There are so many things to remember for your wedding, it’s where a planner comes in handy. But for those of you who don’t have a wedding coordinator to help you remember all these items, I compiled a list of 23 most commonly forgotten items on your wedding day. These are ones that literally, almost every single couple forgets at least one of these. I definitely forgot a couple of these on my wedding day. Hopefully, this will be really helpful for you to remember what you’re not supposed to forget.
23 commonly forgotten things for your wedding day:
1. Food
Feed your maids of honor, other helpers and yourself. Yes it’s very common for us to be so busy on our big day that we can forget to pack a lunch for us and everyone in our bridal party. You still need to eat! A few sandwiches go a long way, make them the night before.
2. Water
Hydrate yourself. In fact, start hydrating a few days beforehand. It’ll help your skin to be clearer and more refreshed, and you will be able to handle the marathon that is your wonderful wedding day. Sure, if you’re wearing a big elaborate dress, it may make it a little bit harder to go to the bathroom, but you’d rather be hydrated and go to the bathroom all of the time than pass out. Because again, face-planting on the ground: Not cute.
3. Transportation
So many people forget transportation. And that’s not just when you leave the reception in some sort of grand vehicle. That’s from the getting ready location to the ceremony location. From the ceremony location to the reception. And from the reception to wherever you’re leaving for the rest of the night. And it’s not just you that needs to figure that out. It’s your entire bridal party. Luckily, we have Uber and Lyft, those can be called on last minute, just in case you do forget. But I do recommend that you have some sort of transportation schedule or vehicle worked out in your mind. You can mob on over to the ceremony in your maid of honor’s car. That’s perfectly fine. Just make sure you think through those details beforehand so you’re not stranded. In your wedding dress.
4. A Point Person
This is where a coordinator comes in handy. This is where you have to, have to, have to have a coordinator. Or a point person. So nobody is coming up to you and asking questions when you’re in the middle of your first dance. Not that anybody would do that, but, you know what I mean. Designate someone that has all of the contact information for all of your vendors, knows your day timeline, and knows where all of your stuff is. That is your point person. They should handle all of the chaos behind the scenes so you can enjoy your wedding day. Guys, you know how I feel about this. That’s where you need a coordinator. If you can’t afford one, you still need to designate someone to be in charge of those items.
5. Your Marriage License
You need to carve out time to sign it, and you need to make sure someone is in charge of handling that. It’s a legally binding document and it’s very, very important. So find someone that you trust to make sure that that is in safe hands so it can be mailed out properly later.
6. Emergency Kit
A lot of people are pretty good at putting this together, but you do need to sit down and come up with all the items that you need. Here’s a starting place:
Jewelry Cleaner
Sewing Kit
Makeup for Touch-Ups
Extra Earrings
Safety pins
Bobby pins
Band-aids
Floss
Hairspray
Deodorant
Nail polish & remover
Clear nail polish
Tampons or pads
Fashion tape
Pain reliever
Antacids
Super glue
Baby powder
Lint roller
Hand lotion
Sunscreen
Bug spray
Tweezers
Q-tips
Toothbrush & toothpaste
Static guard
Portable phone charger
Tissues
Small snacks (like granola bars or crackers)
Blister balm
Stain remover
Scissors
Mints
Hair ties
Lip balm
7. Music Selection
With a professional DJ, this is much less of a concern because they’re pretty good about asking all the questions. But in case you’re DIY in your music or you’ve pushed everything to the last minute, that could be very stressful on your wedding day when someone’s running up to you on your wedding day and being like, “Hey, we’re about to do the bouquet toss, what song am I supposed to play?” You’ve got plenty of time to start making a playlist on Spotify or on Apple Music and select out of the songs you want played for the perfunctory moments. Mother-daughter dance, mother-son dance, first dance, processional, recessional, blah-blah-blah. Having those all organized ahead of time means you’re not getting bugged on your wedding day, and just enjoying it.
8. A Tear-down Crew
This is one of the most overlooked items for your wedding day. Read over your contracts very carefully. Make sure you have someone to bus the tables, to pick up trash, to gather all of your belongings, to take down any string lights that you’ve hung up, to remove florals from arbors if the venue requires it. And don’t do that age-old classic, “Well, people are there, I’m sure they’ll help out.” Because sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they do, but sometimes they don’t. Make sure you have a tear-down crew, and make sure they know that they’re doing it. Don’t just tell your coordinator, like, “Ah, yeah, they’ll do it,” and not tell them that they’re doing it.
9. Ice
A good rule of thumb for ice would be 1 lb per person, and then you may need to increase that to 1 ½ lbs if you’re having an outdoor summer event because obviously ice melts a lot faster.
10. Vender Meals
Most venders have this within their contract if they require to be fed, but make sure your caterer knows that it’s not just your guest count that needs to be fed, but the additional vendors as well.
11. Vender Overtime
It’s always a good idea to have a clear event end time. However, every once in a while it is a requirement for venders to stay later than is on their contract, or last minute if you decide you want to tack on an extra hour of photography. Make sure you know what that amount is before you do that because you do not want to get spanked with a $700 fee that you were not anticipating.
12. Reserved Seating Signs
Luckily, we don’t run into this too often where people take the first two rows, but every once in a while, there’s that one random person who’s clearly never been to a wedding in their entire life, and they sit in the second row or in the front row thinking that that’s the spot for them, and it’s not. So having reserved signs to make sure those aisles are clearly marked and no one sits it them is really important.
13. A Photo Wrangler
Designate one person from the bride’s side of the family and the groom’s side of the family, to make sure all of the photos happen without a hitch. Your photographer is there to capture the moment, they’re not necessarily there to scream at everyone to get in or out of the photo. So if you select a wrangler from the bride’s side and the groom’s side that knows everyone, they can tap Aunt Sue on the shoulder when she’s getting chatty with her niece and say, “Hey, you’re supposed to be in this photo.” They know who everyone is, whereas the photographer is just yelling names off of a list. So when you designate a photo wrangler, that family photo time goes so much more quickly, which means you get to the party sooner.
14. Gift Wrangler and the Vehicle it’s going into
For the most part, wedding guest shouldn’t be bringing too many gifts, but if you do get a bunch of gifts, you need a car for them to go home in. And if you’re leaving in an Uber or in a hired car, then you don’t necessarily want to take all the gifts with you to the hotel or to wherever you’re staying and then have to figure out what you’re going to do with them before you leave for your honeymoon. So figure out who is in charge of taking those gifts and what car they’re going into and how they will get back to you afterwards. Oftentimes, we recommend one of the couple’s parents will put into their vehicle, and then the couple can just get it from them after the honeymoon.
15. Eyelash Glue
I personally just found this out recently, but eyelash glue is water soluble, so if you start crying and those little spider legs start popping off your eyeball, you’re going to look really wacky. You could potentially lose your lashes. And if that’s an important part of your wedding look, you’re going to want to make sure that they stay there, so have eyelash glue on you, or try to go for more the individual lashes, so in case you lose one or two it doesn’t affect your overall look.
16. Invitation Suite for Photos
If you want your invitations to be a part of your wedding photography, you need to obviously make sure that you bring that. And that includes all the elements. An envelope with a fake name and a fake address on it done in calligraphy is beautiful, the invitation, the RSVP card.
17. Guest Book Pens
I don’t know why, but guest book pens get forgotten all the time. All the time. That’s why I carry spare ones in my emergency kit. If you want a special pen, if you need something that writes on a specific kind of paper or a glob or a piece of wood, you need to have pens for that. And plenty of them.
18. Cake Topper, Cake Server, Cake Knife
If you have any desire to have those things, make sure you have those things. I know it sounds dumb, but we totally forgot a cake knife and a cake server. We had to cut our cake with a plastic butterknife, and it was not very easy. It was hilarious, and it was a great moment, but it was hard. It was just not as fancy as using a cake knife and the server. So if you want those items, make sure they are packed up and ready to go to the venue and your coordinator or planner knows where they are so they can set them out and be ready for cake cutting time.
19. Tips
If you are doing tips, I highly recommend that you have them in envelopes with the name of the company on the front of the envelope, and give that to a designated person to pass them out for you. Have that planned out ahead of time so you’re not scrambling last minute to try to find all of the money or get all of the cash.
20. Cash and ID cards
I recently heard a story where a couple was not allowed to go into their honeymoon suite because the groom didn’t have his ID on him, so they got turned away at like 2am or whatever and they couldn’t go into the hotel room because he didn’t have his identification on him. I can understand the hotel’s perspective they can’t just let anybody into a room. So have your identification ready just in case, because you never know where the night might lead, and you never know when you need to have that on you.
21. DIY Items and Where They go
If you are bringing table numbers, escort cards, any sort of signage you’ve created yourself or someone has created for you but you are in charge of bringing to the wedding, there needs to be a list of those items. As a planner, I will go through those items and make sure they’re placed exactly where you’ve asked me to place them, and I will also use that list as our tear-down sheet to make sure we’ve gather all of those things, and likely put them in the same vehicle that all the gifts are going home in.
I hope this list takes a little more stress off your mind. You can see now how important it is to have a good support team especially if you don't have a hired planner. Ask for help. It's such a wonderful time to bring friends and family together. They want to help you cause they love you. Of course ask me too, Jason for whatever you need from our Kapila Gardens wedding venue.