A Second Wedding’s Guide to Keeping It Real
Just a couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege of attending the wedding of one of my dearest and lifelong friends. This was her second wedding and it was the picture of simplicity. The day was filled with love and laughter.
Let’s back up the bus here and set the stage. 6 months before the wedding, we were on our annual girl’s weekend. To be honest, it’s usually more like a week than a weekend but we still call it a weekend. We are a cozy group of 4 and we all knew that our friend had been dating someone. We were at a cute little deli and wine bar when she told us to keep June 3rd open. I asked, “For what?” She replied, “My wedding!” After a round of congratulations and toasting the announcement, we began asking the typical questions. She said it was going to be a very small wedding; probably around 30 people. They were thinking about renting an Airbnb overlooking the lake they hike around and where they first got to know each other. Since it was the second marriage for both of them, there was no desire to have a grand affair.
Now, 6 months is not a lot of time to plan a wedding. To complicate things a bit more, they were both selling their own houses and trying to find one they could buy together. And my friend already had a trip planned overseas about 6 weeks before their planned wedding date. As she started to put all the pieces together, she stuck to the idea of keeping things simple and planned an incredible day.
- She found her dress less than 3 weeks before the wedding and bought all her accessories (shoes, jewelry) from the bridal shop instead of running from store to store. (ok, this did make the rest of us a bit nervous that she was cutting it so close!)
- They ended up finding a beautiful house with a picturesque backyard and had the ceremony and reception there.
- Her daughter helped her make the bouquet and boutonniere and kept it to flowers just for the bride and groom.
- They had simple potted flowers on the tables.
- They had BBQ catered, a simple dessert and it was fantastic.
- Between the 3 of us girlfriends and her daughter, we did her hair. Thank goodness for YouTube!
- They kept the guest list very simple (which I was honored to be on!). They had the people there that they wanted to be there.
- She had her sister play the music off of Spotify on a Bluetooth® speaker and just used 2 songs – one for walking in and one for walking out.
- They took a few pictures before the ceremony and did friends and family photos after the ceremony.
There was no first dance, no cutting of the cake, no throwing of the bouquet. Even though we were tag-teaming on the hair (and none of us are stylists!) while she was picking out the songs 90 minutes before the ceremony and finishing up her vows, the day was so laid back and didn’t feel rushed. The simplicity of the day just lent itself to very few details they had to attend to or prepare. We were able to watch our friend marry a great guy and enjoy the incredible weather.
It was perfect. Simply perfect.
Remember, less is more
~ Melissa
