To My Readers and Followers:

*Drumroll please*

I’m FINALLY married to the most amazing person - my best friend and my first love! The wedding planning and obstacles leading up to the pre-wedding and wedding events have made this whole process a bumpy ride, but I’m glad we made it!

There are a few wounds with the in-laws that will take time to heal. I’m glad to hear that in-laws (for the most part) are universally known to be difficult.  I really do miss my family A LOT, and it saddens me to know that I won’t be seeing them that often. I also hope my in-laws will learn to be more understanding.

Here are a few suggestions/advice that I’ve gathered. I’m sure my family and friends have much more to add to this list since they’re the ones who did a lot of the work behind-the-scenes. I am so extremely thankful to them for making all of the wedding events a great success! The Groom’s family (Jaan-walas) and guests have the nicest things to say about how well each event was organized, how comfortable they felt, and how much fun they had. This makes me so happy!

Here are a few points:

Decor & Hotel Catering Manager - Please finalize all details of the contract with your decorator and make sure they visit the site of the wedding events and review EVERYTHING. There should be no uncertainty regarding what type of decor, centerpieces, mandap, flowers will be at your wedding events. Also, please make sure your Hotel Catering Manager provide information for the decorator regarding each event and vice versa. In your contract, the hotel will usually provide staff (sometimes at an extra cost) to help with certain tasks to help each event run smoothly. If you do not have an event planner, please make sure you have a few helpers of your own to oversee arrangements made by the decorator, and possibly the other vendors.

Storage space - It’s extremely important that you ask the hotel for a safe storage space with a lock to keep all of your items, supplies, and favors for each wedding event. You may have to pay an additional fee unless you’ve worked out an arrangement with your venue.

Favors - If possible, have a few family members or friends pass out one favor/family as the guests are at the Escort card table looking for their seating. This will prevent people from picking up more than one favor and will ensure that all guests receive a favor. People can get greedy with wedding/reception favors so make sure you prevent this from happening.

Cake - It’s extremely important for you to coordinate with your baker an early time for delivery of the cake to ensure that the cake will be on site and in a refrigerator long before the Reception. Please make sure that your baker has brought a decorative cake stand for the cake.

Florist - If you plan on having bouquets, please arrange for your florist to deliver the bouquets early for the bride and bridesmaids to have before their pictures. Also, have your florist decorate your cake with florals soon after the cake arrives from the bakery.

DJ - Please provide a detailed itinerary for the DJ so he/she is aware of the MCs, speeches, performances, as well as the bride/groom & parents’ dance. Make sure your DJ has a digital and CD copy of your first dance song and/or all other music for performances by family or guests.

Food - Please have the Hotel Staff work with the caterers to make sure that there is enough food in all chaffing dishes at all times. It’s important to have a helper to oversee that the caterers and hotel staff are working together to promptly serve and/or replace the chaffing dishes in the buffet. If the caterers have not arranged for food presentation, please talk to the Hotel Catering Manager if they can have their staff elegantly present the food being served during all events.

**Helpers - If you have not hired a wedding planner, please make sure you have enough man and woman power to organize and execute each event — this means carefully reviewing all vendor contracts and assigning helpers to check and see that all of the vendors are complying.

Transportation - I highly suggest that you rent a large van or hire a driver for the large number of family and your guests who will be arriving to the airport and need transportation to their accommodations. Sometimes hiring a driver can get very expensive depending on how many days they are needed, so you might prefer a family member taking responsibility in driving a rental van — There may be limitations/restrictions on your personal car insurance so please be sure to check this out before renting a large passenger van.

Vendors - Please be sure to make proper arrangements for payment to your vendors (they can get extremely grabby and rude!). Please specify when your last payment will be due so there are no misunderstandings between you and your vendor. We had some really bad experiences with a particular vendor embarrassing us in front of our wedding guests saying that they have not been paid. They also came inappropriately dressed, insulted my family, and and some of my family was not able to enjoy themselves during our last event because they needed to settle the finances. From our experience, it was not worth dealing with such an un-professional vendor who caused unnecessary drama and made all of us unhappy. Luckily, I was kept in the dark until much after the fact when the party was winding down and the guests were on their way out.

*All the vendors were paid according to what was arranged on their contracts.

Bride and Groom Clothing - Pack ALL of your wedding/reception clothes far in advance and make sure you label all pieces to make sure nothing is left at home! Also, make sure you pack your hotel overnight clothes so you’re not trying to look for your favorite pair of jeans while you have ba-zillion relatives and female cousins all over your house. It can get extremely confusing and messy and you might not find the things that you had nicely stored in its proper place. I made this mistake and was running around last minute looking for my clothes to wear and my suitcase for my short hotel stay. Luckily, my mom was able to pack me a few things so I had most of my essentials. Thank Goodness for the hotel gift shop! Hm….that’s it for now!

I may update this if I get appropriate feedback from my family. I hope you found this piece helpful!

Love, Mrs. Dulhan