After a magical day filled with family, friends, food, and dancing, it’s perfectly acceptable to be completely exhausted the day after your wedding. You’ve endured hundreds of hours planning, multiple phone calls crying to your mom, sleepless nights, bridal showers, and a whole mess of emotions — you and your fiancé deserve some serious rest and relaxation after the big day! For those who aren’t setting off on a honeymoon immediately after, here are some of our favorite suggestions for you and your spouse to do the day after the wedding!
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Photo by Christina Ney Photography
What to Do the Day After the Wedding
From finally getting some relaxation, to organizing your new lives together, here are some things you can do after your wedding day is over.
1. Relax as Newlyweds
This is definitely the most obvious, but so important! Most newlyweds have spent the last week or so in a constant “go go go!” mode, so it's easy to forget to unwind and enjoy your first day as a married couple! Sleep in, eat breakfast in bed, and take time to reflect on how amazing your wedding night was!
Shop After-Wedding Relaxation Kit
2. Make it Instagram + Facebook Official
Nothing is official until it’s Facebook official! Am I right!? Switch your relationship status over to “Married” and let the whole (Facebook) world know that you just tied the knot! For those who took their spouse's last name, be sure to update your username, too.
3. Open presents
Opening cards and wedding presents is definitely a post-wedding highlight! Whether you made a registry or left it to chance, there's no doubt that presents are an exciting part of the experience. Host a gift-opening brunch, or spend the afternoon in bed opening presents. Don’t forget to take note of who got you what so you can send out your thank-you’s!
4. Clean Up the Reception Venue
This is probably the least relaxing way to spend the day after your wedding, but it's oftentimes necessary! Depending on your venue’s policies, you may need to spend some time putting away chairs and tables the following morning. My suggestion? Ask some cousins, aunts, uncles, or friends, and denote a clean-up crew to do it for you.
5. Pack for your Honeymoon
Can't wait to jet set away with your new husband or wife? If your big trip is only a couple days away, it’s definitely worth spending an hour or two packing up everything! Plus, it'll get you two even more excited about your upcoming adventure.
6. Spend Time with Family and Friends
Whether you invite everyone over for coffee or go out for a light lunch, consider spending time with your out-of-town guests. These people traveled from who-knows-where to see you, so make sure to make time for them! You may also consider a low-key outing that won't take up a lot of your energy such as a boat ride or picnic.
7. Host an Informal Brunch
This is becoming a huge tradition for a lot of couples. And besides, who doesn’t love brunch? It doesn’t have to be some grand event, but invite your closest family, friends, and whoever else you weren’t able to mingle with much at the reception. Check out these adorable post-wedding brunch invites!
Shop Post-Wedding Brunch Invitations
8. Treat Yourself to a Spa Day
I personally could go for a massage any day of the week. So, I can only imagine how lovely it would be to have one planned for the day after the wedding! Schedule a spa day with your significant other - couple's massages, facials, mud baths, and all! Who knows, the spa might even treat you to some delicious champagne and chocolates!
9. Bring Out the Mr. and Mrs. Mugs
This is your chance to be cheesy! You're in the honeymoon phase for crying out loud. Break out those cute couple gifts the day after the wedding and send photos to whoever gave them to you - they'll get a kick out of it! Or, consider trying out these custom face masks ~ especially if you're heading out for your honeymoon!
10. Plan Some Post-Wedding Hangouts
You've likely been a bit MIA during the last few months of wedding planning, so it's important to circle back to important relationships. Maintaining a balance between your new marriage and the relationships you cherished prior to your wedding is super important. In fact, balancing time with your spouse and time with friends will actually help you to have a healthier marriage and better relationships all around! Whether it's book club or Sunday brunch, your friends will appreciate you penciling in some time for post-wedding gatherings.
11. Take Care of Your Wedding Dress
After your wedding day is over, it's easy to forget about taking care of your dress. If you want to save your dress for your future daughter, as a memory, or otherwise, it NEEDS to be preserved! Purchase a kit that both cleans and preserves your wedding dress. You'll thank us down the road!
Shop Wedding Dress Preservation Kit
12. Order Takeout Food
We don't encourage crash dieting leading up to the wedding (hello fatigue and cravings). But, it's likely that you've been on your best behavior when it comes to your pre-wedding meal plan and fitness regimen. Now that the wedding is over, it's time to treat yourself! Order from your favorite Chinese restaurant or inhale an insane amount of pizza. Don't let yourself slip into regular unhealthy habits, but rather declare the day after the wedding as "treat day". Besides, who has the energy to cook a healthy meal the day after their wedding?
13. Look at Wedding Photos
Request to have your guests send you photos they took throughout the night. Sometimes those candid shots can be super meaningful even if they weren't captured by a professional wedding photographer! Also, many professional photographers will have a set of 'sneak peek' photos ready for you the day after your wedding. You can start thinking about which pictures to include in your wedding photo album.
14. Organize Wedding Rental Returns
Depending on what you rented and where you rented it from, companies may require rentals to be returned sooner than you'd like to think about. While it can be annoying to tackle another logistical task, it's better to be organized than to pay late fees. Whether it's table decorations or the tuxes you rented, be sure to return borrowed items on time!
15. Write Down Your Favorite Wedding Memories
No need to write a novel, but jot down some of your favorite moments from the wedding day. You and your new spouse will have so much fun looking back on funny or tear-invoking wedding day highlights in the future. What a fun wedding anniversary tradition! Plus, plan out some future goals in this bucket list journal.
Shop Bucket List for Newlyweds
Let’s Chat!
After planning such a big event, you deserve to take the following day (or more!) to just relax and enjoy the married life! Whether you spend the day with family and friends or relax in bed while stuffing your face with leftover cake, every couple will have their own version of what relaxation means to them.
What do you and your fiancé plan to do the day after the wedding? Or if you’re already married, how did the day after play out for you?
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I love these ideas. We get married on the 23rd December though so the following day we will be waiting for Santa!
Something for everyone on this list. Everyone talks about what to do leading up to the big day, but many don’t talk about afterwards- thank you!
Great ideas! We’re planning on doing a brunch sort of thing with our immediate families, grandmothers (the only grandparents we have now), and our bridal party and opening gifts/cards.
we wrote our own vows my husband said i don’t know i told him just say what comes from your heart his vows: i love Beverly very much and will cherish her for the rest of my life I`M READY AND WHAT A BEAUTIFUL BIG SMILE HE HAD ON HIS FACE
We will be packing for our cruise to Alaska
really? have the wife cook!
What a great list. I am going to be sure to pin this to my wedding board.
We had a surprise wedding!yay. Its what we wanted but none if these except clean up the venue apply…alone.
Me and my wifey to be are going to Cancun the following day for our honeymoon. I did make sure to plan a couple of days when we get back for thank you’s and other small things before we go back to work.
These were great ideas my husband and I did just about all of them. But those you just didn’t get to speak too or spend time with definitely reach out. I missed a lot of guests.