10 Easy Ways to Keep Your Wedding Special

Not sure if you want to have a heart attack while waiting for the big day? Tired of stressing about the game run up for the "big wedding " deal? Here are some ways to make sure your wedding is a great memory instead of a pain in the behind.

1. Take the "performance" out of the wedding experience.

Many weddings are promoted and presented like grand extravaganzas for guests to experience like theatergoers. The dressing up, the pageantry, the clothes and tableaux are a myth.

2. Use a unique location.

Make an occasion out of your wedding by having it in an obscure place like a scenic mountaintop or amusement park. Everyone has gone to a million weddings where they dress up and sit through an interminable wedding service. Give them a break and secure access to something different.

3. Have a home wedding.

The people you are likely to invite to your wedding are the people most involved in your life. Instead of following outdated wedding traditions which stipulate a huge and expensive wedding, have a home wedding. Weddings are the one occasion where a modest background must be forgiven by any guest as the sentimental preference of the wedding couple. A home wedding can have a party tent in the backyard or a marquee on adjacent land outside.

4. Serve better food

The traditional sit down wedding dinner has long been a signature of class and style. But is the wedding the only occasion where you'll have a chance to have a meal with your guests? The traditional wedding dinner service means the bride and groom are on "customer service" duty trying to greet and talk intimately with 500 people at once. Save a nice dinner for sometime after marriage when you can entertain these people properly. Informal eating at a wedding means guests can bring more family members and you can invite more people from the church to the reception.

5. Stay in touch with your own values