The beauty of a Humanist wedding ceremony is that you can do it wherever and however you like. Small disclaimer – I am speaking here more as a former bride than a celebrant, but I hope that my experiences can teach everyone a thing or two!
My own wedding ceremony was beautifully done, well thought through and reflected us perfectly – with big thanks to Ed Petrie, now sadly working elsewhere but a brilliant celebrant. This is not the bit I am talking about! Our side was loving, chaotic, and all over the place to the last minute – not to mention being abroad, with a badly behaved Labrador and a 10-month-old baby in tow!
Buying things for a DIY wedding could not be easier. We got married in a villa in Corfu (my husband is Greek hence the destination wedding!) I got a big bundle of bunting and decorations from Vinted, ordered some activity packs and ‘words of wisdom’ cards from small sellers on Etsy, and a simple wrap dress I knew would fit me regardless how much bougatsa and tiropita I ate in the weeks we were in Greece before the wedding! I also very much enjoyed raiding Jumbo, which is essentially Greek B&M, for some cute heart decorations we hung in the trees around the villa and handed out to various family members to keep after the wedding. Another top tip – if you are using a variety of chairs in a back garden wedding for example, I ordered 50 chair covers from Ali Express for £60 and tried to make it sustainable by selling all the ones in good condition on Vinted after the wedding!
We didn’t need flowers as the scenery was stunning but I just ordered a massive bouquet of flowers from a local florist, which I arranged with my niece and sister-in-law with some leftover ribbons from our handfasting ribbons on the morning of the wedding. It worked brilliantly and cost about £35. Thankfully both my sister-in-laws (my brother’s wife and my husband’s sister) are creative with one helping with the flowers and the other making our handfasting ribbons!
So… what went wrong? We didn’t allow ourselves anywhere near enough time to decorate and organise ourselves prior to the wedding. Given friends were arriving in Corfu, some who didn’t live in the UK and I hadn’t seen since before we’d had a baby, I was desperate to spend time with them and filled most of the time with cocktails and socialising, leaving us panicking and sticking chair covers on until 10pm the night before the wedding. This is all fine but I wish we’d factored more time into the schedule or got people more involved in helping us set up!
My husband was pretty chilled about the whole thing – he is an organised, conscientious person but the second he gets home to Greece he moves into ‘Greek time’ and is unbelievably relaxed. The morning of our wedding he disappeared for about 6 hours with our son, as he’d decided at the 11th hour what he needed to do was to go for coffee with his friends (anyone who knows Greeks knows this takes forever), buy a hat and he got very stressed we didn’t have enough food for our guests with dietary requirements (we did). Cut to me and my family hungover the day after the wedding trying to make our way through the biggest tub of vegan ice cream I’ve ever seen. These errands meant the wedding started late, as he got the best man so sweaty he had to go home and change his clothes!
So, what is the point of that story I hear you ask. My single piece of advice for a DIY wedding is DELEGATE, DELEGATE, DELEGATE. Do NOT let key guests (especially the groom!) decide on random extra jobs, which they will likely do if a bit stressed, and make sure everyone knows exactly what is expected of them on the day. I would also highly recommend someone checking everyone else is doing their job! Your celebrant can be a great source of help for guiding guests to where they need to be after the ceremony, whether chairs need to be moved about etc (which we completely forgot to do!)
If you aren’t having a professional photographer, give whoever is taking your photos (in our case my sister who did a fabulous job!) a ‘call sheet’ of key moments they want photos taken, and a ‘get out’ time so they can relax and enjoy the party without the pressure of additional photography! Not something we thought of but a friend of ours brought a polaroid camera and some of my favourite photos of the day are polaroids on our wall.
Children! I can’t recommend a wedding nanny enough if you have a very young child. Even though we had plenty of people to help with our little boy on the day, everyone was chatting and he was lacking in the 1:1 attention a baby needs, got a bit unsettled – cut to me pulling a stitch on my dress and getting foundation on it trying to breastfeed and settle him not that long after the ceremony! A couple of friends of mine who got married in the same year had a wedding nanny and it worked out brilliantly, letting everyone relax.
Another top tip with children – do let them know exactly what is expected of them, especially if they have key roles and are old enough to have something written down. My niece was my only bridesmaid (with friends having special but non-traditional roles!) I had stressed to everyone that we wanted a relaxed, fun time and people were welcome to use the pool as much as they wanted. Unfortunately, we don’t have a picture of my whole family together or the shot of me and my niece I wanted, because when we were looking for her to do so she was already underwater, zooming up and down the pool!
The above advice applies for dogs. We did have delegated guests for our dog Duke but he still got a bit stressed. I’d highly recommend asking a dog-loving guest to take ‘shifts’ with your fur baby to make sure they are OK. Ideally, Duke would have gone home after the wedding, but given he was in Greece with us for 2 months it wasn’t really an option!
Food! We essentially had a massive takeaway from a tavern for our wedding – it was delicious, everyone got to eat as much as they wanted and it was cost effective. If you are doing a buffet or something similar, just get someone to give really clear instructions about what is happening – want people to stick things in the fridge when it’s done! That’s fine – people generally like to feel useful! I do have a vivid memory of my friend Praveena being like WHAT are you doing as I carried an oily leftover tray from the garden to the villa in my white dress!
So my key takeaways would be this
- Delegate, delegate, delegate and when you are finished…. Delegate some more! Have someone checking the delegated jobs are done! You should be absolutely free to enjoy your day without worrying about what is coming next.
- Make sure someone is responsible for children and dogs and children know exactly what is expected of them
- Don’t overload yourself the day before the wedding – if you want to hang out with your guests, supply them with drinks in exchange for hanging bunting, or whatever you need!
- Make sure in all the chaos you take a few minutes for just the two of you! Wedding planners and coordinators are really good at doing this but it’s easily forgotten without. Schedule it, delegate someone to remind you, and make sure it happens.
- Remember, in any wedding, DIY or meticulously planned with many staff... something is probably going to go wrong and that’s OK! It certainly won’t define your day, do your absolute best to delegate, relax, enjoy and what will be will be. The most important part is you are going to wake up the next day – married!