Wedding Advice From Someone Who Has Had Three Weddings To The Same Person

The face I made when the cake came out, because it was not at all what I had envisioned and asked for. However, it tasted like heaven so I didn't care.

My husband and I got married three times.  I hadn't envisioned it that way, but that's just the way it worked out.  You see, my husband is from France where they actually observe separation of church and state, and so we were required to have a civil ceremony before we could be married in the church.  So we had a little courthouse wedding first, then we had a beautiful church ceremony in France, and then to accommodate the large number of my friends and family who could not go to France, we had another magical one in LA at our church.

At first, the idea of the civil ceremony in the courthouse was off-putting.  It seemed impersonal, and ugly.  To be married in a colorless courtroom just seemed so drab and so not me. I almost didn’t want people to know about it, and invited no one—I just didn’t want to make a big deal out of it, especially since marrying in the church was so important to me.  So, I just saw it as a step to being married. On the day of though, I put on my most fabulous Versace dress and was excited to bring some color into the courthouse--it was a cream skirt, but the top was multi-colored—a piece from the music line they did a few years ago.  When we walked into the courtroom however, I was moved and warmed that it wasn't just a drab courtroom.  There was an arch with pretty, fake flowers, and the judge was adorable and had a butterfly pen.  It was still tacky looking, but it was as if the courthouse knew how drab and impersonal it could feel, so they made an effort to touch it up and warm it up in the name of love.  This little civil ceremony wound up probably being the most meaningful and special to me, because it was just the two of us (other than our witness and the judge), and nothing else mattered but the love we were declaring.  Don't get me wrong, my other weddings were incredible.  Paris was a regal affair, if I do say so myself.  LA was a winter wonderland...or Winter Wentzelland as we called it, and couldn’t be more fun. Still with all the various wedding stresses, I feel like I was most excited when it was just the two of us declaring our love to each other.  I was giddy with butterflies fluttering throughout my stomach—exactly how you would imagine you would feel on your wedding day.  Although, I have to admit, Winter Wentzelland was just awesome and I was super excited to throw a ginormous Christmas party for all my loved ones, I mean, who wouldn’t be?

So, as you can imagine, I've learned quite a few things over the course of 3 very different weddings, and here are some of those valuable lessons:

1. THE #1 Rule is do you.  Simply do you.  Forget about everyone else, just do what's right for the two of you.
2. If you have high expectations for how the day should go, throw those out the window along with any wedding rule books you might have.  Yes, there’s certain etiquette expected, but ultimately there is no such thing as perfection.  Something will go wrong or not as you envisioned.  Someone you desperately want there will not be there.  Someone you desperately don't want there will be there.  And some asshole may even invite a bunch of strangers to your wedding, only for you to realize as you are meeting folks during the cocktail hour, with names you don't recall including in your seating chart. Yes, that did happen.
3. You don't have to follow all the traditions--just the ones you like.  For example, we didn't do the bouquet or garter toss. I gave my bouquet to my mother-in-law as a gift instead (it was a pretty awesome bouquet made of paper flowers and music sheets I ordered off of Etsy). Then there are traditions you do and wonder why?  It wasn't until we started cutting the cake, that I thought...why??? What is the point of this?  It seems silly when one of us or someone else could have handled it more gracefully on our own than with the two of us doing so as if it was going to be like taking the sword out of the sotne.  I read the meaning behind it somewhere, but it seems it would've been more meaningful to take an ax to a log or something.  At least that would show true team work.  The cake was a piece of cake...literally and figuratively.
4. If you're on a budget, here are some of the things we saved on, and trust me no one cared and everyone had a ball:
   1. Open bar:  You do not have to have an open bar.  Champagne came with our package and then we ordered wine for everyone.  That was plenty of booze for everyone.  Plus, neither Chris nor I are big drinkers.  Of course, if a variety of booze is important to you, again, you do you. As one of my friends put it, anyone who wants booze will have booze whether its free or not.
   2. DJ:  I found this great app called Wedding DJ app, so music cost me $7.99—and I got the combo of Wedding DJ App + DJ Monster.  It's fantastic, particularly if you are a music lover, because I am always all over the playlist for any party I throw.  As long as your venue has a sound system and can hook up an iPhone or iPod, you're set. I also didn't trust a French DJ to have all my favorite songs and by the time Winter Wentzelland rolled around, I knew that between my playlist and a wireless iPhone speaker, I was set.  The neat thing about this app is that you can create several playlists, and they can either play one after the other, or they can stop after each playlist.  So, I had a playlist for the cocktail hour, for dinner, for dancing, and I was also able to set our first dance, father-daughter dance, mother-son dance, and a surprise mother-daughter dance I threw in.  It can take a lot of time, but I created a 6 hour playlist, and that was just for the dance playlist! That’s just how enthusiastic I am when it comes to music.
   3. Save the Dates and Invitations:  Don’t feel like you have to spend crazy on these, but they are nice keepsakes for you to hang on to. The two ways to save money here are online RSVPs only, and under print.  Online RSVPs will be annoying when you have to chase down people who don’t know how to get online, but I think getting RSVPs in any form is a pain in general, because there will always be people who are terrible at RSVPing. I would guestimate that you probably only need to print ¾ of the amount of invites you actually want to invite.  We didn’t send any hard invitations to Chris’ friends, because he said they wouldn’t check their mail, and it would be easier and more reliable for them to just have to click a link.  That might be a special case, but also you may find that after sending your save the dates you’ll kind of know whether at least some of the people will or will not attend.  For our third wedding, we did only evites.  I was over it, by that time, but still, it was just easier and no one minded. 
   4. Bouquet and boutonnieres:  As previously alluded to, I ordered my bouquet off of Etsy.  Etsy became one of my best friends throughout wedding planning, because there are such great finds for great prices.  When it comes to the bouquet, apparently, it can be customary for the bride to have two bouquets, one for processing, which I was astonished to hear could weigh up to 10lbs or more for some brides, and then one much lighter one to toss.  I just had one AWESOME bouquet made of music sheets, paper flowers, and a little bedazzle.  I loved it so much I ordered the boutonnieres from the same store.
   5. Use Etsy and your girlfriends to help with little things and decorations.  For Winter Wentzelland, since it was a big Christmas party, and I wanted it to be like going over to grandma’s, there were a lot of little things I had to do that I didn’t with the wedding in France. 
5. Seat people who know each other together.  I once went to a wedding where the bride and groom thought it would be fun to mix folks up to mingle, but don’t do that.  It’s not fun.  It’s awkward.  I just wanted to be with my peeps!
6. Just have a lot of great music and a lot of fun.
7. Remember, what’s important is the marriage.

If you're planning a wedding, I hope this helps you.  Feel free to reach out with any comments or questions!

BIG LOVE & HUGS

Love,

​Justine