Your Wedding Rehearsal, Wedding Music and More

I didn't plan on learning a lot about weddings, but after performing many as a minister, I've seen just about everything. Here are five tips for you from my experience with weddings.

One, realize that something won't go just right. Fortunately, it usually isn't too big a deal. People sometimes ask me what disasters I've seen at weddings and I have to really try to think of something. It's just little things that really don't ruin the event.

Two, spend some time planning your wedding rehearsal. That's one way to keep anything really bad from happening. Hire a professional wedding planner/director if you can. A lot of couples that didn't, have told me they wish they had. You don't realize how many details there are to a wedding until you start planning it. A good wedding planner will help you manage those details and should even be able to save you some money.

And, if they are good, they will spend time with you before the rehearsal determining how you want things to go. The rehearsal is not the time to make most of the decisions. If you wait til then, you'll have plenty of advice from family and friends! The rehearsal is a time to practice what you have already decided on.

Three, have a Plan B if you are including small children in your ceremony. They get bored quickly, and what they do can be cute at first but after awhile they become a distraction from your ceremony. And they sometimes get embarrassed and upset, and of course that's not what you wanted. So have a family member close by who can scoop up the child, or you may want to do like many couples and have the children process in and then go immediately to sit with a family member. That way they get seen in all their cuteness and they have fun being a part of the wedding, but then get to get off to the side and color or play with their doll.