Planning our Sensory Friendly Wedding - Autism/ADHD wedding

Hello and welcome to this video about how we planned our wedding. So for context I'm a late diagnosed autistic person, my partner is also neurodivergent but he doesn't struggle so much with this kind of sensory and social things, so when we planned our wedding we basically had to do it in such a way that it met my needs as an autistic person and then his needs in kind of what he wanted out of our wedding day. So it was a bit of a compromise I guess but not in the sense that either of us were losing anything, it was just we had to build a day together to make both of us happy. So I actually made a TikTok about our wedding and it went viral and I didn't expect it to. So it got about 16.5 million views I think and then off the back of that there were a few press articles written about it as well but I wanted to expand on it a bit because obviously the format of TikTok is short videos and I didn't get much of a chance to talk about anything in detail so I kind of just wanted to spend a bit of time expanding on what I mentioned in that video. And this is for anyone who maybe you're also autistic, maybe you're starting to figure out that you might be autistic, maybe you're supporting someone who is or maybe you just want to learn a bit more about what it's like, any of those is fine, anyone's welcome here, obviously just be respectful. Yeah so I'll probably just take you through the day and tell you why we made each decision and how it helped. My partner really wanted, we both wanted to get married, for my partner it was important for him to have a wedding whereas for me it wasn't as important to have the wedding, I just wanted to get married. So we chose a small wedding that was somewhere between like an intimate wedding and an elopement. I would have been happy just eloping but my partner's family also really wanted us to have a wedding so that was one of the reasons why we chose the format that we did. When it came to planning the wedding we basically worked backwards, I've been to about five weddings before and found all of them really hard so we basically thought what is it that I'm finding difficult and how can we maybe make that easier in our day. So for example some of the things that I find really hard at weddings are the food I'd say is the worst bit, like sitting at a large table surrounded by people and trying to make conversation while there's really loud music, it's like I can't always get words out when that happens and then I find it really hard to socialise. So that was something we needed to work on. Also just like the duration of the day is exhausting for me so I start like usually start getting really tired or maybe melt down after like an hour or two of intense socialising, potentially even a shorter time depending on how I am. So we instantly knew that we couldn't have the whole like morning to evening do, like weddings can be such a long time and then staying overnight and having breakfast with people in the morning that was just not going to be an option for us. So we chose to have a shorter day, we started at 11am I think, possibly 10 30 and we finished at 5pm and actually that still felt like a really long and intense time but I definitely could not have had any longer than that and I think we both had our needs met and got what we wanted from having that kind of shorter day. We also didn't use a wedding planner for a couple of reasons, one was that I wasn't sure if they would really understand what autism can look like or what it means or even just the ins and outs of what it means for me because we're all different obviously, it's the spectrum so you know like if you've met one autistic person you've only met one autistic person doesn't mean you understand everybody. So I guess just for out of the concern that they might not understand and I'd have to do a lot of labour explaining what I need and also the risk of them not necessarily taking it seriously because I mean a lot of the time if you're autistic too you might be used to people not believing you, so it was just easier to do without just for kind of security purposes I guess. And then also we realised that we were going to be cutting out a lot of traditional wedding features from our day so a planner might actually be quite redundant. We just felt it was easier to do everything ourselves, trying to do it on a really stripped back and small scale. It was a reductive kind of planning I guess I would say, so we started looking at lists that people would plan for their wedding day and kind of crossing things off and going like no that won't work for us, that won't work for us, and then when we got to a point where we'd narrowed it down to the bits that we wanted and I felt like I could cope with then we added bits in that we liked. For instance I love gardens and so having the wedding take place in a garden was really important to us and then I've mentioned this already but we crossed off the evening do all together so it was just about completely restructuring what a wedding traditionally is in a way that would work for me. So location wise we were both confused what we would use as the location and after we got engaged for a few months we were just thinking what's going to work, we know we don't want many people, all of these places are kind of built for about 50 plus maybe 50 to 200 guests and then therefore you pay the cost as well and we knew we only wanted maybe about 15 guests there and it was actually quite hard to find somewhere that would cater to a small wedding and somewhere that was familiar, somewhere that was a garden as well, non-religious because we didn't necessarily want a religious wedding. So eventually throughout the year because I love gardens so much I've got a list of like 200 gardens that I want to visit at certain times and we went to this garden and walked around and we just thought we could get married here and it was nice and it was small so the location's called Abbey House Gardens and after having that thought I was really excited and I couldn't wait to figure out whether or not it was an option, how much it might cost, so I made an inquiry and they were really lovely and said we know it's a small wedding, we don't want to charge you as much as we would for everyone else because you're not using the venue for the whole day and they were quite flexible and met us in a way that worked for both parties which was really good. I think maybe it was good for them also knowing that we're not gonna have a crazy wedding or else it's gonna be quite small and intimate and definitely very quiet. So that was how we chose the venue and we were both really pleased with the venue being Abbey House Gardens because it's somewhere I've visited I don't know how many times, so many times, I would go every spring because they have an amazing tulip display so I'm really familiar with it which was helpful to me because familiarity is one thing that can ease a lot of anxiety when you're autistic. Yeah it worked so it was about 45 minutes from where we live as well so it wasn't too difficult and that also meant it gave me an opportunity to visit the venue before we got married so that I could make sure I was really familiar with absolutely everything so I knew where could I go if this gets too noisy and I need to go and have a quiet break or where will I arrive, things that you'd need to know about your wedding regardless of whether you're autistic but if you're autistic it helps to have every single bit of information or as much as you possibly can to alleviate anxiety. We were able to visit a lot beforehand which was super helpful and then while we were planning the wedding another thing that we had to consider was like the sensory side of it so it wasn't like we set about saying we're making a sensory friendly wedding how can we do that because when you're autistic everything that you do has to be sensory friendly because that's kind of how you you survive. Obviously the aim was to not have a meltdown and I have had meltdowns at weddings before I actually don't think I've ever been to a wedding and not had a meltdown because they are just way too overstimulating for me if they're not done in a smaller and more manageable way so some of the ideas that we had for keeping it sensory friendly obviously these might not apply to you because we're all different so you can just take them as an inspiration you don't have to copy them outright unless they help you but I got ready at home in the morning and that was partly due to familiarity but also just like having control over the environment and having it be like quiet was really helpful I had my hair up because I can have sensory issues from my hair especially if it's windy it just instantly can take me over the edge so by having my hair completely up and out of my face that like removed the possibility of that being annoying for me I had earplugs in all day I usually wear loop earplugs but I left them on my keys and gave my keys to Aaron so my sister lent me hers and she has Flare audio and they serve the same purpose so they're basically just an earplug that you wear and they remove a certain level of noise so that you can still hear conversations and you can still keep tabs on what's going on but it takes the edge off and what I usually find wearing those is it won't necessarily like prevent a meltdown but it will allow me to socialize for like a little bit longer or stay out for a little bit longer kind of preserves my energy I guess would be the way to describe it and then similarly going on from the noise kind of theme when we did eat our food I made sure that I could sit at the end of the table because one way I get overwhelmed at weddings is sat down with people on either side and on the other side of the table having conversations and you can't filter out the streams of noise and it's just completely overwhelming with all of this input coming from different directions so I often find if I can sit on the end of the table at least I've only got noise coming from one side I can either try to tune into that noise or even if it's too much just turn away and at least have like a bit of relief and then we also had like buffet food so it wasn't formal you didn't have to stay at the table if you didn't want to you could pick what you want from the tea stand and eat what you're comfortable with spend as long or as little as you'd like at the table and then leave when you want to so by getting rid of the like formality it just made it a lot more flexible and would work for anyone who needed to work in a different way I have a lot of neurodivergent people in my family so I think that was nice for them as well we've got all sorts of different neurodivergent people like people with ADHD people with autism people with dyslexia dyspraxia etc so I think they're open to things looking a bit different and needing to meet needs in a different way so that was really good another sensory thing we did was obviously having a shorter duration just meant that it was more manageable because you knew you would only have to manage the wedding for a certain number of hours evening due meant that I knew by five o'clock I could just completely switch off and if I needed to go and lie down in a dark room I can go and do that we also had a quiet space to go and escape to so we had a room in the venue and I was shown where it was and spent some time in the room to like look around and know the layout of the room and that would be where I would go if I did get overwhelmed I didn't actually need to use it in the end but I did spend some time going off on quiet walks or lying down to help get through it we also had breaks for walks in between the kind of bigger more overwhelming things in the day so I would consider the ceremony and the meal were the big potentially overwhelming things in our day and then in between those two things I had some breaks set also afterwards I had a break as well we had our photographer be aware that we might want to leave the group and go off and have quiet breaks so if she saw me looking a bit frazzled or lying down and having a break she would come up to us and say like let's go and take some couple photos we can go away for a bit and spend some time in a smaller group because that's less overwhelming and that was really helpful too also just a good opportunity to go and take some nice photos because you want nice photos on your wedding day in terms of music we did have music playing I would say it it would have been okay to not have music but the way that we managed was we had a speaker outside that was connected to our phones and we'd both prepared the playlist in the weeks before the wedding so we knew we knew all the music we knew what it was going to be we were in control of the volume we could pause it if we wanted to and if we needed to we could switch it off it was okay it was still difficult but it's it was nice at the same time it can be both can't it and I think that is most of the obvious sensory preparation that we made we did also I got changed out of my dress at five o'clock on the dot because I just wanted to wear something comfortable I loved the dress but I can't wear dresses for a very long time without getting annoyed by them so five o'clock I got changed out of my dress and put comfy clothes on and I can't remember if Aaron did the same I think he did actually got changed out of his suit even though it didn't it didn't really bother him we just wanted to be comfy at that point and then the other aspect that we thought about when planning the wedding was like the social side of it so I find socializing difficult usually after an hour of being around people so in general if I'm socializing I'll tell people that I can only stay for like a shorter amount of time or if it is a longer event I'll have to go and take breaks every hour or two and just lie in a dark room and sort of calm myself down a bit and then go back out again it was harder doing that because it was our own wedding so we were like the focal point and that did actually make it a bit difficult but there were things we used to try and make it easier so for example we only had 16 guests I think in the end everyone was family so we completely ruled out friends just to make that part easier everyone knew each other because they were family so Aaron's got really small family he just has two relatives I've got a bigger family so the remaining 14 guests were my family but everyone's met before so it was quite laid back and not too much social pressure to like introduce people to each other or worry about how people are feeling if they don't know people that sort of thing and also just they all know us so well they wouldn't be offended or worried if we did have to leave and take a break and that made it a lot easier as well we also had outdoor games in the garden so we had things like a really big chess board ring tasks like a giant jenga and I find those sorts of things are helpful because if you're struggling to think of something to talk about at least you've got something to focus on and I guess the way to describe it would be it's parallel play and if you're doing something with someone else you don't have to worry so much about just socializing because the socializing is an afterthought and what you're doing is like the shared activity is a sort of bonding and that can often be helpful for autistic people so definitely found that helpful to have at the wedding I did feel overwhelmed after the ceremony so we had a really short ceremony because we didn't have vows or any of the other things that people are doing to ceremony so I didn't have like a maid of honor we didn't have a flower girl and didn't have a best man etc so it really was just we were just getting married there was a couple of songs signed a paper and it probably took about 20 minutes I still found it really emotionally draining and afterwards I remember feeling so shocked I was like oh it's only 11 o'clock and I've got to get through till five like talking to people and so I think maybe if we had more breaks scheduled in that would have been helpful I did wonder about maybe having like maybe a meditation class or something between the two so that everyone could be switching off at the same time it wasn't something we went ahead with in the end but I think that might have actually helped because I did still find it very socially and emotionally intense I think we did get on top of the sensory side of it quite well but still is the social and emotional like drain was still quite big having said that though I think the social side of it went really well because of the familiarity thing and everyone in the family knew what we were like and I think the risk is if if we'd had our friends and we maybe didn't know our friends partners and things they might just not understand it sometimes feels like I'm operating at like a much slower pace to everyone else but also just I don't know on a completely different wavelength and I wouldn't I felt like I didn't have to mask so much being around family and obviously that helps a lot and then this isn't necessarily something to do with being autistic but also in the wedding we were conscious that we were on a budget so I think we spent in the end we probably spent about five thousand pounds all in including well everything like venue food photographer the only thing it didn't include was my dress because that was part of a collaboration that I was doing with the dress brand so I'd say if we were buying dresses you maybe have to add a bit more cost onto that but overall it was about five thousand pounds and I did actually have some vintage dresses in my wardrobe because I collect them that I would have happily worn in place of the wedding dress if I wasn't working with the dress brand so actually I think maybe we wouldn't have had to add any other cost on on top of that it was still I feel like it's still a lot of money we spent a bit of time saving for it but I think the average wedding costs between like twenty and forty thousand pounds now it's like a salary or two and that was just completely out of the question for us never going to happen by reducing like the duration of the wedding and the number of guests and removing some of the formalities we managed to keep the cost in a ballpark that would be considered low for weddings like looking back on the day there are still things that I think I would have wanted to change so for example we went on our honeymoon the day after the wedding because that was kind of what people normally do and it didn't work very well for us I was so tired and overwhelmed by the end of the wedding it just wasn't a good time so we only went on a small honeymoon we spent like four or five days we went to North Wales first and then we went to the Lake District and had about two days in each but I did find the first few days I just spent mostly lying in bed because I was just still really overstimulated so I think if we were planning it again probably would have rethought how we did the honeymoon if even bothering with a honeymoon at all it was nice to do but it was difficult and I probably would have also had sunglasses because I didn't realize how reflective a white dress will be and on a sunny day the amount of light that was going into my eyes while I was trying to like sit down eat food was just too much so I think sunglasses probably would have been another thing to think about or some sort of canopy that diffuses the sun that you can sit under another observation that I found interesting like looking back was on the day a lot of our guests would come up to us and say like this is the most peaceful wedding I've ever been to or like I feel so calm and it was interesting like comparing the perception of the day between people especially like for for our neurotypical guests people were saying how peaceful and calm it was but I still didn't feel that way at all I felt really really overstimulated anxious exhausted at the same time happy though I still really enjoyed the day it was just that it was really difficult but I thought that was an interesting thing to observe just the way that people can feel so differently in the same situation although I suppose being part of the wedding party kind of probably adds another level to the overstimulation side of it also one thing I noticed like hearing what people had to say about the wedding who didn't go but looked at photos or read about it etc or saw the video on tiktok was there seemed to just really be a need for not doing things in the traditional way I kind of got the impression that a lot of people just went along with like the status quo and then maybe regretted it or didn't have the day that they actually wanted and a lot of people said that they spent so long doing all of these formalities that they didn't actually have any time with their partner or they didn't have time to talk to their family or they didn't get to see all of the guests because there were too many people there and it I kind of just felt like there were a lot of people who maybe had spent too much money or time on the actual day itself that you can easily like lose sight of the reason you're doing it so that would probably be something that I would a piece of advice that I would like pass on to people who are maybe planning their wedding is just maybe like don't forget that it's your day and regardless of whether or not you're autistic you should do it in a way that you can enjoy the day and you can get something out of it as well rather than just doing everything to impress or please other people I also really loved like hearing how people thought that having that sort of layout of a wedding would help them not necessarily just for autism but maybe even if you're you have anxiety or other mental health difficulties that might make a typical wedding hard for you or if you've got sensory processing disorder even if you're just an introvert it's just nice to hear that there are different ways of structuring the day to make you happy and you don't have to go for the one that is the norm just because it's what most people do it doesn't mean it's what you have to do and I really enjoyed hearing that from people that it works for other people too and actually most of my family were saying similar things they were saying this is a wedding that I wasn't dreading normally I dread weddings or things like normally we hate noise but we like that this day was quiet so yeah I think my advice would just be if you are planning a wedding don't be afraid to make decisions that make it comfortable for you and put yourself first because it's your day and it's important that it's a day that works for you and actually if I look back at the day I think my favourite bit was having after everyone had left we went out to get a takeaway and we put comfy clothes on and suddenly it wasn't a wedding anymore and it was like we could just suddenly switch it all off and really enjoy ourselves but it was also funny because I'd still had my makeup on and we both still had flower crowns on so we were walking to the takeaway in the town with flower crowns on and it was in Malmsbury and I don't know if you know Malmsbury but if you do you might know that the people there enjoy that sort of thing and it was just sweet we got a lot of comments saying oh I like your flower crowns or we like the way you're dressed and that was really lovely and I preferred that to walking around in front of people in a massive ball gown in a big reactionary way I prefer like the little small happy exchanges between people and it was nice to have that as well whereas if I'd stayed in the dress I think it would have continued being the sort of interactions that I didn't really like so much but my absolute favourite moment was when everyone had left we were able to have the garden completely to ourselves and obviously it being a public garden that was something that I'd never got to experience before and because we did stay overnight in the venue but it was just me and my partner we had the whole kind of house and garden to ourselves to enjoy without the public being there and that was something that I would have always wanted to do but never really had the opportunity before because I love visiting gardens and that's how I spend every bit of my spare time and energy so being able to just have breakfast outside in the sun in one of my favourite gardens with Aaron that was really magical and that was kind of what it was about I guess rather than the whole big kind of party thing and that's definitely my favourite memory if I do look back on the day I'm also glad that we in the process of planning at the beginning we stripped back everything we didn't want from typical wedding plans and then we thought about what is really important to us as people or based on what our interests are so we had kind of garden and photography for both of us so really high up in our interests so we treated ourselves to a photographer that we both really like but also we were like friends with her obviously we still paid her but because she was a friend it made it easier to interact with her and I was less anxious about seeing her and we love her work I'm really glad that most of our budget went on the venue and the photographer because those were things that were super important to us rather than we didn't have to pay for like 200 meals for loads of friends and acquaintances I mean I don't think we'd have that many friends and acquaintances anyway but it was definitely good to prioritise the things we were interested in and spend most of the budget on those things so that's pretty much all I can think of for the way that we structured our wedding day I'll probably think of more things after this maybe I'll make another video who knows but yeah thank you for watching and I hope you found this helpful or insightful or interesting and I also hope to make a few more videos about autism and my experience being autistic and as well so stay tuned and click follow if you want to see more of those