u/kschmidt07

Looking for hotel/travel suggestions for a honeymoon in Indonesia! Planning on a day or two in Jakarta then luxury tranquil beach holiday vibes. Nihi in Sumba looks amazing but definitely on the upper end of the budget, I’ve always wanted to go to Raja Ampat but we don’t have that much leave (12 days total including travel from the UK) so not sure if if it’s worth it considering we’d need 2 travel days just to get there/back from Jakarta.

I grew up in Jakarta and have been to Bali, Lombok, Gorontalo, Moyo Island, Komodo and Flores so looking for other recommendations! Wouldn’t mind going slightly off the beaten path or non-luxe options as long as it’s not backpacking type stays. Beach is very important, and would love to go snorkelling. Budget is £10k all in (flights, hotels, etc.)

Does anyone know of any services around Exeter/Devon that would do hair and makeup only for the mother of the bride? Myself the bride and all the bridesmaids are doing our own hair and makeup but my mum is disabled and would need help doing hers. Most of the HMUAs I’ve found online only seem to do bridal packages that are quite expensive

I’d initially planned to help her with it so hadn’t booked anything but 3 weeks out I’ve gotten really anxious that I won’t have time/will be very stressed!

I looked up hair salons in the local area of the venue (Honiton) and they don’t seem to also offer makeup, if anyone has any recommendations I’d be so grateful! Budget around ~£200

We’re serving a 3-course wedding breakfast from 3:30-5:30pm and pizzas from 9pm, but also have the option to serve a “midnight snack” of chips and/or cheese toasties. Has anyone done this?

We have 60 day guests and an additional 10 evening only guests. I’m worried the day guests especially will be too full from the WB + pizza and it’ll just go to waste, but equally a cheese toastie at midnight could really hit the spot. Can anyone who’s done similar share how much you ordered and if it was enough or too much?

TIA!

EDIT: unfortunately 9-10 is the latest we can serve the pizzas and we can’t cut them out either as it’s a package deal. Music has to cut by 12am and bar stays open till 1am but we will definitely dip by midnight.

So aware this it’s usually considered an extreme faux pas to invite additional guests, and especially as it’s so close to the day… but the context is I started a new job 2 weeks before I got engaged, and we started wedding planning immediately after. So at the time, I obviously was not close with my coworkers and did not consider inviting them. Fast forward to now a year later there are 3 (+1 as one is married so would invite her husband) that I would genuinely consider friends and not just colleagues.

2 of them have subtly (sometimes not so subtly) dropped hints that they’d like to be invited, but when we made our guest list we were trying to stick to max 80 guests as our venue package was for 70 and we couldn’t afford to go much more over that. Now that our RSVPs have come in we are actually at 60 guests and I’m wondering if it would be socially acceptable to invite them?

One of them literally said to me “let me know if anyone drops out last minute” a couple months ago to which I laughed, but she said “no I’m dead serious”.

The venue is 3hrs away by train which is not the most convenient but I wouldn’t mind putting them up in the Airbnb nearby we’d rented for my family (but who will be staying at the venue the night of). My FH thinks it’s absolutely too rude to even ask, I think I can extend the invite and they can always still decline. Has anyone else invited guests last-minute like this?

For people that did a grand announcement/entrance to their wedding breakfast how did you make it not feel staged/awkward?? Our venue coordinator has asked us to pick an entrance song and an MC to announce us to kick off the wedding breakfast and I’m struggling to think of a song and intro that feels natural. We could opt not to do it of course but as it seems so common I’m thinking it must be important for setting the right energy/tone for the day?

Every time I see an instagram video of the bride and groom dancing in to everyone cheering waving their napkins I internally cringe imagining myself doing that! Absolutely no hate to couples that do it - but it feels awkward to me to have a “second” grand entrance when we’ve just been mingling and chatting to guests during the canapé/cocktail reception before the wedding breakfast. In my mind, walking down the aisle is the big entrance, and the celebratory walk back down the aisle after the cows is when everyone cheers/applauds. Am I just overthinking this?

For people that had a grand entrance, did you have your ceremony on the same day? I’m wondering if all these videos I’m seeing are from receptions that were held at a later date to the actual ceremony, which then makes sense as it’s the first time guests are seeing you!

Any song/intro wording recs or advice from others who were hesitant to do the grand entrance?

Hi all, we’ve just received our ceremony preference form from the registrar where we need to list out any readings we’d like to include on the day. I’ve never been to a UK civil ceremony, but from what I’ve gathered online it always seems to be a guest doing the reading like the mother or father of the bride. Would it be strange or even possible for me as the bride to do the reading? After looking around online for various readings and not finding any that really felt right I wrote my own poem, and I’d like to read it myself.

It’s written in the first person POV so it would read a bit strangely for a guest to read it and also I think it would be a nice way for me to add my own mark to the wedding as my fiancé is doing a DJ set so that’s kind of his contribution. Neither mine nor my fiancés parents speak English as a first language and they wouldn’t be very comfortable doing a reading, wcould ask our bridesmaids/groomsmen but it feels slightly odd to me to have them read poems giving advice about marriage or love when none of them are married/in a relationship.

Have you ever been to a wedding where the bride or groom did their own reading? Or is this more of a moment for the guests to speak and honour them?