Here’s a simple fact from my experience of being a wedding professional…you constantly want to do your wedding day over. Every time you see a beautiful floral display, a unique reception tradition, or a thoughtful gesture from the bride and groom, you think, “I wish I had been that thoughtful, that unique, that inspired.” It’s this weird thing that triggers in your brain, and you, dear friend, have probably experienced it too. That small pang of regret and that wishing of “If only I could’ve been better.” It can be such an empty feeling, because time slips quickly and there are no do overs for fleeting moments in your life. That’s quite literally a whole essay that I could write, but I’ll save it for a future SCW post. (get it? should’ves, could’ves, and would’ve :])

To sum it up, being around weddings constantly has given me some insight into what I WOULD do if I could have that precious do-over. And this one isn’t what you might expect. It’s not florals or details or vendor based. (although I’ve got a lot of those thoughts coming too :]) I’d pay more attention to our guests.

Something that I really fell in love with last summer was the idea of the family affair type of wedding. David and I were lucky enough to have lovely clients all of last year (and just in general, our clients rock!), and something that I noticed was that many of the weddings had this wonderfulness of a lot of amazing people gathered in one place. Big or small wedding, the venue was packed with souls who were really “there” for the couple. Family and friends alike. And our wedding was like that too. I painstaking poured over the guest list for months, just trying to figure out how everyone that we really loved could be there. I wanted all of “our people” to be in one room together, from all of our seasons of life. And then it passed by all too quickly.

And now I realize that that will probably never happen again. Those 150 people will never be all in one room again. And I wish someone had clued me into the fact that I should’ve had a plan of how to say hi to them all! Eek! Your wedding day just FLIES by and all of the sudden you’re walking through a tunnel of sparklers and you’re off into the night! I had friends give me advice on everything from making sure that we got to eat dinner in peace to planning out a spacious wedding day timeline…but somehow this slipped.

Your guests are IMPORTANT. This day isn’t just about you, it’s something that so many of your friends and family have looked forward to as well! The people you invite to your wedding are likely the men and women who saw you grow up before their eyes, who shed tears with you and laughed hard with you, who saw you grow into a better, more gracious person because of your new spouse. They’re the people who prayed for you, dreamed big with you, and even dreamed about this day with you for YEARS. They’re the people you called a couple minutes after you said “yes!” and they’re the people who have shaped you into the person you are today.

As soon as we got up from dinner we had friends and family pulling us in every direction. Over to the photo booth, onto the dance floor, over to the side for a 30 second chat. And then all of the sudden it was over. There is SO much to our wedding that we didn’t see, because we couldn’t both be on the dance floor AND at the photo booth, cutting our cake AND admiring the sunset, taking portraits AND dancing with our bridal party. So today I’m including some pictures that tell the bigger story of our day, along with some advice to make a plan, visit all of the guests’ tables during dinner, and genuinely thank them for the way that they’ve poured into your life to get you to the point of marrying your sweetheart. (ps wedding photogs, this is why photos of  the guests MATTER!)

This was the moment that we got to take it all in! (almost) ALL of the people who loved us dearly in the same room!

All of our lovely guests mingling.

Loved seeing David and his mom and their choreographed dance (canyouimaginedaviddancing?!) and seeing our guests’ reactions.

Both embarrassing and wonderful for all of those blurred souls in the background.

My dad reconnecting with someone he hadn’t seen in YEARS!

Because my Gram is sassy.

I LOVE this. Right before four of our favorite people toasted us. All of the toasters talking smack probably. Actually Elizabeth was asking people to pray for her so she wouldn’t throw up.

Probably dancing to Call Me Maybe.

I love that we’re all dancing together in this picture, but I also LOVE that you can see all of our guests looking on, most of them caught up in conversation.

A rare moment captured of David and I dancing, and even better is what ever is happening behind us!We missed that moment but it looked like our guests were having fun :]

All of my ladies :]

David and I always talk about how we wish we could go back in time and attend our wedding as guests. It looked like a fun day from our eyes and that was what we planned so carefully for! We wanted it to be a reflection of Jesus, but also be a really fun celebration that our guests would enjoy!

So here’s my should’ve, could’ve, would’ve for today: Slow down, love on your guests, and have an unforgettable wedding day that leads into an even more beautiful marriage.