05 Jun 2026

Things I Learned as a 2025 Bride

I got married in December ( and I’m still not ready to be over it!)

Chatting to my couples these last few months has made me realise how much I can now relate to you all! Wedding planning is really fun but also super overwhelming & chaotic. I went into wedding planning feeling very confident that because I work in the industry, I was starting with so much know how and would find the whole process really easy.... BOY was I wrong! I knew a lot about flowers, but was shocked to find out how little I knew about the whole process... including the costs! It was a big learning curve for me, but I think it's made me a better wedding florist as I now have a lot more empathy for my couples and knowledge of what they're going through.

So here’s some things I learned from my wedding that might be useful to you.

Choosing the venue is the hardest part.

I got a bit disheartened after we got engaged as I had a vision of how I thought wedding planning would be & trying to compare venues was not it. I found this part really really stressful and it's upsetting because it's pretty much the first thing you do which can set the tone for the whole of your planning. The major issue I had was that It’s almost impossible to compare like for like. They all have a different way of pricing, you might think you’ve found a venue in budget but their package is based off half your guests. Its a lot of spreadsheeting & brain power to try and work out if the venue is even remotely within budget. 

We knew we wanted a December wedding as soon as we got engaged (I am a huge Christmas fan!) In some ways this made things simpler as I had a pretty good idea of the aesthetic I wanted, however we had to keep in mind constantly that it could be very cold and there was a risk of snow. This meant we were being picky about a lot of things; what were the roads like around the venue? Would guests be able to get there in bad weather? Will we need to go outside a lot to get from one space to another? What are in the indoor ceremony spaces like? Are there any good photo spots inside if we can't go outside at all?

Once we found our venue I relaxed a lot and actually began really enjoying the planning. I don't have a lot of advice for getting through this part other than to just keep going and not be disheartened if this bit isnt as fun as you expected it to be... it gets better!

We got married at The Ravenswood in Horesham and they were absolutely amazing! The day could not have been smoother, the team were so fun to work with and they made it completely perfect. I couldn't reccomend them enough!

I wasn’t really excited for the ceremony. 

That sounds dreadful to say but of all the parts of our wedding, when I thought about it in the lead up, the ceremony itself was the part I was most looking forward to getting out the way. I'm quite an awkward person and I thought it would be uncomfortable to be stared at by everyone and I was honestly excited to it just being done so we could get on with the party.
HOWEVER- This was my favourite part of the day! Once I stepped onto the aisle I got to live my fairytale dream & it was just so lovely. What you forget is that literally everyone in your audience loves you. It is a room full of your friends & family, who are so happy to be there to celebrate with you.

We got really lucky that our registrar was a genuinely really lovely, funny guy and made the ceremony fun. 

Having mix & match bridesmaids dresses is a lot more work than I realised!

I wanted my bridesmaids all in different dresses in the colour scheme. No regrets, they all looked stunning & I love how it came together. BUT- This was way more work than I realised. I didn’t factor in that we would need to try on multiple dresses, wait 2-3 weeks for delivery, then send them back & start over. I had in my mind that I wanted this job sorted around August (for a December wedding), but because most of the major shops took so long to deliver and we needed multiple trying on attempts to find the right fit, I was still shopping for bridesmaids dresses in the last few weeks before the wedding. With 6 bridesmaids, plus several flower children and groomsmen, getting the deliveries and finding time to go over to each of them to try on their dresses involved a lot of planning and I should have started this process way earlier. 
It also wreaks havoc with your budget having to buy several dresses & send them back/ wait for returns-keeping track of it was a lot. 

If you don't go down the mix and match route, things are generally a lot simpler. You might be able to organise one or two shopping days and get it sorted all at once. I definitely don't regret having the mix and match dresses as I had a vision for the colour palette and it came together really well. It was also important to me that all my bridesmaids feel good on the day and I liked being able to give them the freedom to pick a dress in a style they were comfortable with, but I do wish I had been better prepared for what a big job this would be!

We signed our register in a separate room.

If I'm being completely honest here, the reason we chose to do this was purely aesthetic. When I looked at photos of our ceremony space all I could see was that the registrar table lookeded a bit ugly and in the way and I was worried about it all feeling very cramped at the front there. I asked our venue if it would be okay if we set up the table in the room next door and they were so amazing about it.

 
Doing it this way was actually so nice! Although not the reason we did it, signing the register in the room next door meant we got to have a quiet calm 5 minutes just us & our parents while our guests chatted and listened to some music we chose. 

I then felt like when we came back out to be officially introduced as Mr & Mrs for the first time and make our walk back up the aisle, it felt like a really fun big moment. I would definitely reccomend this if your venue has the space!

Evening guests give an energy boost!

We had only day guests at our wedding, which is something that we thought really hard about but decided we only really wanted to invite the people we wanted with us for the whole day. All of our guest were such good fun and our friends were absolute dancefloor troopers. However, by the end of the night everyone was getting tired and people were definitely starting to flag. Some extra people coming in for the dancing would have given an energy boost in the evening for sure.

I don't really regret not inviting extra people for the evening, however I would say to anyone that is in the fence about it that if budget allows and you have some people that maybe don't quite fit on the all day guest list that it's a good idea to bring them in.

Hair extensions are magic.

Basically none of that hair is mine- enough said.

Thank you to Deborah at Hall of Fame Styling, she colour matched me so well that even I didn't know what hair was real and what was extensions- getting them out was very confusing!

We didn’t want to spend hours taking photos!

We really loved documentary style photography, but I wanted to make sure we still had enough family group shots & couples photos. Our photographer @lauren.beth.photography was amazing & got through all the key shots super quickly so they could get back in the warm.
We are both really awkward people & I thought the couples photos would be uncomfortable, but Lauren was amazing. She put on some music (Taylor Swift, my favourite) and we had a really fun time, then got back to our party. This was actually one of my favourite parts of the day, although we got really really lucky with the weather which definitely helped. 

Aside from this small portion of the day to do some posed shots, the rest of the photos were documentary style & we ended up with the perfect mix! I a bit concerned that even though I loved documentary style in theory- in reality they would just be a bit unflattering or not capture the feeling of the day as well. I couldn't have been more wrong- I'm not sure how she did it but Lauren somehow managed to get a photo of every single person that came to our wedding, and you can see looking through them how much fun we were all having.

I did A LOT of DIY projects.

I’m a control freak and wanted to be hands on with EVERYTHING.
-Did I regret making 110 Christmas crackers? No. (Maybe a bit by number 65)
-Would I recommend anyone else make their own wedding favours? Also no... Or at least start early.

I also spent way more money on crafting supplies than I probably would have just buying things…

If you are a crafty person and really want to do some DIY bits for your wedding I won't discourage you, but maybe just pick one project that you can dedicate all your time and energy on instead of about a dozen like me! Once the wedding was over, I had this overwhelming sense that I ought to be doing something every evening and 6 months later I still usually feel like I have forgotten to do my homework if I havent spent the evening doing some kind of project!

As the bride, you’re with your hair & make up team for literally half the day- find people you like! 

I really can't shout this loud enough! Although the standard of their work is so important, its really vital to find someone you feel comfortable with. Not just on the morning, although that's a huge part of it, but also in the run up to the wedding. My hair and make up artist deborah was so great throughout my planning. She gave me really detailed timelines for the morning so I could get all my bridesmaids organised and she was in contact with me regularly. I had a lot of fun with her at my trial and I felt so comfortable giving her feedback on what I liked/ wanted to change for the big day and on the wedding day itself she completely knocked it out of the park. 

@d_halloffame is amazing & the team with @laurengarfittmakeup and @caradavis9115 made the morning really fun

We set up our selfie booth to be partially on the dance floor & our props spilled into the dancing. 10/10 would reccomend

I can't take credit for this, this was 100% my husbands idea and I was skeptical when he suggested it. The usual way of setting up the selfie booth was to have it facing away from the dancefloor with some kind of backdrop behind it. However, Michael had a really strong opinion that it should be facinf inwards so you could see all the chaos behind it and he was completely right. 

I think because it was right there, it was in near constant use, but didn't really take the vibes away from the main dancefloor. It also meant all our props spilled out which made our evening photos amazing. Fortunately all the props were ours so we didn't really care what happened to them- if you're hiring props then i'd consider keeping a closer eye on them!

The venue team make a big difference to the vibe of the day. 

@katiecomber_ and the whole @ravenswoodvenue team made us feel so special & couldn’t have been friendlier!

I truly cannot praise The Ravenswood enough for making our wedding so special. We had so many comments from our guests about how friendly they were and our event planner was pure magic. Working in weddings meant I had some strong ideas about the look of our day and absolutely nothing seemed like it was too much trouble for them! 

You’ll probably be the only one that remembers all the tiny details you spent weeks hyper-fixated on & that’s okay!

I spent months searching for the perfect red velvet shoes that matched my husbands suit & my dress covered them anyway, but I loved them! This is the fun bit about wedding planning & that’s what matters. 
We snuck our cat pip into any area we could & seeing her face around our venue kept making me smile. No one will remember all the little details I spent so long putting together, but I do! When I see them in the photos or remember a silly little thing we did it is a great memory and I'm glad we did it. 

Wedding wellies are a god send!

It wasn’t even muddy on our day but my heels would’ve sunk into the grass & been really uncomfortable for our couples photos so popping my wellies on meant I could roam around the grass without wirrying about sinking! They were also sparkly and about £5 from vinted so I would highly reccomend!

Sparklers are SO much fun!

But cold in December- thank you to all our guests that braved the cold!
I ordered the extra long ones from Amazon and they worked great. I would suggest getting more than you think you need and letting some people have 2 for extra sparkle. Its also handy to get a few extra lighters to make it a quick set up before they burn down.