After the last bite of cake is eaten and the last drink of champagne is gone, you may be thinking it’s time to breathe a sigh of relief because your work is done. Unfortunately, you still have a whole list of things to do that you may have never considered while you were planning your wedding. The good news is that almost all of these things can wait until you get back from your honeymoon, but the bad news is that you will need to leap right back into action the day your plane arrives home. Below are a few of the most important things to do after the wedding that every couple should take into consideration.
Clean Your Wedding Dress
No matter what the final destination is for your wedding dress, the first thing you need to do is get it cleaned. Some brides bring their dress into a shop to have it professionally preserved while others choose to vacuum seal it themselves to hand in the back of their closet. Regardless if you are planning to have it done professionally or just do it yourself, it needs to be cleaned either way or the stains will set in permanently over time.
Write Thank You Cards
One of the most tedious jobs that all couples have to do after their wedding is write thank you cards to all of the guests who showed up. Even if you didn’t receive a gift from a group of guests, it is still proper etiquette to send them a thank you card for showing up to the event. Rather than sitting down and overwhelming yourself with a ton of cards all at once, you should come up with a list of names and do them all over the course of a couples weeks to save your sanity.
Publish a Wedding Announcement
Though this one is optional, most couples like to publish a formal announcement in their local newspaper so acquaintances that you may not run into all the time can find out about your great news. Publishing an announcement isn’t very expensive and everyone in the community will love that you did it.
Do Online Vendor Reviews
Whether you loved or hated a certain vendor, the least you can do is share your thoughts online for other couples to read. Chances are that you relied heavily on vendor reviews yourself while planning your wedding, so paying it forward seems only natural. You don’t have to go out of your way to be overly thorough, but sharing whether or not they did an overall good job can really save some stress for couples on their way to the altar.
Change Your Name
Lastly, you’ll need to do the dreaded name change. Fortunately, the process has actually gotten much simpler and less of a hassle in recent years, and you can always find a name change kit to help you if the task is still too daunting. If you search online for resources in your state, there are usually plenty of free or inexpensive options to make the task fast and simple; and also prevent you from overlooking something obvious.
