Girl, I'm twenty years single and no where near changing that, nevermind getting married. Im here because youre funny.

The “wedding hair” thing is absolutely true. My cousin has suuuuper fine and limp hair and regular styling (curling, etc.) just falls out within an hour or so. She hired a wedding hair professional who artfully pinned each curl so they all lasted through an August backyard wedding. Maybe she WAS an Etsy witch!

I am SO beyond happy I went with a videographer. One of my MoHs suddenly passed in her sleep 3 months after my wedding, and having her speech and a forever recording of her voice is so freaking precious to me

Possible unpopular opinion (I’m eager to hear others’ thoughts on this!): My general rule is that “black tie” =/= “outdoor”. I say this as someone who loves an outdoor event AND who loves a black tie event, but I’ve never seen them go together well. If you asked me to get my hair professionally done and wear an evening gown, I am expecting a climate-controlled environment with ample seating and easy access to plumbing/electricity. Don’t even need it to be fancy; it’s the same stuff I expect from a Holiday Inn lobby or any mid-size airport gate.

I have a few items:
1) if you are in a park or a field and have to have porta-potties spend some dough and get the fancy ones that come on trucks and have flushing toilets and bonus points if they are air-conditioned!
2) I know some people think dj’s are tacky but I’ve been to two recent weddings, where the bands were good, but when the bands were taking a break and they piped in dance music the dance floors were flooded with people. Sometimes, people want to dance to the songs sung by the original artists.
3) if you have a band with a full horn section make sure that the room can accommodate or that there is a separate room that isn’t ear piercingly loud.

For the bridesmaids that pick their own dresses, give them a swatch of fabric with the color you have in mind and tell them to try and match that as closely as possible. They can still text you pictures and even hold the swatch up in the picture and it will prevent the store lighting from working against you because you know it matches the swatch.

I worked in a dress shop and nothing made me happier or saved more time than someone walking up to me with a fabric swatch.

i just attended a wedding where we had cocktail before the ceremony (no first look, bride and groom were among guests and literally welcoming them to their wedding) and it was really lovely! considering doing that for my own

It was incredibly satisfying to hear a friend the other day comment on how much he ate at my wedding and how good the food was! That was the whole point! We were putting on a party for our favourite people that just happened to start with a humanist ceremony 😄 There were sandwiches and snacks around 9 as well but mostly untouched since our guests went to TOWN on the main meal, going back for seconds or thirds 🤣

FYI - Laura is a comedian who found out she was donor conceived as a teenager. She has a podcast that focuses on the ethics of that industry.

I gifted my bridesmaids weekender bags and made them each a name tag for their bag using my cricut. That way everyone had a bag labeled with their name that they could bring to the bridal suite to get ready/store their stuff in and there were no mix-ups when they grabbed their bags to go home later that night. Best idea ever.

My biggest thing is serve food during cocktail hour.  I have been to so many weddings where there was no food during cocktail hour and I was famished by the time the reception started.  Half the time it would be a buffet where you had to wait for your table to be called, and mine would inevitably be one of the last ones

Not only do you need a backup plan for rain, you need a plan or backup plan for heat and cold. Outdoor ceremony or reception in mid September and it decides to be 95 degrees, have a plan. Mid September event and it decides to be 40 degrees, have a backup plan for that.

I didn't know there was even a possibility of a part of the wedding without bathroom access. That's super rude!

I have just a few comments for this video:
1. If you want colors for bridesmaids to coordinate, but have different styles, you can find a designer, manufacturer, company, whatever that has multiple styles. When they say a color is "dusty blue" chances are higher you're going to find that they all coordinate better than finding a random dress with said color.
2. Please gentlemen if you are wanting booties or ties know how to tie them. I am a server for weddings and I have been approached to tie them. Do I know how to? Yes, but I myself have a zip up tie for my uniform because I dont want to tie them.
In fact I have had to "fix" so many things at weddings that are not in my job description ( place cards, ties, corsages, I've even had to sew a rip in a brides dress). I'm grateful I know how to do all of this, but my job is to make sure you have the correct meal. So please know how to take care of the things you want at your wedding. Better yet.... hire a planner or coordinator to help you.
3. And lastly, no sweets?! What is wrong with you people? Besides being there for your love and blah blah blah, that's the kind of sugar the guests want. I'm kidding....kind of. If you have ever seen the disappointed look on a guest's face when they ask where the desserts are and you have to tell them there are none, you'll know what I mean. 😁
Ok that's my 2 cents worth.

I want to defend bride #2 on her first point. So many people have had their own journey with weight and weight loss, especially women. The last thing any bride wants to hear is how hard it was for your to drop 5 lbs to fit in a size 4 dress instead of a size 6 especially a bride who might be in the larger range of clothing. I personally feel we need to stop normalizing weight-loss talk as "small talk". Save it for the discrete conversations you have with the people who know you and understand you the best. And the last thing any bride needs is the energy of feeling bad for your weight loss journey for her own wedding where more than likely she has dealt with her own demons over her body. Also, when you are a size 6 and refer to yourself as so fat, you are making any person of a larger clothing size feel insecure about their own. No matter what way you try to paint it. Yes, it might be unfair, but consider it payback for being able to find your size clothing in every single store you enter.

Regarding bride 2's question about a first look & wanting some sort of pre-wedding cocktail hour: I recently got married in Vietnam and we worked with a Vietnamese wedding planner (I'm from the U.S.). One thing that the wedding planner said was a common feature of Vietnamese weddings was a "welcome hour" where the bride and groom welcome the guests to the ceremony -- and yes, the bride would be in her dress and all done up, ready to go down the aisle. We opted to still have the welcome hour with the bridal party and the groom while I stayed back to still have that grand entrance, but something like that might be a work around for this bride and others who feel the same way.

My unhinged take: People will not remember the details you're making yourself sick with stress over. They won't remember the shoes you wore, the special varietal of orchid you wanted, the table cloths or chairs. Not really- a few people will remember random small details, but every single person will remember how your wedding felt to them. So decide how you want your wedding to make people FEEL and then make choices that support that. We wanted our wedding to feel like an awesome party so the important things were food, alcohol, and brevity of the "official" stuff and casual for everything else. Not a single person has mentioned the fact that the flowers weren't real, but almost ten years later people STILL tell me, unprompted, that my wedding was the most fun they've ever had at a wedding. They still laugh about how short the ceremony was, they still talk about the food, they still talk about the music, they still tell me how it made them feel. I still get asked for tips for their own weddings as they come to that point in their life. The details create the atmosphere, but they don't define it.

My entirely hinged second take: Everyone is going to have opinions about how and what you /should/ do for your wedding. Ignore them. Do what you want. If you don't have big feelings about it and it means something for your parents, let them pay for it if you really feel like it's worth the compromise, but don't let someone else's dream wedding steamroll yours. It's meant to be a celebration for you and your spouse, not your mother's second shot at a dream wedding.

Those takes aside:


I made salt scrubs as favors and most of them were gone by the end of the night. I also definitely had a number of people ask me to make them more later on. Also a very cheap bulk DIY. I think it came out to about $1 a guest.

I also had my bridesmaids buy dresses from JJs and the only requirements was a specific color and for it not to be in a small number of fabrics that I knew would take the dye dramatically different. The cut was entirely up to them and the JJs dresses were very reasonably priced. We did mani-pedis the day before as a group as an option with a specific color theme but a few of my bridesmaids chose to paint their nails at home either for cost or time. Affordability was important to me- it's one day. An important one, sure, but still only one of many. I didn't want anybody breaking the bank on my behalf.

As for lighting- she's absolutely right. If you want a wedding to look a specific kind of high-class, lighting is something you want to spend the money on.

Oh, I also did not much care for a video of our wedding. My cousin did our photos and part of his gift to us as a part of that was bringing in a videographer (because if he didn't want to do a wedding or a family wedding I would have just had disposable cameras out for people) and it was very nice of him but I think I watched the video a single time. It just was not and is not important to me.

You are allowed to have a childfree wedding. Don't let anyone guilt trip you for this decision. Just know that with making this decision, it may come with less people being able to come. You can always let your family and friends know months (or a year) in advance so they can have time to find a babysitter if they want to come to your wedding. My husband and I only allowed our siblings to bring their kids and told everyone else it was child free. At the end of the day, you are just throwing an expensive party  (that's what a wedding is). It's your money. Throw whatever kind of party you want.

11:47 I just realized that if I get married and have a wedding, I have no idea what style of dress I want, but I definitely want pockets

You 100% can say no to a nursing child. Pump some milk, freeze it and get a baby sitter. If you don’t want to do that, that’s fine then don’t go to the wedding.