Ilka's Wedding Day
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Wedding and event planner Ilka Brookes from Marziplanner ponders what she would do if she had the chance to do her wedding over.
I loved my wedding day. We married in October 2005. It was a country wedding – the ceremony was in a little white timber church and the lawn reception was under fairylights in a pretty marquee. Working in events, I naturally did all my own wedding planning, however second time round I would definitely do a couple of things slightly differently!
This time I would use wedding software like Marziplanner to do the bulk of the “admin” – things such as guest lists, RSVPs, tracking gifts and doing the seating and floorplan. For my wedding, I did it all manually with excel and outlook, and hand drawn seating charts, so I definitely wasted a lot of time there!
I would also reconsider some of the big expenses like a photo album – I spent $7K on a stunning looking album but guess where it is now? Gathering dust under the coffee table! Definitely I would spend money on a good photographer, but I would look at some of the more digital options for prints, like using Momento digital albums.
My dress was fabulous, but it was another huge expense that again, will gather dust until my daughter (I hope) one day can wear it. Perhaps next time I would get something divine and timeless off the rack, like a Collette Dinnigan or Lisa Ho gown.
For my wedding I was very conscious of pleasing my very traditional parents with a church wedding and traditional vows & structure, and needless to say I think the second time round I would have a de-constructed event, something on the beach which reflects my husband's and my personalities a bit more.
But I think that the main difference I would change is the wedding day itself – I would have someone like Girl Friday Weddings come and do a full day of wedding co-ordination, so that I could relax knowing that all the loose ends were being taken care of.
On my wedding day, I had to be up at dawn to get the bombonierie and seating plans to the venue and laid out correctly (with the help of my bridesmaids!). I would have preferred sleeping in and having a leisurely start to my wedding day!
When we got to the marquee, an overnight storm had caused a leak in the roof, and three of the tables we had laid the night before were soaked. You can imagine the panic! We got it all sorted, but with an external organizer, I wouldn’t have even known this had happened, and I could have done without the stress! In addition, the flooring we ordered was in terrible condition, and I simply didn’t have time to negotiate with the hire company to get it replaced – so I had to make do with what they provided. I am sure no one noticed, but I did!!
Then there were the little things – I had to get the cake delivered from Brisbane (we were 2 hours away) so a friend kindly offered to bring it with them. The cake arrived fine, but my poor friend and her partner forgot their luggage in the mad panic, and had to miss the ceremony to go back to Brisbane and get their clothes!! If we had a co-ordinator they would have taken care of this.
Finally, the next day I had asked my auntie to collect the flowers and centerpieces from the venue to bring out to my parents property where we were having a BBQ, and of course dear auntie forgot. So I had to make a mad dash (one hour round trip) to collect them before the venue threw them out.
All this aside, the ceremony and reception were fantastic. There are always going to be things that you wish you did differently – that’s human nature. However I wouldn’t change the main elements of the day – the man I married and the family and friends whom we chose to witness our celebration – that would all still be the same and that’s what’s at the core of a wedding. I think the difference is in the detail – by getting a professional come and help me on the day, I would have avoided a lot of stress and maybe been more relaxed looking in those photos that are gathering dust!!!
Ilka Brookes x
