My advice would be to take a breather after the ceremony for just you and your new spouse to enjoy the moment together.
Dont listen to the naysayers. We had a few people who didnt understand why we wanted to do our wedding the way we did and made many comments about it but in the end our wedding was Beautiful! We got so many compliments afterwards about how beautiful and meaningful our ceremony was and how elegant and whimsical our venue turned out. All that work was completley worth it and even the people making rude comments before had to admit it was really nice. Do what makes your and your future spouse happy. It's about the 2 of you and no one else.
The wedding day went by pretty fast as they all say and we amazingly didnt have many issues. The only thing that cropped up was the caterer arriving a little early and the coordinator not knowing where we had placed the tables for them to set up on (because we had hidden them behind the back drop) and my fiance forgot to let the bartender know that we only had 3 types of wine (we used boxed wine since we were on a tight budget and I didnt want people to know that so we poured it into other bottles. He forgot to tell her this so she was going by the labels previously on the bottles. Not big real in the end though)).
I felt completely fine the entire day until I was waiting in the processional line with my dad. All of a sudden I started to choke up and my eyes started watering - come to find out this was the case for my husband too. The ceremony was beautiful and fairly short (not even 20 minutes) and included a ring warning, where we had our rings passed through the guests to be warmed by their love and prayers, we sealed a fight box (which included wine, rum and letters to eat other in the event we face marital strife. Or, as is the real goal, we dont fight, then we'll open it on our big anniversaries), and we cried as we read our vows to each other. At the end we pronounced ourselves married instead of an officiant (we obtained a self uniting marriage liscense from our courthouse so we wouldn't need an officiant since neither of us are particularly religious). It all came together really well and a lot of people told me afterwards that they loved how unique it was and how much it really reflected me and my husband.
P.S. if your dress is as big as mine was, I found it easiest to sit backwards on the toilet. Then I didnt need my maid of honor to assist me at all. Haha
