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When you are planning a wedding, no matter how organised you are even the best laid plans and budget can easily fly out of the window if you don’t take control. Having been involved with two family weddings recently, I soon realised how many similarities there are between business and weddings. 

Here are some top tips learned from years helping companies applied to the serious work of wedding planning!

1.    Have a Vision
Just as you have to set your commercial horizon and think through what you want your business to be – do the same for your wedding. What do you want it to look like, the feeling to be, the memories you will have?  Make sure you communicate it clearly to family and friends.

Many of the weddings that we plan are either destination weddings or weddings that are far enough away that guests spend the night in a hotel. We have found that a really lovely and personal touch to treat guests who travel from both near and far is to surprise them with a welcome bag upon arrival to wherever they are staying. It really sets the tone for the wedding and kicks the weekend off on a positive, cheerful note! They are a great way to say “Hello! We’re delighted to have you celebrate with us.” As well as little treats, the welcome bags contain useful information about the celebration and the local area. 

Planning your wedding is one of the most exciting times of your life – trying on dreamy wedding dresses, sampling extravagant wedding cakes and picking out beautiful flowers…there are so many amazing moments. But it can also get pretty stressful. From deciding who makes the guestlist to staying on budget to agreeing on seating plans, there can be lots of tricky decisions and you can guarantee everyone around you will have an opinion…
But the most important thing? To look after your own wellbeing – there is no point in planning the perfect wedding day and then being too burnt out to enjoy it.

Marrying someone from a different culture
By Charlotte Ricard-Quesada, Founder of La Féte

As long as I can remember, I’ve felt very drawn to Mediterranean and Spanish culture in particular, from my teenage summers there learning the language to my regular visits for Fería in Seville. Over a decade, I built a network of friends in the south of the country, became intertwined with their lives and thus, began dating: a pretty natural evolution, which tied me closer to my quasi-adoptive country. Things continued the same way until I met my now husband. An incredible, imposing and open-minded man who had big dreams and who would move to London within the first 6 months of our first date, set up by mutual friends. 

With the average cost of a UK wedding in 2019 rising to £31,734 due to increase in pressure from Instagram[1], award-winning wedding experts at Dine, are telling attendees to leave the ‘Gram firmly at home with the launch of their Wedding Etiquette Guide for the Roaring 20s.

The guide helps couples and guests navigate the seventh most-stressful life event[2] with weddings trumping being fired and even pregnancy - by identifying the five biggest wedding etiquette faux pas to avoid this decade.

If you’ve made it your 2020 goal to go vegan, and if you’re in the process of preparing for your wedding, fear not, making your beauty regime vegan doesn’t need to be expensive or difficult.  It’s true the beauty industry can be overwhelming with so many products vying for our hard-earned cash, so how do you ensure that the latest skincare product is cruelty-fee and vegan too?
 
Help is at hand from showcasebeauty.com, the home of independent beauty has an array of cruelty free, vegan brands to help vegan-proof your bridal beauty regime without the hassle.

If you’re looking for the perfect present for an upcoming wedding (or you’re just a massive gin obsessive yourself) then look no further than the gorgeous, award-winning Mermaid Pink Gin! 

Mermaid Pink Gin has been carefully hand-crafted by the Isle of Wight Distillery and is a gloriously smooth gin with hints of strawberry that goes perfectly with an aromatic tonic or a ginger ale. It is made with locally foraged rock samphire, lemon zest and grains of paradise. It's also sugar-free!

The gin is presented in a stunning, eco-friendly bottle that is covered in pink mermaid scales. It features plastic free packaging, as the Isle of Wight Distillery supports marine conservation - so it's tasty and good for the environment!  

Sharing your life with someone is a big step, but sharing your finances is potentially even bigger. While it’s easy to fall head over heels into a relationship, it’s very important to keep a level head when it comes to joining your finances together. Our research found that 67% of those in a couple now have a joint bank account, and quickly adapt to sharing finances and swapping personal details without a second though.  But if you’re going to do this, it’s crucial to make sure you’re on the same page from the start.

Another year has already begun and everyone in the bridal industry is excited for what the 2020 wedding season has to come.  Weddings are becoming much less traditional with more couples choosing their own personal wedding journey. 2020 wedding trends will include; 3-day events, second wedding dresses, eco-friendly wedding, having pets as members of the bridal party and an increase in American trends like rehearsal dinners. There are so many exciting changes happening in wedding trends this year.