The special status afforded to your wedding day means that there is a lot of pressure to make sure everything is perfect. David Schembri spoke to wedding planners and married couples to see which worries are worth the while, and which are plain useless.

If there’s one thing that a Maltese wedding doesn’t lack t is food, and Andrew Martinelli, who married Samantha in 2012, believes that couples end up worrying too much on whether plenty is enough. But probably the most forgettable items which get far more than their deserved share of attention are invitations and souvenirs. “Invitations are thrown away without a second glance most of the time, and family members are probably the only people who will keep your souvenir; church booklets also get an honourable mention in that department,” Andrew says.

Katja Zahra Camilleri, who started planning her wedding to Steven in 2013, two years ahead, agrees that wedding souvenirs are really not worth the thought some people put into them.

“Thankfully, the trend of giving miniature vases is over, at least today’s souvenirs are more practical. Moreover, I really like the idea of giving a donation to a favourite charity rather than forking out money for something which will end up hidden away in a cupboard,” she says.

Too much emphasis is placed on keeping up appearances

Not having had to worry too much about his suit, Andrew believes “the bride will unduly worry about her dress”, something which Katja is guarded about conceding. “It is true that you get worried about little details. In a bride’s eyes everything seems to be important on the day and you do plan to have every little detail perfect,” she says.

“With hindsight and hearing other experiences, I think that going over the top in detail such as exact colour matching of the bridesmaid shoes with her dress or else who is wearing what colour are irrelevant,” Katja says.

Sarah Young, a wedding planner for the past 13 years, believes too much emphasis is placed on keeping up appearances. “In my opinion the couple worries most about the image they are projecting. They are particular about the outfit that the family members are wearing on the day. They are also upset if family members do not turn up for the church ceremony or if they arrive late for the wedding,” Sarah says.

Souvenirs get far more than their deserved share of attention at the planning stage.

But while clothes and relatives may be given too much importance, couples organising their own weddings might miss out on details which someone with more experience would know about. Lara Forace, of Wedding Wise, thinks that the most common trap couples fall into is not having a schedule.

“Without a coherent time plan mapping out key moments in the wedding, it is all too easy to lose precious time during the event itself which in turn leaves the bride and groom feeling as though their big day has passed them by without much enjoyment,” she says. Tied in with planning, as Sarah points out, is to have a Plan B in case things do not work out the way the couple plans.

“I think that the most important thing in a wedding is having fun – after all, it’s your day and it’s time to celebrate something wonderful. Some brides might be too stressed out and worried about everything else and they end up ruining their wedding,” Katja says.

In fact, she recalls that she had a couple of bridezilla moments herself in the run-up to the wedding. “At a certain point you do reach your limit and this is where you snap. In situations like these it is best to take a step back, take a deep breath and try to see the bigger picture,” she says. “Surrounding yourself with people you trust goes a long way in helping.”

Andrew thinks that what happens before and after the wedding festivities is also important. “If you want your guests to attend the ceremony rather than just the reception, make sure you don’t put too much distance between the church and the reception hall,” he says.

“Postponing your honeymoon for a few weeks – and sometimes months – will take off that post-wedding shine and help you feel like you’re on a normal holiday. This relieves a lot of the pressure,” he says. While at the hotel, make sure your caterers have set some food aside for you to eat once you check in – “you’ll be starving!”

But the best-laid schemes of brides and grooms often go awry; in Katja’s case, she lost one of the soles of her shoes and in the sheer excitement of the day had forgotten to pack a spare pair. In the Martinelli wedding, some decorative items went missing. Sarah recalls a bride who wore ultra-high heels “She could not get on the horse-driven carriage so we had to help her take her shoes off and put them on again every time she got in and out of the carriage.”

It isn’t just the wedding party that gets things wrong, however. Lara recalls that at a wedding last year, the priest, a family friend, started reminiscing about the time the couple had first started dating.

“It was here that the priest started to refer to the bride by using her sister’s name instead of hers,” Lara says. After hearing her sister’s name for the third time, the bride stood up in the middle of the priest’s homily and shouted out her name in the echoing church.

“She joked that when the time would come for her to show her children mummy and daddy’s wedding video, she could not have her children believe that their father and their aunt had once had a romantic fling. Her antics had the whole congregation roaring with laughter; after all she did drive a good point,” Lara says.

But if lack of planning can provide great memories, so does planning. Following their first dance, Andrew and Samantha were joined by their friends for a surprise group dance which they had been rehearsing over the previous two months.

Their first dance, however, was much like marriage is for many: “We just went out there and winged it, taking extra care not to step on each other’s feet.”