I thought I’d throw some advice out on to the internet about my experiences planning and executing a wedding.  This isn’t going to be my gushy loving wedding post (will come later obviously) but a bit more technical for all those other brides-to-be looking for info & experiences for their ideas.  I know I googled like crazy to figure out if my ideas were feasible so hopefully this helps!

Spotify for Wedding Playlists

DJ v. Playlist is the great debate for weddings and I’ve been to weddings that had great examples of both. In my experience though, no matter how great your playlist is or how long you’ve spent mixing it perfectly to DJ level quality, there will always be someone who, at some point in the night, goes to just change one song and messes the whole thing up. You can literally hide your iPod in the dirty dishes but it will still be found by the one guest who wants things a little bit louder.   

Our reception venue could only support an iPod/computer for music so we were limited with our options from the beginning. Neither Alex or I have an extensive music collection so creating a 2+ hour playlist via legal downloads would have been pretty expensive.  I had been using the free version of Spotify for a few months and loved that I could get almost any song I wanted to listen to at a high quality – so decided to try out the premium version for our wedding. 

I decided to make a Spotify playlist for our dance party post dinner, but also should have made a background music one for during dinner (top tip!).

Note: Sorry Canadians, no Spotify in Canada yet (this seriously sucks).

PROS

• Free. You can get a free 30 day trial of the premium version (usually £9.95 which is a good deal too)
• Offline mode. You can make your playlist and then set it to play offline so not to waste battery during your wedding or risk wifi interruptions.
• Every. Single. Song. Wedding playlists are a careful balance of cheese and now. So while you may not love One Direction – your guests will dance to it I promise. (OK maybe just all the girls)

CONS

• I found the iPod version a bit fineky and couldn’t figure out how to turn it off shuffle. That was probably my fault for not practising before.
• It’s an app so the music turns off if you exit the app (or if people start touching your iPod when you’re not around).

So, I’d say all in all my experience with Spotify for my wedding was perfect and I’d 100% do it again (the dance party was unreal) but hide the iPod so no one could find it!

Benefit Cosmetics for Wedding Makeup

I cannot say enough good things about Benefit. The staff at the Angel location were so friendly and helpful through the whole process.  I booked about 2 months before my wedding and and scheduled a trial on the same day as my hen (don’t waste a full face of make-up!) The trial and day-of make overs cost £30 and £50 for brides (£30 and £30 for bridesmaids) but can be redeemed against products in the store. So, you get your makeup done for free if you buy some benetint, bad girl mascara and a small powder. Done. 

The stores are so cute and the perfect place to gather on the morning of the wedding and there were tons of staff on so we each had our own make-up artist. No waiting around. We also got goody bags full of products and came out with the most perfect make-up exactly how we had asked for it. I was a bit nervous going in as my style is more natural and Benefit is know for bigger/better/higher styles… but to quote a friend, “We looked like the best version of ourselves” as we left the store.

Clarisonic for Perfect Wedding Skin

I’ve raved about the Clarisonic before and don’t need to again. It’s the best. I used it for 2 months pre-wedding and could not believe the transformation of my skin. Get it. It’s worth the cost and such an easy addition to prep your wedding day face.

I also took Vitamin A & Fish Oil, dandelion tincture and cider vinegar on advice from my Naturopath (all products hyperlinked I used) so I can’t say which one of these alone did the job, but my skin was perfection the 2 weeks surrounding my wedding.  Some of this can be attributed to the bridal-glow that all brides inevitably get, but as I slip back into regular skin habits I’ve noticed a big change (in the wrong direction!) 

Wine Rack

We wanted to keep our wedding as local as possible mainly for ease, but also because we were building our life together in London and wanted to show everyone attending what we’ve built so far! Highbury Barn has a great selection of little shops on the high street (Frank Godfrey Butcher anyone?!?!) so we ended up chatting with the owner of the wine rack to get a good deal on cases of Prosecco and free champagne glass rentals (£1 deposit per glass and £1 breakage fee). These were delivered to the church for us to have a small champagne reception after the ceremony and was one of the easiest parts of our wedding planning.

So there you go. Save your stress for the guest list and go with the above easy options.