One of the most important steps in your wedding planning strategy is choosing a ceremony and reception venue. To a certain degree, it is your circumstances and budget requirements that define the location of your wedding . First and foremost, the place should be an environment that fits your desires before you consider the input from family and friends (there will be tons of input!). 

Do not worry too much about tradition, if it isn’t your thing, or what your friends and your family like and say you should do. If you, the bride and groom, pay for everything, you need to be much less concerned with what other people think of your location. If your parents pay for it, your decision should probably be much more democratic.

Most importantly, you’ll want to create an environment that will be unique and memorable for you and your guests. It sounds simple, but it is easier said than done. To be successful, you must be very clear about what you are looking for in a venue. Are you looking for an intimate environment, do you want to get married on a sandy beach, in a five-star hotel, or in your parents’ house you grew up in?

Even though churches are the most common wedding ceremony locations, it is OK to look elsewhere. There is an endless list of possibilities for wedding ceremony locations. You may decide to have your ceremony held at a hotel ballroom, a beautiful house, a clubhouse, a botanical garden, a romantic beach, a park, and the list goes on and on.

It may be beneficial to have the wedding ceremony and the reception in the same physical location. It can simplify logistics such as transportation, and it can potentially save you a lot of money.

Remember, if you select a popular location there will be many other couples interested, so plan ahead and book your venue early. The sooner you start your search the more options you will have.

You should have the following list at hand when considering a wedding reception/ceremony venue:

1. Venue – The cost of the venue and the amount of deposit required often is the most important consideration.
2. Food & Drink – What is your budget per person? Who is going to pay for it?
3. Capacity – You should make sure the facility could accommodate the number of guests you are planning to invite.
4. Cancellation Policy – How much time in advance do you have to cancel in case of emergencies or if you change your mind about a vendor?
5. Music – Are you looking for a DJ or a live band for the ceremony and the reception? is there a noise ordinance at your wedding location that you should be aware of? 
6. Accessibility – Do they have handicap access? Is there public transportation available?

… and the list goes on.

I highly recommend that you take advantage of working with wedding industry professionals. They will consult with you and find the perfect wedding venue, catering, entertainment, florist, make-up/ hair stylists, photographer, officiant for you and save you tons of time and headaches making these all-important choices.

Visit the Savannah Wedding Vendors website and explore a wide range of local vendors who can help you with your planning.

Although a lot of wedding magazines and planning books will tell you that the bride needs to relax a lot on the wedding day, let’s not forget about the groom either.

Ways to relax when you don’t think that you can

The unfortunate part of getting married is that you will be pulled in many different directions on and leading up to the day. Not only will the planning seem to take up your free time, but family members may feel that they need to put in their two cents as well.

The combination can be torture.

But since you’ve gotten to the actual wedding day without major damage, why not have a little fun? For the women, have a little champagne when you get your hair done. Joke with your friends and laugh. This is supposed to be a joyous time. And really, anything that you would need to do at this point will be taken care of by someone else.

You just need to get dressed and to the church.

And for the men, why not spend the morning at the golf course with some of your groomsmen? Create a little distraction for yourself before the big moment later in the day. This is the perfect time for you to kick back before you have to get ready. Since getting ready won’t be nearly as complicated as your soon-to-bride, why not sleep in too?

Passing the buck

A lot of letting you relax on your wedding day does come down to good planning. If you’ve delegated and thought of everything, there’s no need to worry and you can enjoy the moments as they come.

If something should go wrong (and honestly, something will), don’t worry too much about it. Your wedding party and family will want to make sure everything goes smoothly, so if something should happen, enlist one of them to take care of the problem.

This is your wedding day and you want to look happy in your pictures, rather than stressed or worried. Take some time for yourself on the actual day. You can either step out of the room for a moment, or just sit down with a book for a few minutes. Find just five minutes of quiet, and you’re sure to have a relaxing wedding day.

Fit all those toasts seamlessly into your wedding reception timeline.

Full article: The Wedding Speech Order, Explained (theknot.com)

Speeches are such a special and personal part of any wedding celebration, so you want to make sure to time them just right. At the reception, the host (often the father of the bride—but not always) and honor attendants (conventionally the best man, followed by the maid of honor) are expected to say a few words. In order to capture the crowd and maximize the impact of these heartfelt speeches, time them in a way that won’t hinder your guests from celebrating. Here are our top four recommendations for when to time your wedding reception speeches.   

During Cocktails:
What better time to cheers to the couple than while everyone has a drink in hand? If your cocktail hour space and day-of timing make sense, have your loved ones make speeches while the post-ceremony excitement is still fresh and bubbles are flowing. If you like this idea, plan to have your wedding portraits taken before your ceremony—you don’t want to be snapping couple’s portraits while your maid of honor hits the mic.

Immediately After Your Entrance:
Looking at a traditional reception timeline, this is the recommended moment for toasts. Your first speaker can start clinking for the room’s attention once you’ve made your entrance and guests have found their seats. Saying speeches before the first course is served is a smart choice if your speakers are nervous and dying to get their moment in the spotlight over with—or if you want them out of the way before they’ve downed one too many drinks.

Interspersed Between Courses:
Spacing toasts out between courses is another popular option. If you have a few extra toasts to get through or just want to give guests a little breathing room between sets, opt for a format like this one.

Right Before the Dance Party:
If you’d prefer, wait until plates have been cleared to jump into speeches. And make sure you save the last slot for the most outgoing speaker (maybe it’s the best man or maid of honor)—whomever you trust to make an upbeat segue from sentimental speech to dance party mode.

Marriage has its ups and downs for sure. I have been married for over 33 years, and my wife and I certainly had a share of them. While challenges and glitches are normal in any relationship, wouldn’t it be nice to have a computer program of sorts that upgrades, refreshes or tunes up our marriage?

Well, there apparently is such a thing. Read on.

“Dear Tech Support – Last year I upgraded Girlfriend 1.0 to Wife 1.0 and noticed that the new program began unexpected child processing that took up a lot of space and valuable resources. No mention of this phenomenon was included in the product brochure. In addition, Wife 1.0 installs itself into all other programs and launches during system initialization where it monitors all other system activity.
Applications such as Pokernight 10.3 and Beerbash 2.5 no longer run, crashing the system whenever selected. I can not seem to purge Wife 1.0 from my system. I am thinking about going back to Girlfriend 1.0 but un-install does not work on this program. Can you help me?”
– Billy Bob

Dear Billy Bob –

This is a very common problem men complain about but is mostly due to a primary misconception. Many people upgrade from Girlfriend 1.0 to Wife 1.0 with the idea that Wife 1.0 is merely a “UTILITIES & ENTERTAINMENT” program.

Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING SYSTEM and designed by its creator to run everything. WARNING DO NOT TRY TO: un-install, delete, or purge the program from the system once installed. Trying to un-install Wife 1.0 can be disastrous. Doing so may destroy your hard and/or floppy drive. Trying to uninstall or remove Wife 1.0 will destroy valuable system resources.

You can not go back to Girlfriend 1.0 because Wife 1.0 is not designed to do this. Some have tried to replace it with Girlfriend 2.0 or Wife 2.0 but end up with more problems than the original system. Look in your manual under Warnings-Alimony/Child Support. Others have tried to run Girlfriend 2.0 in the background, while Wife 1.0 is running.

Eventually, Wife 1.0 detects Girlfriend 2.0 and a system conflict occurs; this can lead to a non-recoverable system crash. Some users have tried to download similar products such as Fling and 1NiteStand. Often their systems have become infected with a virus. I recommend you play safe by keeping Wife 1.0 and just deal with the situation.

Having Wife 1.0 installed myself, I might also suggest you read the entire section regarding General Protection Faults (GPFs). You must assume all responsibility for faults and problems that might occur. The best course of action will be to push the Apologize button then the reset button as soon as lock-up occurs. The system will run smoothly as long as you take the blame for all GPFs. Wife 1.0 is a great program but is very high maintenance.

Suggestions for improved operation of Wife 1.0
– Monthly use utilities such as TLC and FTD
– Frequently use Communicator 5.0

Respectfully,

Tech Support