consuming. We just dropped the bonbonnieres ourselves.
10. Depending on your location, you might be able to find nice areas nearby where you can have photos taken. For us we had photos on Warriewood beach as it was nearby. You can scout that out yourself.
11. Decide if you want full sit down meal or buffet. Buffet will be cheaper but full sit down meals are better.
12. Bogans doing burnouts and cultural drums... try to resist the urge.
13. Decide early if you want a pre wedding shoot with your photographer - it can be a nice way to create flow in a wedding photo album.
That's all that comes to mind at the moment. If you want to know any specifics re the above (or an opinion to bounce ideas off) just give us a yell.
