• Making the day ‘all about you’ (As I said in What Guests Look for at a Wedding these people are not the extras in ‘Your Big Wedding’).
• Not using a wedding planner when your wedding isn’t in your city
• Inviting people you don’t actually want in attendance (Read Guest List How-to’s !!)
• Taking out a loan to pay for the big dream wedding
• Not having an open bar: “That was my mom’s advice to cut costs,” says another woman. “My friends are still griping about it! Yes, shame on them. But at the same time, I’d gladly give $800 more now to get them to shut up about how limited our alcohol selection was, and what they had to pay to enjoy themselves.” (Eek… sorry girls I’ve said it before… it’s an inconvenient truth, I’m afraid.)

Some other pearlers of dodgy wedding wisdom found online:

• “The worst wedding advice anyone has told me was to sing our vows to each other.” Erin
• “My mother-in-law said that it was perfectly fine to spend $9 a plate on dinner for our guests. She based this on my sister-in-law’s wedding, where they served cold meat sandwiches, au gratin potatoes, and questionable-looking fruit salad.” Morgan
• “A lady I worked with overheard me telling another coworker how much my fiance and I were planning on saving up for our wedding. She decided to pipe in and say, ‘Wow, you might as well just buy a house, you’ll get divorced anyway.'” Caroline
• “You’ll want a short engagement so the groom doesn’t change his mind.” — Margo
• “You can always get divorced.” A friend actually gave me this advice right before my wedding, when I was suffering from a mild bout of cold feet.
• “Greet your husband at the door with a smile and a drink.” First off, I get home from work after him. Secondly, no sense turning him into an alcoholic. I will smile when I see him though.
• “DIY-ing everything will save you tons of money.” This is not necessarily true. Supplies cost money. Trial and error costs money. Labor costs you…valuable time, if not also money. Be sure to thoroughly assess the costs of both buying from a vendor or DIY-ing any item on your wedding checklist before you commit to doing it yourself.
• Similarly… “Save money by skipping the photographer and crowd-sourcing your photos.” The only thing you’ll have after the day is done are the photos (okay, and a husband!). There are numerous apps and websites that do allow your guests to post all their fuzzy, blurry, dimly lit photos into one convenient web location, but while that’s super fun for your guests, are those really the photos you want to commemorate your special day forever?

• “For a romantic wedding look that will last straight through the honeymoon, consider the beauty of a perm.” — June/July 1990
• “A nice idea, and not too costly, is to have an accordion player who moves around among the guests playing their requested songs” — Early Spring 1950
• “Never, never, never act disinterested in anything your husband says or does from now until the day you die.” – Spring 1938
• “[An older bride] may wear white if it’s her first marriage, but she won’t choose a typical wedding dress, and of course, she won’t have a real wedding veil.” — Summer 1949
• “Remember, men… have delightful illusions about the women they love. Such things as sloppiness and hair in curlers are death to dreams.” — Late Spring/Summer 1950
• “Did your best friend recently get engaged too? Consider a double wedding.” — February/March 1980
• “Without a doubt, the most requested song right now is the ‘Macarena’… If it’s good enough for Al Gore, it’s good enough for us.” — February/March 1997

Head to the wedding planning page for an index of our good wedding advice and if you haven’t already, check out the little white book wedding organiser and diary.