What makes a great wedding? A view from the stage

A band has an unusual seat at a wedding. We are there for most of the day, we watch the room more than anyone else does, and we see a lot of weddings. After a few hundred of them, the ones that stay with me have one thing in common, and it is not something you can order.

The details count

Let me get one thing out of the way first. The invitations, the flowers, the name cards, the table plan, the decorations, the cake, the dress, the favours, the photographer’s shot list, the running order: all of it counts. Every one of those details adds to the atmosphere, and together they are the reason a room feels like a wedding and not a dinner. I am not telling you to skip any of it.

But none of it makes a great wedding. A room matters, of course: a village hall with every light on full will fight you all night, and a well-lit, well-dressed room does half the work before anyone arrives. The difference, though, is not in the little jars of herb salt you spent an evening filling, one per guest, doubling as name cards and take-home gifts, only for somebody to knock theirs onto the floor as they sit down, and there you are, ten minutes into dinner, digging in a box for a spare. It is just salt.

What makes a great wedding is people

Great people, in a good mood, who love the two of you. That is the whole recipe. And the single biggest thing that decides whether the room is in a good mood is the couple.

A relaxed bride and groom make a relaxed wedding. Guests take their cue from you all day long, more than you would think. When the two of you are laughing, everyone laughs. When you are checking the time and looking for whoever is in charge of the chairs, the room feels it, and the mood tightens with you.

The couples who have the best day are the ones who let go of the plan the moment the day begins. The couples who have the hardest day are the ones who want everything exactly in its place and cannot stop checking that it is. They spend their own wedding managing it, and they are the only two people in the room who cannot see how good it looks.

Plan the perfect day, then hold it loosely

This is not an argument against planning. Plan your perfect wedding, by all means. But build the plan to bend.

A wedding day never runs to the minute. Nobody knows exactly how long the catering will take. The photos overrun because the light was good. One thing slips by twenty minutes and pushes the next thing, and that pushes the next. That is not a wedding going wrong; that is what a wedding is. The more detailed and rigid the schedule, the more chances the day has to fall short of it, and every one of those gaps is a small chance to be disappointed on a day that does not deserve it.

So make a schedule, and then decide in advance that it is a rough guide. Give the people you trust the job of steering it, and take that job off yourselves. Your job on the day is a different one: enjoy it, laugh, be with the people who came for you. Not micromanaging, not stressing.

It really is that simple

Anything that can go wrong with the small stuff at a wedding, will, at some wedding, and I have seen most of it. The cake arrived late. It rained on the outdoor ceremony. The name cards were on the wrong tables. None of it mattered a week later, and most of it did not matter an hour later. What people remember is whether they had a good time, and they had a good time if the people around them did.

Surround yourselves with friends and family you love, look after their mood, and above all look after your own. Everything else is decoration, in the best sense of the word.

Planning a wedding in Tirol? I am happy to talk about the music, and about the day. Send me the date and the venue.