Our top 8 bits of advice for planning the perfect, intimate wedding

1. First & foremost, always remember that it’s your day, so you have to do what makes you happy, not what makes other people happy. If small & intimate is what you want, do it!
2. When you’re working the guest list out go with your heart! You want to love all of the people that you spend one of the BEST days of your life with, don’t invite people because you feel you have to or to make someone else (other than your husband or wife) happy!
3. Research, research, research! whether big or small, you still need to make sure everything is perfect, just because a caterer only has to feed 20 rather than 200 doesn’t mean you don’t need to do your homework & ensure they are reliable, professional & perfect for your big day. Once you’ve found your venue you might find, like us, that they have a supplier list that they share with you. This will mean they have used them regularly & can vouch for them, but even so, still do your own checks to put your mind at ease.
4. Spend the budget on things that are important to you. With smaller weddings you aren’t spending as much of your budget on the ‘per head’ cost, so can afford to spend it on other things, such as flowers, your photographer or make-up artist, all things that are hugely important & will make or break your day, unless you don’t like flowers of course!
5. Photos of your big day are so important & something you can treasure forever & one huge advantage of a more intimate wedding is that your photographer can capture moments with ALL your guests – request your photographer gets photos of you with everyone & with a smaller wedding your photographer isn’t going to run scared at the prospect!
6. Intimate weddings allow you more flexibility – they can be formal if you want them to be or they can be a bit more casual & relaxed & a table plan isn’t essential when you have less guests. They could choose where they sit & then that’s one less job for you & trust us when we say, table plans can be stressful!!!
7. Get everyone involved in your big day! Intimate weddings allow you to really incorporate everyone, from roles throughout the day, readings during the ceremony or even the song list. Why not ask everyone for their favourite tunes to play when the party begins?

   Oh & be sure to get a guestbook, whether a traditional book or something more quirky, your guest can sign it, write a message or give some lasting advice & you can look back on it in years to come.

8. Having less guests at your wedding means you get to spend more time with them. So many brides & grooms say they felt like they didn’t talk to lots of their guests, but if you’re having an intimate wedding you need not worry about this & if you’ve followed our second bit of advice then you’ll love spending time with every single person…

So, remember an intimate wedding doesn’t have to mean that your wedding is any less of a wedding, in actual fact, you’ll find it probably leaves even more of an everlasting memory than a huge wedding.

Brides of huge weddings have commonly said it’s all a blur, but you’ll find this far less likely with a smaller affair & don’t forget intimacy means you get the venues that larger weddings can’t even dream of…our truly unique wedding venue at ‘The Lost Village of Dode’ can take up to 40 of your closest family & friends & is the perfect intimate wedding venue, but don’t just take our word for it;

“The most wonderful day of my life, you will never find a more magical venue than Dode” ~ Chloe, Bride

Want to find out more, why not take a look at our wedding brochure…click HERE to download!