Singaporebrides | Weddings 101

June 2018

9 Common Regrets To Avoid For Your Wedding

By Audrie Soh

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Weddings are once-in-a-lifetime affairs and with just one shot to get it right, the last thing you’ll want is to end up with regrets after the day is over.

Every bride begins their wedding journey by vowing to learn from the mistakes of other brides before them and plan a wedding that’ll give them only good memories and zero regrets. Unfortunately, the sad truth is, despite our best efforts at avoiding mistakes, most married couples end up having one or more disappointments after the wedding. While some are small and easily forgettable, bigger mistakes like choosing the wrong photographer may cost you precious keepsakes of your special day, making that regret a lifelong one.

To help you create only good memories of your wedding day, we’ve listed nine common regrets (including one of mine!) to avoid for your wedding so you don’t have to look back on your special day and think “if only I had…”.

1. Not Doing Enough Research Before You Decide On Your Wedding Vendors

Planning a wedding is a huge endeavour especially for first-time brides. It involves many different vendors and you have one shot to get it right by engaging the right people to throw you the wedding of your dreams. Faced with your busy schedule and the many available choices of wedding vendors, you may be tempted to go with recommendations from friends and family. While it’s good to receive recommendations from trusted sources, you should still do your own research on these vendors before you make a decision.

What suits your friends and family’s needs may not suit yours, so save yourself the pain of any regret by doing your due diligence and look up reviews and portfolios of these recommended vendors before you engage them. Meet up with them to find out if you feel comfortable with them and make sure that their works are consistent with the ones that you’ve seen on their social media and website. Doing a thorough research of your vendors before you engage one will give you confidence in your decisions and make them easier to make, and knowing that you’ve made the right choice will also save you some wedding stress.

2. Not Engaging a Professional Wedding Photographer

Your wedding photographs are going to be the only physical memento of your big day and, trust me, this is not one aspect you’d want to scrimp on. One of the biggest regrets I have of my wedding day is not engaging the wedding photographer whom I was more confident in despite the slightly higher price tag, resulting in wedding photographs that were unsatisfactory. I’ve spoken about this in an article on the lessons I learned from my wedding planning journey, so I will not go into details. But I will tell you how utterly important it is to find the right professional for the job so you won’t end up with a similar regret like me.

So, resist the urge to hand the ever-important task of documenting your special day over to a friend or relative who is dabbling in photography or opting to go with a photographer who you are not confident in, just to save a few bucks. Instead, plan your budget wisely and spend on a professional wedding photographer who has actual experience in documenting weddings and whose style of work you like.

Engaging someone with experience in photographing weddings is vital because they bring with them years of expertise and an understanding of how weddings work and the details they are required to document without you having to tell them what to do. That way, you can relax knowing that your wedding photography will be well taken care of and you can look forward to keepsakes of that wonderful day, cutting back on your wedding stress.

3. Thinking That Wedding Videography is Not Important

When it comes to whether a wedding videographer is necessary for a wedding, there are two camps – couples who think it is unnecessary because they don’t think they’ll ever watch their wedding video more than once, and those who feel it’s necessary because it is a keepsake of their special day. For me, I belonged to the “keepsake camp” and I couldn’t be more glad that I engaged a wedding videographer to document the events of my wedding day, especially since my wedding photographer butchered my wedding photos and failed to capture some of the most precious moments of that day.

Your wedding day is going to fly by so quickly that you’ll hardly have the time to witness or be part of every memorable moment on that special day, so having a videographer on hand to capture these missed moments will ensure that you’ll be able to relive them when you watch the video after the day is over. Besides, some moments are better relived in action. With so many types of videography available today, you are bound to find one that suits your liking and wedding budget. Trust me, you won’t regret it.

4. Minding your Budget Too Much

Speaking of wedding budget, I’m sure one of the very first pieces of advice you’ve been given is to plan your spending wisely and to spend within your means for your special day. Getting married is an exciting journey and it’s easy to go overboard in your planning and splurge on your dream wedding. But the last thing you want is to end up knee-deep in debt after the day is over because you got too excited and overspent.

However, minding your budget doesn’t mean you should scrimp on spending on necessities for your wedding. I know this may sound like contradictory advice, but hear me out. There are aspects of your wedding that are more important than others, such as securing a venue, finding the perfect wedding dress, engaging a professional photographer and videographer and so on. Once these expenses are accounted for in your budget, the remaining expenditure can go towards less important areas of your wedding.

Remember, the key to spending within your means and still have that dream wedding you’ve always wanted is to figure out what your must-haves and good-to-haves are. Give priority to your must-haves and only splurge on your good-to-haves if you still have budget to spare. That way, you won’t have to cut back on your wedding necessities halfway through your planning or land yourself in debt after the wedding.

5. Taking Charge of Your Wedding Day Events Personally

Let me tell you, your wedding day is going to be a flurry of activities and you’re going to need help keeping things together and on plan that day. As the bride, you should be spending every moment of that day basking in the joy and excitement instead of coordinating the events of the day and worrying about whether or not your vendors arrive on time.

That’s why you should appoint a trusted (wo)man as your day-of coordinator who will handle the flow of events and manage any hiccups throughout the day. This person can be a professional wedding planner, your maid-of-honour, a family member or even a friend, and will be the first point of contact for all your vendors, your bridal party and any problems that arise on the day of the wedding, so it’s important to find someone you trust completely to do the job.

6. Pleasing Everyone Else But Yourself

You’ve announced your wedding to your family and before you can sit down to plan the intimate wedding you’ve always wanted, everyone is suddenly telling you where you should host your wedding and what your day should look like. Every bride who has planned a wedding or is in the midst of planning one will tell you that they’ve been through that, so don’t be alarmed if it happens to you. It’s difficult if your family’s vision of your wedding day differs greatly from yours, and not obliging their wants may displease or even disappoint them. To avoid making them unhappy, you cave in and plan a wedding that you never wanted, inevitably making yourself unhappy. After all, your wedding day is not just about you, right?

Wrong. Your wedding day is about you and you should have a say in how the biggest day of your life will look like. But that doesn’t mean you have to or should bring out the bridezilla in you and plan a wedding your guests can’t enjoy. Try to find common ground with your family and strike a compromise. Explain why you want to keep your guest list lean or why you prefer an outdoor wedding to a hotel one, and do your best to take their concerns into consideration and offer solutions to their problems so they feel that their opinions still matter. At the end of the day, you won’t be able to please yourself and everyone around you, but you can always try to find a compromise that everyone is happy with.

7. Insisting on A DIY Wedding Because Everyone Else is Having One

DIY weddings are trending these days and it’s difficult not to be swept up in the DIY fever in a bid to throw a unique wedding that trumps all others before you. While adding personal touches and DIY elements to your wedding is a wonderful idea, it’s not that great if you are overly stressed out preparing them for your big day. If you’re pressed for time or you’re not exactly crafty, then it might be a better option for you to hire a professional stylist to style your wedding instead of doing it yourself. You can still add your personal touch to your wedding even if you are not decorating it personally by opting for a theme that represents you as a couple or choosing wedding favours that mean something to you.

At the end of the day, not having DIY elements in your wedding is not going to make or break the day. What matters is that you do not stress yourself out over a trivial matter and ruin the joy of your big day.

8. Skipping Your Hair and Makeup Trials

When you compare the role of hair and makeup trials against the other bigger and more important aspects of a wedding, it may seem like an area where you can cut cost on. However, your hair and makeup trial is actually an important component of your wedding day preparations because it is an opportunity to communicate your wants to your vendormso you’ll look your very best on your big day.

Even if you have personally perused and chosen your hair and makeup artist, the look she creates for you may not necessarily be one that you like. So going for the trial offers you the chance to voice out your likes and dislikes so she can perfect your wedding look according to your wishes. Besides, most hair and makeup packages usually includes a trial session and choosing to omit it will not save you a whole lot, so you might as well make the best out of the trial.

9. Not Taking a Moment By Yourself When You Need One

It’s your big day and you should be present in every moment to take in the joy of the day. But between the mad rush of activity, getting ready and shuttling between locations, you’ll find that you’ll hardly have any time for yourself or with your groom. It’s perfectly okay to let your bridal party or photographer know that you need a few minutes by yourself or with your groom or family and be in the present and soak in the emotions of the day.

Credits: Feature Image from Caiyun and Terence’s Gorgeous, Romantic Wedding at Montigo Resorts Nongsa by Vicky and Eric from SVK Studio

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