It can be devastating if you organise your wedding day really carefully and then find out that your best friend can’t make it.

You have spent so much time organising every fine detail to ensure that the day runs smoothly and is as perfect as it can be, that you end up leaving the wedding invites until the very last minute.

Sending out your wedding invites is a really important part of the organisation because without any guests, your wedding could be a very dull day.

This means that you need to order your wedding invites well in advance of the big day. In fact, it should be one of the first things you do.

To make sure that all your guests can make it though, the best idea is to order save the date cards too. These can be sent out very early on in the wedding preparations to ensure that your guests can put your wedding date in their diaries.

You can send your save the date cards out even before you have booked the venue or anything else because the only information you need to provide is the date of the ceremony.

By letting your guests know early, you will avoid the upset of finding out that your best friend can’t make your big day.

When you think of a wedding, you have images of a church wedding in your mind, but your wedding doesn’t necessarily have to be held in a church. In fact, you can have your wedding outdoors.

Outdoor weddings can be extremely romantic and the beauty of being surrounded by nature creates a lovely atmosphere.

But there are a few considerations you need to take if you are thinking of having an outdoor wedding and the most obvious is that you need to consider the weather.

Of course, this means that you should have a back up plan just in case the weather doesn’t work in your favour for your big day. Make sure you choose an outdoor venue that can offer you an indoor alternative should there suddenly be a rainstorm or strong winds.

The other thing that is important to consider is that you will need to warn your guests that the wedding will be held outdoors. You should use your wedding invites to do this as guests need to have prior warning so that they can organise their outfits appropriately.

When you are taking your vows in an outdoor setting, you can rely on the natural outdoors to act as your decorations and you can make the most of the beautiful surroundings we have in this country. But just remember to warn your guests on your wedding invites first!

If you have decided to supply wedding guestbooks at your wedding reception, then you will want to ensure that you get some really meaningful memories to look back on after your big day is over.

The worst thing that can happen is that you hand out wedding guestbooks only to find that the book you get back is simply filled with meaningless signatures with the odd ‘good luck’ thrown in there. If you wanted to know who attended your wedding, you’d simply look back at your guest list – a wedding guestbook should be much more than this.

In order to combat this problem, you should leave a note on your guestbook, suggesting that guests write down their favourite memories or any significant quotes or even advice for the married couple.

To ensure that the right tone is set, you could ask your close family members to write in the wedding guestbooks first so that other guests have some inspiration.

By doing this, you will hopefully end up with a book that will really help you to remember the day and to reminisce over who was there and what happened. Along with the wedding photo albums, this should help you to relive your special day even when the memories start to fade.