Time flies...

...when you're planning a wedding.

There's nothing more time consuming, stressful and delightfully traumatic than getting ready for the biggest day of your life. Like many other things, this blog took a backseat to table plans, beauty treatments, dress fittings, decoration making and all the other million and one small things which crept up on us during the final few weeks before our wedding on Sunday May 1.

But now it's over. The lovingly made place cards are now red wine stained, the carefully chosen dress now languishing in its bag in the spare room and the frantically ordered candles still sitting in their unopened plastic bag. Because no, not everything went exactly and precisely to plan and yes, we had the most amazing day of our lives.

Though four weeks have now passed (during which time we've been enjoying a disgustingly long and extravagant honeymoon) I am still unable to fully appreciate just what happened that day. And so, to help me get my head around it, and to help any brides-to-be out there who are still in the throes of wedding planning, here are my five top tips from the big day.

1. Book the best photographer you can afford
This is my top tip and I can't stress it enough - our photographer Martin Plant was worth his weight in platinum. He helped the groom with a shaving mishap, tied all the cravats and generally created an air of calm throughout the day – as well as setting up some truly once-in-a-lifetime shots. Yes, we massively overstretched the budget on this one but now the day is over the main thing we will have to show for it is our pictures and to us that's priceless.

2. Lay on free booze, but keep it simple
We tied ourselves in knots about this one, not knowing how much people would drink and whether anyone would take the proverbial if we offered a free bar. We decided to pay for beer and wine only and I would highly recommend this as the best way to ensure everyone has a good time but that nobody orders a tray of 12 double brandies (I've seen it done!). Inevitably some of your guests will be on a budget so offering some free booze is a good idea if you want everyone on that dancefloor but (draft) beer and wine don't run up the bar tab like other drinks do and so we were able to offer these all night long, including some bottles of wine for the late-night drinkers. We didn't reach our financial limit and everyone had a good time.

3. Prepare something for your first dance
Anything. Seriously. Nobody enjoys the painful first dance where the couple sway awkwardly to the backdrop of a million flashbulbs and a soundtrack of Stevie Wonder, and these days (thanks to Youtube) your guests are probably expecting something a little more showbiz. We had a lesson with First Dance UK (just one) during which we choreographed an alarmingly simple routine which we rehearsed a total of about five times. It didn't take much time (or dancing ability!) and meant that we had something to focus on besides the fact that everyone was staring at us. Yes, we messed it up but my dress hid many of our mistakes and we really enjoyed surprising everyone.

4. Arrange something for the next day
One of the best things about our wedding was that we got to spend time with all our guests. This was partly because we kept our numbers down so we could get around everyone but the main reason we felt we'd had some quality time with people was because we had a BBQ the next day. Most of the guests came, it was a very relaxed affair in the garden of my now in-laws and it meant that those end of the night goodbyes on the wedding day itself were more "see you later" than "see you at Christmas".

5. Don't drink too much
Sounds boring but better that than waking up the next day not remembering anything. The day goes quickly enough as it is and drinking only speeds up time so why do it? For brides there's another element to this one too – every time you go to the loo someone has to help you with your dress; it's not quick and it's not graceful. Drinking less means more time with your guests and less time getting a bit too intimate with your bridesmaids – everyone's a winner. I drank hardly anything but the natural high was enough to keep me dancing all night long – and I was still the last one to bed.

Present and correct?

Like other people’s relationships, other people’s finances are a murky, mysterious world. That person who flashes the cash may well be your most debt-ridden friend, while the family member who scrimps on everything from nights out to toilet paper could well be sitting on piles of moolah. You simply never know what’s going on in someone’s bank account.

And so, the wedding gift list is a tricky business. Trying to aim it at the pockets of your guests is akin to aiming a water canon at the centre of the Atlantic – there is simply no evidence to suggest if where it’s landed is anything like on target. Is it worth putting anything on the list above, say, £100? Is anyone really going to spend that on you? Or, is it foolish to only list items you know are easily affordable to everyone when there are people who may actually want to spend more?

Most post-gift-list brides that I’ve spoken to have said that people were far more generous than they expected. This is a wedding
we’re talking about after all and there’s nothing quite like the promise of free food and booze for an entire day to get people reaching for their wallets.

But moneysupermarket.com would disagree – their 2010 research cites the average spend on a wedding gift at just £28.26 per person, rising to £30.78 for Londoners. They allege that close friends and family members spend significantly more, which means of course that some people must be spending less than a tenner – or even not buying anything at all.

So, what should you spend? Of course it depends on personal circumstance. No couple would expect their guests to rack up debt to buy them something pretty (at least, we hope not) and, truly, money isn’t everything – but if you buy from the budget end it probably won't go unnoticed. Most couples now operate their gift list online, logging on multiple times before the wedding to see what their guests have bought, and post-wedding, they'll receive a printed list detailing everything purchased, by whom and for how much. Looking back on wedding presents past, that's a thought that scares me a little bit - does it you?

Of course, couples (at least for the most part) don’t invite people to their wedding in order to receive presents from them, and the gift list is, at best, merely a guide. It may sound like a minefield but if you’re really important to the couple getting married they won’t care whether you buy them a television or a teatowel. For us, the wedding is all about spending the day with our nearest and dearest, and the all-too-common idea that some couples have of getting back what they’ve spent per head is, frankly, laughable.

At our wedding gifts are certainly not obligatory, but we do hope to receive items that will remind us of those who spent the day with us, and so, for our list the obvious choice was that high-street denizen of the wedding gift, John Lewis.

Asking for money towards the honeymoon (or, increasingly, some undefined purpose) may be growing in popularity but we wanted something with a little more longevity – and so we hope to receive candlesticks from Auntie Joan* which will grace our dining table for decades, perhaps a casserole dish from Cousin Florence* from which we’ll serve her Sunday lunch in years to come, and maybe even a set of dining chairs from Uncle Bertie* which he’ll sit on every Christmas from now on.

You get the point. It’s about people, not presents. Almost everything on our list is a household item with a long shelf life, and so anything our guests choose to get us from it will be gratefully received and used throughout our married life by not only us, but also by those we share our lives with. We won’t be excommunicating anyone who chooses not to send a gift – but perhaps when they come round for dinner, we'll make them use the old china!

Oh, and if you’re coming to my wedding – the gift list number is 433338 and you can buy something here. You know, just in case.

*Names have, obviously, been changed. In fact, they’re entirely
made up.

The invitation nightmare

On my ever-growing list of things to do for the wedding, actually inviting people was not among the copious tasks written in caps, highlighted in bold or even underlined with a biro.

Having sent out a save the date several months ago and spoken directly to at least half of the daytime guest list about their plans for how to get there/where to stay/what to wear I had – somewhat naively it turned out – assumed that once the invitations went out all we would have to contend with would be a flurry of excited yeses and perhaps the odd musing on dress choice.

But, my goodness, was I wrong. Firstly, getting hold of the invitations was a saga matched only by that of choosing the venue in terms of time and energy lost. Arguments about making them ourselves (something I was dead against given the time involved and the fact that it really wasn't much cheaper), fear that we'd left it too late to order what we wanted (some places said it would be eight weeks before we'd have them) and a convoluted and unnecessarily unpleasant exchange with Confetti over the fact that it took more than a month before we received the invites and that they were then not even the same size or colour as the sample and came with envelopes which were half glued shut (no apology or recompense for any of that by the way – don't shop at Confetti).

But the real stress has actually come from our guests. Fall-out from the no-children policy, whispers on the family grapevine that certain people can't be bothered to come and also, it would seem, can't be bothered to tell us they aren't, heated exchanges over who gets a room and why so-and-so has to get one if so-and-so-other does, it just goes on and on. Every day for the past week I've wanted to call the whole thing off – and we haven't even got to the table plan yet.

Don't get me wrong, I really, really want the 60 or so people we've invited to share our big day with us to come – and to enjoy themselves so much their feet and heads both ache the next day. But – and forgive me if this sounds selfish – weddings really aren't about the guests. Weddings are about the bride and groom and the fact that they have decided to stand up and publicly agree to spend the rest of their lives together. And I'd be saying that whether it was me marching down the aisle or not. Of course we've thought in great depth about our guests and the logistics they're facing but ultimately we have to go with the wedding that's right for us – I just hope people will understand. And that those yeses will start rolling in.

Suited and booted

With just three months to go until the wedding, my husband-to-be has still not sorted his suit. This, I'm sure, is a familiar statement to many brides, and one which I can't decide if I should be annoyed/worried about or not.

The groom's suit is a funny thing. It's his version of the dress but the importance placed on it is so different as to be incomparable. I began cutting dress pictures out of magazines as soon as we got engaged; he wasn't even sure if he wanted tails or a suit. I visited seven bridal boutiques over two weeks with my best friends; he popped into Moss Bros alone on his lunchbreak. I spent thousands; he will struggle to spend £100.

But the real difference isn't the general amount of preparation and thought that goes into it, but the people involved. Because, of course, I am allowed to see "the suit" but if he even glimpsed a picture of "the dress" the earth would presumably spin off its axis and the wedding gods would rain floral centre pieces and engagement rings down upon us all. And therein lies the problem – the suit is yet another thing on my to do list.

Don't get me wrong, I want to help him choose the most important outfit he'll ever wear. And not just because I want to make sure he gets something he's comfortable in and doesn't clash with the bridesmaids, but because it's a nice thing to do together. But it's not the only thing we have to do. We have food to select, wines to taste, gazebos to buy (a new development I won't go into here), invitations to print (god, we're late on that front), honeymoon hotels to book, decorations to buy/make, flowers to approve, readings and vows to choose.... if I go on my head will explode.

With just three months to go, just 13 weeks before the big day, just 89 days left to achieve everything in, I'm starting to panic just a smidge. We are organised but every day this week has some wedding-related task in the diary and Rough Guides' wedding email people saw fit to drop a cheerful reminder about that damn suit into my inbox just this morning. So those stress levels are rising. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment at Moss Bros to get to.