Simple Wedding Day Checklist That All Brides Need

Considering that you’ve been planning for months, ensuring your wedding day checklist is in tip-top shape is crucial.

With all the moving parts of a wedding, it’s far too easy for things to fall between the cracks. Wedding mishaps are all too common – putting together a thorough checklist can be your saving grace.

In this post, we detail the most important final steps in your wedding planning to-do list, including vendor coordination, wedding party best practices, and everything you need to have packed for your big day.

Last-Minute Wedding Planning Tips

A few days before your wedding, it’s important to ensure no major miscommunications among all the moving pieces of your wedding. Plus, you’ll have peace of mind that everything is in place while you’re getting ready.

Begin your wedding day checklist by ensuring all your vendors have the correct date, time, location, and responsibilities. Then, finalize any payments, check over contracts, and prepare cash tips to give to the applicable staff on the wedding day. Don’t forget to call the venue and solidify your arrival time, ceremony time, and the time that you need to be out of the space.

Next, make sure there’s clear coordination for the delivery of all your major wedding components. This includes the clothes the people getting married wear for the ceremony, rings, marriage licenses, flowers, ceremony shoes, and any clothing changes for the reception.

It’s helpful to have backup plans for the weather – especially if this will be an outdoor wedding. You likely have a rain plan, but don’t forget to think through heat and sun.

Check-in with any family or wedding party members with specific roles on your big day. Ensure they have everything they need to complete their job and clarify important dates, times, locations, and items they are responsible for.

Finally, there are a few helpful things you can do in advance to make getting ready smoother. Remind your wedding party to bring a large tote bag to stow away extra belongings during the ceremony.

Additionally, see if you can drop off any luggage for your wedding night so you don’t have to worry about shuffling it around later.

Even better, pack for your honeymoon if you’re taking off right after you get married. It’s one less thing to worry about as you approach your special day!

Day-Of Wedding Bag/Emergency Kit

Beauty

Beauty is likely to be the wedding day checklist item that you’ve given a lot of thought to.

It varies from person to person, so make sure to customize these items for your specific needs.

If you’re having anyone’s hair or makeup professionally done, you can likely eliminate some items from this list. Before doing that, make sure you won’t need that item for touch-ups throughout the day.

Items listed here might be needed by other members of the wedding party, too. For more general list items, like makeup and nail polish, expand on them to be detailed and relevant to your wedding.

Hair ties
Hot Tools
Brushes and combs
Bobby Pins
Hair accessories
Clear Nail Polish
Bride’s Nail Polish Color (or other applicable wedding party members)
Nail file
Earring backs
Makeup, and a separate bag of touch-up makeup for quick fixes
Oil blotting sheets
Jewelry (varies)

Toiletries

Your wedding day is long! You’ll want a plethora of toiletries to freshen up during the day and be used by your wedding party.

This is especially true if your venue is far from your home or general stores.

Pro tip: anything you use while getting ready that morning, take with you to the venue!

Fragrance
Hand lotion
Chafing products
Shaving tools
Deodorant
Eye drops
Travel tissues
Menstrual products
Toothbrush and toothpaste

Wedding DAy Checklist Clothing Fixes

Between getting ready, wedding day photos, the ceremony, the reception, and any other big events throughout the day, a clothing mishap is bound to happen somewhere in the wedding party.

Adding simple clothing fixes to your wedding day checklist can be an absolute lifesaver. If you don’t use them, give them to someone close to you getting married soon!

Fabric tape/hem tape
Safety pins
Double-sided tape
Stain sticks
Shoe polish kit
Heel stoppers (if walking on any grass)
Lint rollers
A few sewing kits
Underwear

Miscellaneous Wedding day checklist

When in doubt, bring it.

There are bumps on any wedding day – having tools on hand to solve the problem at the venue saves you a lot of time and stress.

At the very least, give this list a scan to ensure you have solutions to the problems they are trying to fix. For example, you can skip handheld mirrors if you know your venue has a bridal suite with lots of mirrors.

Handheld mirrors
Phone chargers and portable chargers
Scissors
Breath mints
Button-down shirts or robes to wear while getting hair and makeup done
Extra comfortable shoes
First Aid Kit
Basic OTC medications
Bluetooth speaker
Daily medications

Venue/Coordination

Above, we walked you through the steps to ensure all the final details for your venue and vendors are in place. Now, you need to make sure you don’t forget anything related to this coordination to bring with you to the venue.

Most importantly, make lots of copies of everything.

You never know how many staff different vendors will be bringing, and it’s critical that everyone has all the information they need.

Vendor Contracts
Printed Timeline with plenty of copies
Contact sheet for wedding party and vendors
Cash tips for vendors, separated into labeled envelopes
Extra cash and a checkbook

Ceremony Wedding Day Checklist Must-Haves

Believe it or not, people forget to bring rings to their wedding venue. Don’t be this person!

Add these seemingly obvious items to your wedding day checklist to save yourself in advance.

Rings
Marriage License
Ceremony Shoes
Written Vows

Finalizing Your Wedding Day Checklist

Wedding day checklist success is found in the prep work.

Write out your first list, print it off, and add things over the following few days to bring you to a final copy. Look into easily forgotten ceremony items, too!

Have your partner and major wedding party members look over the list, too.

Knowing that your list is complete and you have everything you could possibly need on your wedding day can whisk away some anxiety and let you focus more on the beauty of your big day.

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The Surprisingly Simple Wedding Day Checklist that All Brides Need to Use

Last-Minute Wedding Planning Tips