Your wedding is one day out of your life, so focus on what matters. Prioritize the things in your budget that are most important to you (we vote for dress, photographer, and videographer, of course!). But if departing a horse-drawn carriage is your dream, make it happen! If simple is your dream, go for it! Don't let expectations dictate what the two of YOU want.

Decide how many people you want at your wedding *BEFORE* you start looking at venues. Make the capacity of the venue a requirement before you add it to your list of possibilities. You don't want to fall in love with a venue and then find out there isn't enough room for everyone you want to invite, or spend extra money on a large venue you don't actually need.

Consider uncommon dates for your wedding. Saturday is the most popular day of the week for weddings, Sunday the second most. Therefore, weekends fill the most quickly for venue, photographer and vendors -- and they're the most expensive for venues. Consider a weekday wedding (Thursdays and Fridays are increasingly becoming popular), especially if most of your guests are local.

If you hire a wedding planner, make sure the photographer/videographer is part of the conversation to determine the wedding timeline (if no planner, then your photographer/videographer should work on the timeline with you directly). They are going to optimize the plan for the best lighting for your most important images -- the ones you're going to blow up and hang on your wall -- and the best video. Don't leave them out of this important process!

Meet with your photographer and videographer before finalizing the contract. Make sure that you not only like their skills, but that you'll be comfortable with those specific individuals all up in your business for your whole day! You also want to be sure that you can trust them to guide everything and get you great images/video, without having to stress about it yourself. Share your ideas well in advance, and then pass the baton day of.

Having kids at your wedding -- you need to make a blanket decision for all guests and stick with it. You've got four choices:
> all kids welcome
> adults only
> kids in immediate family only
> hire someone for childcare either in a room at the venue or at the hotel where guests are staying

Plan ahead for who is setting up, and who is tearing down (and who is taking everything home). While your instinct may be to help with clean up, don't! There are people that will be willing to help -- let them, so that the two of you can ride off into the night.

In your "day-of" essentials bag, include extra deodorant for the both of you, as well as sanitizing wipes. The non-stop day may cause you to sweat some, not to mention there's a lot of hugging and handshaking going on and very little time to run to the bathroom to wash your hands. Those wipes may come in handy. (See what we did there?) Also include a sewing kit in case the dress or tux needs a little repair.

Triple -- quadruple -- check that the right person has the rings before the ceremony starts -- don't assume. We've seen it happen!! The last thing you want to do is delay the ceremony because someone has to run and get them (especially if only the couple knows where they are!).

Make sure that more than one person knows how to bustle your dress! Otherwise, you may find it takes an extra 15+ minutes out of your timeline if the one person responsible for it forgot, or no one knows at all.

If you're planning to have an open bar, typically you need *one* bartender for every 50 guests. If you have a signature cocktail that can't be prepared ahead of time, or you're going to need a lot of, consider adding an extra bartender just in case.