Wedding Help From Your Friends and Family

When you’re planning your wedding, friends and family often say “let us know if there’s anything we can do to help”.

Now if you’re anything like me, you’ll probably think that’s really nice but I’d rather do it myself (not a control freak at all !!) But realistically there are things which you will need help with, especially with logistics and details for the actual day.  If people have offered why not let them help?

Here are some ways to get them involved (without losing control!)

 

Transport

There’s a few ways people can help here.  You may have some guests who don’t drive so maybe someone else can give them a lift.

If a friend or family member has a beautiful car, would they be happy to let you put some ribbon on it and take you to your wedding venue?

Or you may need help getting people between your ceremony and reception venue.

Alternatively, if you’re booking wedding transport, this is one job which can be easily delegated to someone else to look after for you.

 

Collecting things

In the run up to your wedding day, there may well be quite a lot of items that need collecting from hire places and delivering to your venue.

Rope in some help for this to save you some time – it’s amazing how busy those last few days can be.

 

Wedding Readings

Asking a close friend or family member to do a reading at your ceremony is a lovely way to get them involved.  Make sure you ask people who you know won’t bottle it and will speak clearly and slowly.

 

Performances

If any of your friends and family are musical (and good at it!) ask them if they’d like to perform at any point during your wedding.  But make it clear that you won’t be upset if they don’t want to do it.

It can be too nerve wracking for some people whilst others will just want to be able to enjoy the day.

 

Looking After The Younger Ones

If you have young children when you get married, it can be difficult for you to take care of them all day.  So having a close friend or family member appointed to look after them can be a big relief. Make sure it’s someone your kids know and love!

In addition, if you have flower girls and page boys, they will need some help and support.  So assign someone to help to look after them for the periods when they need to be away from their parents.

 

Photographer’s Assistant

If you’ve asked your photographer to capture certain group shots, they’re going to need some help.  They won’t know who Auntie Freda is will they?  So give your list to someone who knows most, if not all, of your guests and isn’t afraid to shout out names and round people up ready for their group photo.

It’s also a nice touch for someone to make sure your photographer is kept hydrated through the day.  It’s a long day for your photographer so make sure they’re okay.

 

Organise the Confetti Shot

I love a good confetti shot.  But it takes some organising.  So ask a friend to be in charge of handing out the confetti to your guests.  Make sure the photographer is ready and ask them where they think will be the best place to capture the best shot.

Then someone just needs to give your guests the countdown so they all throw their confetti at the right time.

 

Paying Suppliers

Most suppliers these days are happy to be paid by bank transfer before your wedding.  But there are still some who will ask to be paid in cash on the day.

So put the money into envelopes and label them with the amount and name of the supplier.  Pass them to a trustworthy guest and ask them to make sure your suppliers are paid.

 

Contribute To A Dessert Table

If you’d like a dessert table rather than one big cake, you could ask your guests to bake something to bring with them for the table.  Or if you want things more coordinated, then you could just ask a few people to do this and ask them to do certain thing or colours.

Play Lists

Many couples have a play list for certain parts of the wedding day. This works well for example, during the wedding breakfast when you just need some background music.

But putting a playlist together of a few hours music can take some effort and time to complete.  So maybe one of your friends could do this for you to help with your time management.

 

Décor – Making/Collecting  Things

Many brides want to make a lot of décor, signs or favours to save money. But again this can be time consuming so why not rope in a few friends and have a crafy session together making things.

It can be a fun afternoon and those personal touches really make a difference on the day.

Additionally, you can ask people to collect items for you to use in your décor.  Things like empty gin bottles or jam jars are very popular for decorating tables, they look great with flowers, candles or fair lights in them.  

 

Helping To Set Up The Venue

Depending on your venue and how much decorating you plan to do, you can need several hours to do this.  So if you don’t have a stylist/venue dresser doing this for you, why not ask some of your friends to come along and help you with this.

For example, at one of my recent weddings where I provided my Wedding Day Management service, the couple and their friends & family spent the afternoon before the wedding setting up the tables & chairs, decorating the hall with bunting, putting out the plates and cutlery and creating their DIY bar.

It looked fantastic and their friends loved being part of their special day in this way.  Make sure you take drinks and snacks with you and some music to sing along to.

 

Clearing Up The Next Day

This is a big job that often gets forgotten about.  If you have a venue like a church hall which you are decorating yourself, there’s going to be a fair amount of work the day after your wedding to get everything cleared away and packed up.

So recruit plenty of people to help you with this.  You don’t want to spend the whole day clearing up – many hands make light work.

I hope this gives you some good ideas for getting those volunteers involved and freeing up some of your time.  But if it’s made you think, actually I need some professional help with this, then I’m all ears.  Check out my planning services to see how I can help or drop me a line if you’d like to chat things through.

Louise