Candice’s Bridal Diary: Advice from a Newly-Wed

As a very newly-wed, I’m excited to share some of my wedding tips and planning experiences with you. One of the first “hurdles” I encountered as a very newly engaged person was the devastation at how ridiculously expensive everything wedding related was. I think this is something that most brides will go through during the wedding planning process – and I hope to try and help you in some small (or not so small) ways.

This week, I’m thinking about the amount of guests at a wedding. It is very tempting to want to have everyone there to celebrate with you – aunts, cousins twice removed, colleagues’ husbands you’ve never met…and before you look you’re sitting with 200 guests, when you aimed for 60.

Now I understand that you want to have people around to you share your day with, but there comes a point when you have to decide whether it’s worth having Great Aunt Tilda there (you last saw her when you were 6) – if you have to pay R450 for her dinner at the reception.

We swiftly worked around this situation at our wedding – by having a two part reception – something quite a few of our friends have also done.

You invite absolutely everyone you want to your church ceremony, so they are there to witness your dedication to each other, and the actual reason for the celebrations. After the church ceremony, we invited everyone to treats and drinks in the church garden (you could do this at an informal tea / coffee shop too) – so everyone feels treated and special and spoiled. Then you only invite your very special friends and family to your actual formal reception (for us, we had 60 people at our ceremony, and 30 at the formal reception).

This means that everyone is able to celebrate with you and feel a little special and spoiled at the ceremony and treats – but you keep your reception bill down and limit the R450 dinners to only your nearest and dearest.

It works pretty flawlessly – all you have to do is make two separate sets of invitations – one for the ceremony and treats, and another including the formal dinner afterwards.