There’s a line from one of my favorite songs that says, “I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger” (Ooh La La by Roonie Wood and Ronnie Lane).

So, dearest brides and grooms, here’s the advice I would give myself if I were planning another wedding:

(10) Start with the Big Picture, Not the Details

Sit down with …

Sometime in the middle of planning a $2,000 wedding, it occurred to me, “Why not think of it as a reunion instead of a wedding?” Weddings tend to focus on surface things like flowers, attire, and centerpieces. Reunions tend to be about fun.

When it was time to plan the reception, we focused on just that: Fun. We rented out an …

At a lot of weddings I’ve been to, I’ve either felt like I was part of the “in crowd” or I was on the outside. If I’m in the wedding party? I’m part of the in crowd. If I’m not invited to the rehearsal dinner? I’m on the outside.

Even though Matt and I planned a $2,000 wedding, we didn’t want …

Last summer, I went to a very traditional wedding: stained-glassed windows coloring and diffusing the light, the priest commanding the audience with his noble presence, the flowers framing the scene, the bride and groom posing picturesquely.

And next to me in the pew was a fellow guest, bent over his cell phone, sending text messages to his friend.

Although texting is, by …

Many of my friends got married the same summer I did. It was fun to compare notes during the wedding planning process. During one conversation, a dear friend said, “Yeah, our wedding isn’t too expensive either. Aside from the food at the reception, everything is pretty reasonable.”

I reminded her, “Aren’t you having your dress custom designed? How expensive is that?”

“Oh, …