The Bridge Lemont Wedding Podcast
Conversations to provide value to brides and grooms planning their wedding to make sure their wedding day is the best it can be!
The Bridge Lemont Wedding Podcast
E6 - Common Wedding Day Regrets: Insights from Alisa and Kevin
Join us, Alisa and Kevin, as we chat about the little things couples often wish they'd done differently on their wedding day. Ever wondered if you should spend more time tearing up the dance floor or catching up with your guests? We’ve been there, and we’re breaking down those tough choices—like how your guest list size can totally change the vibe of your big day.
We’ll also dive into wedding must-haves (and maybe-not-so-much items), like whether hiring a videographer is worth it (spoiler: it probably is), and if you really need that second reception dress. Plus, are party favors a sweet touch or just another thing for guests to forget on the table?
We’ll share our own wedding wins and facepalm moments, from photo planning tips to how trusting your photographer can be a game-changer. Tune in for some real talk, a few laughs, and advice to help make your wedding day feel just right for you.
Hello everyone and welcome to the Bridge Lamont Wedding Podcast, where we talk about all things wedding related to provide knowledge and valuable information to couples planning their wedding to help make their day the best it can be. I'm here, Alyssa, with my husband, Kevin, and we have an exciting episode of basically we posted on Instagram to get everybody like previous couples, married couples what their biggest wedding day regret is. So we're going to kind of go through some of those and just kind of have a little bit of a conversation, share them and, yeah, have some fun. So Kevin's got all of those on his end, so he'll say them and we'll just have a little chit-chat.
Speaker 2:All right, so do we want to start with kind of like a hard one?
Speaker 1:A hard one.
Speaker 2:So there's one specific answer where people said one thing, but someone said the opposite thing.
Speaker 1:Interesting Okay.
Speaker 2:First one that we got was spending too much time going table to table and not enough time on the dance floor.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So they're talking to other guests rather than having fun and enjoying their reception. Someone else said not interacting more with my guests at the reception, so they said the opposite I think I would like to know how big the weddings were I feel like guest counts make a huge difference on that, um, and I think it also depends on who your guests are at the wedding.
Speaker 1:Agreed Like so generally, when you have a larger guest count, you're inviting like your mom's coworkers or like the most random people who, like you, don't necessarily like you're not friends with them, you feel obligated to invite them.
Speaker 2:Right, and so now you're going table to table and spending even in just five minutes talking to these people who you don't, you know you're never gonna see again, almost um, and yeah, that's like a weight, that you feel like you're wasting your time if you spend five minutes per table and, first of all, if it's a table of 10 people, it's gonna be longer than five, probably it's gonna be longer than five, and if you do spend five, you're to end up feeling like you didn't talk with them long enough.
Speaker 1:Right right.
Speaker 2:So it's like, if you're going to feel guilty about that at your own wedding, why invite them in the first place?
Speaker 1:Right, in my opinion, yeah, so I guess a good way to look at, like when you're making your guest list. Do you want to stand there and and take, take time away from your day? Your day like your, you and your husband and spending time with people important to you and being on the dance floor and enjoying everything?
Speaker 2:going on to talk to people and exchange pleasantries, essentially that might be what you're doing like the best way to figure out your guest list.
Speaker 1:Do we just hack it Maybe?
Speaker 2:I mean, if you think about it, yeah, that is the best way to figure out how to determine your guest list. Are you going to want to spend five? And if it goes over? And turns into 10 minutes with a single person on your wedding day. Are you going to be happy about that?
Speaker 1:Let's say you have 20 tables and you're spending five to 10 minutes at each table.
Speaker 2:That's a lot of time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So I mean, I know at our wedding we kind of went to each table briefly, but we had 80 people at our wedding, so it didn't take up all of our time and we got our dinner first. We ate our food and and we got our dinner first.
Speaker 1:We ate our food, and then, I think, we walked around and then we went and sat down for, I think, toast was the next thing, which this is why I need a coordinator and a good like DJ or whoever's doing things, because they were the ones that prompted us to do these things, because in the moment, it's a blur.
Speaker 2:It's honestly a blur Time management for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I mean, I don't know in the moment I it's a blur, it's honestly management for sure.
Speaker 2:yeah so I mean, that's an interest, that is an interesting one that people feel two very different things about their wedding, yeah, and if you feel like you didn't like if you're the person that spent spending too much time talking to people and not enjoying the dance floor.
Speaker 1:I feel bad I know like our wedding I was. We had 80, had 80 people.
Speaker 2:We talked to everybody.
Speaker 1:We were on the dance floor the entire time and nearly all of our guests at some point were on the dance floor, and I don't think you and I were dancing together that often, honestly we were dancing with everybody around us, like it was a big group thing. So I feel like interacting on the dance floor is almost more fun than just like oh, what have you been up to lately?
Speaker 2:So what's?
Speaker 1:new in your life, yeah.
Speaker 2:I really like that one, now that I think about it, yeah that was good. We hacked the guest invite situation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you can knock off a couple tables off your list right there.
Speaker 2:Second one on here is not hiring a videographer. I feel like that did come up a couple times so I do think that, even if it's someone that's just a content creator, I think that that is a good investment of your dollars yeah um, I mean, it's not like we watch our wedding video that often, but I do like I like having it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like the fact that I mean we even have the raw footage to our videographer gave us.
Speaker 2:We've never looked at it.
Speaker 1:We never. I mean, I feel like you kind of went through it, but it was a bunch of like weird random clips. I think it was literally everything he took he just put on the flash drive. So you had to like go through and find what you wanted.
Speaker 1:That is what the raw footage is like, oh, we should re-watch our ceremony, but I, for me, I'm like, I feel like I was just so, like it wasn't awkward, but I don't know, I don't even know what was said. So I guess, maybe, maybe for our next anniversary we just had an anniversary maybe we should watch it anniversary.
Speaker 2:It's definitely a blur, but yeah yeah, I think having a videographer is definitely something that is. I mean, it's all about priorities but, I think that is I mean yeah, it came up a couple of times. That is a regret of people.
Speaker 1:I love this. I mean, I guess it's not newer but within the last couple of years is the content creators coming and they're making things that you can post on social media and they're taking like raw footage, but they're very much in the moment, so it's not like super quote, unquote, I guess professional videography and like making a whole synopsis, like five minute clip of your wedding, which I think is kind of what we had. It's more of like okay, I don't know things that are quick to the eye and it's kind of I don't know what I'm trying to say Bite size.
Speaker 1:Yeah, bite size, there you go, and I like that a lot and I think that people like that too.
Speaker 2:Next one. This is kind of a sad one. It says having others make choices for me. It was their wedding at the end of the day, and not mine. Sad face.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:That's a regretful one that's, yeah, that's.
Speaker 1:That's that hurts me for them, yeah for sure, like to, I mean, I feel like um, in my head, what I'm thinking is like a mom or a mother-in-law coming in and being like making all these decisions that weren't what the bride wanted, which is another reason why I'm like get a coordinator because they can kind of keep those people in line, or like fake them out in a way where you're like, oh yeah, you're making this decision, but like really you're not making the decision and the bride's making the decision.
Speaker 2:I'd like to know if that was specific to wedding planning or wedding day Cause yeah. Coordinator definitely would help. Day of but like leading up to. To me that is kind of guest count related or guest list related.
Speaker 1:I I'm viewing it as like decor food, like, oh, you can't, you can't do this, you have to do this or yeah like you can't. You can't serve pizzas at your wedding. You have to serve like chicken and meat and like a plated dinner.
Speaker 1:Um yeah that's what I'm seeing it as so and I I can understand why some people I'll do allow this because when, if you're, if you have parents that are investing in your wedding, essentially giving you X amount of money, they almost feel obligated or, um, entitled to have a say in in these things. Like they, they want to have a say in the guest count, they want to have a say in who's invited, what's served, who you hire, what the decor is, and then it essentially makes it their wedding. And I think that that's really hard for people to figure out because, of course, weddings are not cheap, so having that money is helpful, but it's like, at what point can you um allow your, allow them to have some sort of say without them taking over your day?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's a hard balance that is.
Speaker 1:I wish I had better advice for people on that yeah, it's all about family dynamics, yeah besides give them something there's only so much you can do, but I think.
Speaker 2:I think it's at the beginning of the process, like you need to make sure you don't like let go of it. You need to set boundaries at the beginning of the process, being like, hey, like I know you're, I know you're helping us out with this, and but ultimately, this is our day and we really have a vision and we're going to make the decisions that make the most sense for us right and maybe you compromise on certain things correct, but you kind of need to communicate with people like what is uncompromising yeah
Speaker 1:it's hard I guess that's all depends on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it all depends on family dynamics yeah um not having bridal parties sit during the ceremony I'm pretty sure I submitted this one I'm pretty sure you did.
Speaker 1:I'm almost exactly sure you did, because I see it right here it's my name um, yeah, so, and I was just talking to my friend who's getting married and she was like I don't know where I'm going to have the bridal party stand during the ceremony, cause they have an outdoor ceremony and I think it's. I think it's like steps up or something like that. And I was like, well, just have them sit. Either have them the front row or the second row, if you want your family sitting in the front row. And she's like, oh, I never thought about that. And I was like that's, my biggest regret for my wedding is not having my bridal party set.
Speaker 1:We one didn't have a ton of space where we had our ceremony.
Speaker 1:We had it at the bridge, um, in front of the fireplace in the cocktail room before, like during construction. So it's, it's that we can't do that here anymore in our space with how everything's set up, but we did it before things were done, so there wasn't that much space. We had like seven people on each side and when I look at pictures I see them kind of like leaning, leaning over or like fanning out or trying like it was. Just didn't look even and they couldn't see very well. And it's fun to see people's reactions and faces too, so like if they're sitting and watching it, they get to like enjoy it more, if that makes sense. And then your pictures are just you two there, because I know like we like in all photos like you see at least two or three on each side standing there. Most of them like there's not as many photos of just like a close-up of you and me, because they were so close to us, because there wasn't a lot of space I think, yeah, I think it's a better experience for the people standing.
Speaker 1:I've been, I've stood up in a couple weddings and like it kind of sucks because you can't see yeah unfortunately so yeah, it's yeah, and then you're trying to focus on, like, your facial reactions or like are you smiling, are you, are you too serious because you know it's all going to be photographed or videoed, you know?
Speaker 2:um, yeah, so I mean, that's my suggestion. I think you're too much in your head on that one maybe it's a girl thing like being like I don't want to look stupid up here I just think it's efficient. Yeah, but that's my brain.
Speaker 1:That's maybe a guy thing, yeah, and like they can all stand up there, watch you walk down and then, once you're there, then they should like they can get front row seats. Yeah, then go to their seats and sit and watch. Yeah, and they can still file out if you want them to file out too, but that's important.
Speaker 2:Next one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, next one.
Speaker 2:Not having a reception dress.
Speaker 1:So I assume this means like changing out of your bridal gown, like your wedding dress, to a separate dress for the reception, something that's more comfortable to party in. Yes, but I loved my wedding dress and I thought it was plenty comfortable to dance in and have fun in. So I I don't agree on this one, but I think from your perspective, from my perspective, because my dress it was um a little bit more fitted was it comfortable to dance in for the evening? Yeah, I was fine in it.
Speaker 2:I mean it was a little heavier that's what you need to think about is if you're trying on dresses and stuff like that and you're thinking oh my gosh, I won't be comfortable in this all day. Then you definitely. Then you should get an alternative.
Speaker 1:Because you shouldn't, you shouldn't compromise on your your like dream dress just for the reception idea of it either, um, but also think you only wear that dress once.
Speaker 2:True. I don't think we've. I think I've seen social media stuff of people cutting their dress for the reception.
Speaker 1:That's like kind of cool too, but I think for my dress, I had like I don't know if I would call it like a mesh and it was like it gave me a little bit of a rash on like my collarbones, and I think that was the only uncomfortable part of it. So, but you don't know what's going to happen until you're wearing the dress for an entire day, yeah, so, um, and I think, perception dress wise, I think most people go like shorter right yeah, it's like.
Speaker 2:It's like a cocktail dress and it would be like an after dinner, you change correct? Yeah, like once the dance floor opens, I feel like I've seen someone do like.
Speaker 1:We've definitely had people Pants and like a tank or I don't know, or sweat sweatsuit almost.
Speaker 2:We've had a couple of people do that yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We've just I don't think we've ever seen people like destroy.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Destroy their actual wedding gown.
Speaker 1:I would love to capture that moment for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, next one. We talked about this in our last podcast and clipped it up because it was the most practical of our previous podcasts is having party favors huge mistake and waste of money. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So we'll just recap. What we talked about is like yeah, it's a waste of money. People don't take them home all the time.
Speaker 1:Then you're left with a box of stuff that you paid for and don't want to throw out like our wedding was during covid and so I got hand sanitizer because I was like people would appreciate that and it was like scented, like it was like a special scent and it had like a label. A label and I think it had like our names on it. Um, and then we also did like masks, because they were like required, if you like, did stuff. So they had our names on it too, but I we still had like a box of them left over, so I don't know, it was just I wonder if we still have wedding masks I don't know.
Speaker 1:You might have thrown them out, although I wonder. Who knows they were black. They were actually kind of cute.
Speaker 2:Very sleek not having better idea of pictures I wanted with my bridesmaids and wedding party as a whole.
Speaker 1:I would just yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:I feel like that should be any. Any experienced photographer should should kind of lead you in that direction with their planning meeting. But I guess, if they don't, then yes, you definitely need to take the lead on.
Speaker 1:I don't think. I sorry I keep talking about our wedding cause. That's like what I can relate it to. Um, I'm pretty sure a photographer like prompted all of it um.
Speaker 2:I feel like that should be almost part of the planning meeting with the photographer. I mean, yeah, I mean, I think, I think we each took group photos.
Speaker 1:I think I took some photos with just my two sisters.
Speaker 2:And then I took a photo with each one separately. I don't know if you made the list or what, but she had a list.
Speaker 1:I think she had a list and we kind of went through it together.
Speaker 2:It was like a list, and then you just kind of add, take off whatever doesn't relate to you, but yeah, and if that's not like an efficient process, that can be a huge waste of time in your day too, like if you want to get a lot of stuff, but it's not like your photographer calling it out my suggestion is don't focus so much.
Speaker 1:I mean and this is a regret after the fact, so maybe they didn't focus on this enough but, like I guess have a good balance of it is like you don't need to focus on the photos with your bridal party necessarily. I think the photos of like you and your significant other is more important, because those are the photos that you're going to have in your home. Um, I don't, we don't have any photos with like our bridal party posted anywhere.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think I have my background. I don't think I ever really look at them again either.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I guess it just depends on the person, because this is obviously a regret for someone not having certain ones, but maybe they only had like like the super basic post ceremony one, post-ceremony one. I do think having your photographer scout out the area prior to coming or hiring someone that you know has been to a venue is helpful, because that way they have an idea of where to go outside, what to do if you're going to go outside and good spots inside to take photos as well to do if you're going to go outside, and like good spots inside to take photos as well.
Speaker 1:So we're running into repeats now and we don't have too many more okay unique ones um so a lot of people said the same things, right what's your biggest regret from our wedding? We can wrap it up with this well, I already said, I already talked about that did we?
Speaker 2:what would you say?
Speaker 1:not having the bridal party sit that's not my biggest regret.
Speaker 2:I don't know. Is that your biggest?
Speaker 1:regret.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, that's what I post, that's what I submitted as my biggest regret I guess I don't know what would yours be I think that, since we did our photos in our wedding in the winter and we were in downtown naperville and this is specific to anyone downtown here as well if it's in the winter you should get some christmasy photos outside because, like it snowed the night before, like you have a couple really cool pictures of you and your wedding dress outside your parents house yeah, I do yeah, those are really cool and like it was fresh snow and stuff like that, I thought that was awesome yeah, I wish you were almost there and we took photos, yeah something we took.
Speaker 1:Well, that's the thing. I feel like you and I didn't take enough outdoor photos together. Just the two of us, just the two of us. Um, we took a lot inside. We took. We did take some outside, like on the bridge here and like right outside the building, but we didn't take some at night, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean that. And then, instead of a regular guest book, I wish we would have had after the tone.
Speaker 1:Like the phone. Thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, because I don't know, as a guest I don't know what I would tone like the phone thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think, because I I don't want as as a guest.
Speaker 2:I don't know what I would say on the phone thing but I think it's funny as, like the night goes on, people like oh, get a little more drunk and pick up the phone and I almost.
Speaker 2:I almost think it'd be a fun one to do later in the night, not during cocktail hour, like have it out it's more like an after dinner thing I think it's a more fun thing to do than just a standard guest book because, I think I would listen to it back like I'd have memories of like yeah maybe a week after a wedding, getting back from a honeymoon, like going through that and listening to, like, what people said.
Speaker 1:I think that that would be a great experience that we didn't really have because, or even like on your first anniversary, like listening to that or something. Just funny stuff. I feel like I saw someone say like not eating during, not eating the food or enjoying your food.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I figured that was kind of the same, but not eating my dinner or enjoying the sweets table because we were so busy. So again, busy in my opinion is Talking to a bunch of people being pulled away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's why I think sometimes the smaller weddings are the way to go. But hey, we do like big weddings here because you know they are more profitable. But as a bride and groom, think about who you're inviting. I feel like that's a constant topic, sort of, just because it affects so much.
Speaker 2:The difference between the cost and experience of a 220-person wedding versus a 120-person wedding is extremely significant, extremely significant, both in cost and experience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, that it.
Speaker 1:I guess. So Cool yeah, till next time. Till next time, adios.