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" 1. Put the &amp;quot;maybe&amp;quot; items on your registry. Many people are going to look at your registry to pick out your present. If there&amp;#039;s not much to choose from, they&amp;#039;re going to go elsewhere. (No, they won&amp;#039;t automatically write you a check instead \u2014 sorry!) Then if you don&amp;#039;t like what they select, you may end up having to run all over the city returning it and the other gifts from random retailers. And that&amp;#039;s if you actually know where they&amp;#039;re from. If not, you&amp;#039;re keeping them. I&amp;#039;m not suggesting that you get greedy and put things you&amp;#039;d never use on your list, but if you think you might want something, add it. At least if you decide to return it, you&amp;#039;ll have credit from a store you like. 2. Invest in a good pair of seamless nude underwear. You&amp;#039;re not necessarily thinking about camera flashes and lighting when you go dress shopping. You just want something that makes you feel gorgeous. And if you&amp;#039;re wearing a ball gown with a full skirt and lots of tulle underneath, this may not be that relevant anyway. But if your dress is form-fitting or made of a lighter material, you&amp;#039;re going to want to make sure nothing&amp;#039;s visible. The manager at the bridal shop where I got my dress recommended Commando. You can also add a slip to give your dress more opacity in case it gets a little revealing. 3. You don&amp;#039;t need expensive tooth whitening. I drink coffee every morning, so I always knew I might want to do a little pre-wedding touch-up. Rather than making an appointment with my dentist or going to one of those specialty places, I bought Crest White strips and applied them at night in the month leading up to my wedding. I got the Gentle Routine ones, and after maybe a week or two, my now sister-in-law noticed that my teeth looked especially white. Mission accomplished. 4. Book a spa appointment the week before the wedding. Even though you&amp;#039;ve made most of the decisions and everything is finally coming together, things can get a little stressful as your wedding day approaches. Between wrapping up things at work and finalizing seating assignments and packing for your honeymoon, you will probably want a little time in which no one talks to you. Book a facial or a massage the weekend before, get to the spa early, sit in the lounge, and quietly read a magazine until it&amp;#039;s your turn. I loved that time so much that I&amp;#039;ve now started giving friends spa gift certificates as their bridal shower gifts. 5. Have a bottle of water on hand when you take pictures. Everyone tells you not to lock your knees during the ceremony because you might faint. Well, you should also be careful if you take pictures ahead of time because it&amp;#039;s easy to get overheated. For what it&amp;#039;s worth, I think pre-ceremony photos are the way to go \u2014 you can still do a &amp;quot;first look&amp;quot; with your future spouse even if it&amp;#039;s not as you walk down the aisle, and then you get to join your guests at the reception without delay. 6. Ask the caterer to pack a meal for you to eat later. Despite the fact that you meticulously planned the menu, you have a lot of people to greet and hug and say &amp;quot;Thank you!&amp;quot; to and you might not get to sit down long enough to enjoy the food. &amp;quot;Oh, we will be eating at our wedding,&amp;quot; my husband and I said when friends warned us of this issue. And yet we did not eat at our wedding. Luckily, we had requested that two dinners be sent to the hotel room, and we ate that after the party ended. 7. Ask for cake too. Yeah, you might not eat that at the wedding either. Aside from the bites we fed each other for photos, we didn&amp;#039;t get to have the cake until much later either. Also, ask the venue to save whatever cake is left, as you definitely don&amp;#039;t want that to be thrown out. 8. Designate a bathroom buddy. It&amp;#039;s not easy to pee in a long dress with multiple layers of fabric and/or a petticoat. You might need someone to come into the stall with you to get you situated. You&amp;#039;re modest? So am I. I still had a bathroom buddy. 9. Keep your lipstick in a guy&amp;#039;s coat pocket. Even if you have the best makeup artist in the world, you still may want to reapply at some point. But it&amp;#039;s not worth carrying a purse that. (And, no, you won&amp;#039;t need your phone.) Give it to your new spouse or your dad or anyone you think you&amp;#039;ll be able to locate and retrieve it as needed. 10. Go on your honeymoon immediately. When we first started thinking about where to go, we considered taking a mini-vacation after the wedding and then going on a real honeymoon later on. How silly. Luckily, we abandoned that plan and decided to take the actual honeymoon after the wedding. Sure, if one of you is in school or in the middle of busy season at work, you might need to delay, but if you can go right away, do it. After the craziness of a wedding weekend, it&amp;#039;s really nice to relax and have some alone time with your new spouse. Also, your coworkers are more likely to treat your time away as sacred and even encourage you not to check email. Otherwise, you can call it a honeymoon, but they might just see it as a trip. 11. Pause to make mental notes throughout the evening. So many people told us this at our wedding that I know it&amp;#039;s not novel advice, but I do think it&amp;#039;s worth sharing. Despite all the time that goes into planning for the big day, the wedding itself lasts only a few hours and goes by quickly. Every once in a while, stop, look around, and really focus on what&amp;#039;s happening. You won&amp;#039;t remember every detail \u2014 you&amp;#039;ll have photos and video to fill in the gaps \u2014 but take a moment to note who&amp;#039;s on the dance floor, which older relatives made it past midnight, and how many people came together to celebrate your love. RELATED: 18 Signs You&amp;#039;re With the Man You Should Marry 20 Signs He&amp;#039;s in Love With You The 21 Emotional Stages of Getting Engaged 20 Things No One Tells You About Wedding Planning Follow Lori on Twitter. Photo credit: 20th Century Fox "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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