- Every bride and groom should prep an emergency wedding kit, Maggie Marsh told Insider.
- A North Carolina-based wedding planner, Marsh shared four unexpected items she swears by.
Ensuring a wedding goes without a hitch is no easy task.
But that's exactly what North Carolina-based wedding planner Maggie Marsh told Insider she does. For the last year, Marsh has worked with clients all over the US to ensure their wedding – whether it be an intimate ceremony of less than 30 guests or a larger party of 200 – is planned to perfection.
To do so, Marsh relies on a secret weapon – her wedding emergency kit.
According to Marsh, a wedding emergency kit (also known as a bridal emergency kit) is a bag or toolbox that contains items that are game-changers in the event anything goes wrong at the ceremony or reception. Whether they choose to hire her to partially or fully plan her weddings, Marsh's clients are always guaranteed access to her trusty kit, she said.
And they love it, she said. Having a wedding emergency kit already packed for the couple "takes that stress off of them," Marsh said.
Her kit, which comes in the form of a hefty-looking toolbox, is jam-packed with all sorts of things you probably wouldn't think to pack for a wedding.
But as Marsh said, "You never know what's gonna happen on a wedding day." So here are four surprising items she says everyone planning to take a trip down the aisle should pack in their wedding emergency kit.
When decoration disaster strikes, Marsh recommends packing floral wire
Weddings and flowers go hand-in-hand. But flower stems are often quite bendy, which means they're not the most reliable decoration, especially if a ceremony is held outdoors on a windy day.
That's why Marsh swears by packing floral wire, a tool often used by florists to reinforce floral decorations, in an emergency wedding kit.
"People always question like, 'Why do you have floral wire?'" Marsh said. "But this is one of my most-used items."
"Say the florist left and the ceremony is about to start and something is falling off or falling down. I'll grab the green wire because obviously it blends in with the greenery and the flowers," Marsh said. On top of the green wire, she also advises packing different colored floral wire to match the surfaces that the flowers are on.
For example, Marsh said silver floral wire came in handy at a client's recent wedding on board a yacht.
"The railings were silver and her greenery was green," Marsh said. "I didn't want to use the green 'cause it would stick out on the silver."
A mini sewing kit can be crucial to preventing a wedding fashion faux pas
Brides and grooms often spend months, if not a full year, making sure their outfits are perfectly tailored for their wedding. Even so, things can go awry if buttons, zippers, or belts break at the last minute.
To avoid a fashion faux pas, Marsh recommends packing sewing equipment in a wedding emergency kit.
During a recent wedding she planned, Marsh said the bride noticed the belt on her wedding dress had snapped. "She was so stressed because that was what made her dress," Marsh said.
To save the day, Marsh whipped out a mini sewing kit from her wedding emergency kit.
"I was able to just take some of the thread and the needle and just kinda fix it right onto her dress," she said. "It was a quick and easy fix."
To hide a stain, Marsh recommends packing chalk in a wedding emergency kit
Wearing white on a wedding day may be traditional, but doing so always comes with the risk of stains from spilled drinks, food, or makeup smudges.
When stains do happen, Marsh said people are tempted to whip out a Tide stain removal stick or a damp cloth. But Marsh said these solutions tend to make a stain look worse.
Instead of making efforts to remove the stain, especially if it happens last minute before a ceremony, she recommends using a stick of chalk to cover it up.
Marsh demonstrated how she uses chalk to hide stains on wedding dresses in a TikTok posted on August 15 that has over 6.3 million views.
"When it's right before and you don't have time to lift anything out of that stain, the chalk works perfectly because it just literally covers it right up," Marsh said. "It doesn't wet the dress. It doesn't leave any residue."
To be even more prepared, she also said that brides and grooms can pack shades of chalk that match their outfits, whether they are ivory, champagne, or natural white.
Liquid IV ensures everyone is feeling their best for the big day
Some people prefer to get their beauty rest the night before a wedding, whereas others like to use it as a pregame for the main event.
For those who choose to party the night before the wedding, Marsh recommends packing a Liquid IV powder supplement in a wedding emergency kit.
"That's a big hit," she said of the reactions she's gotten from clients in the past whom she's given Liquid IV.
She joked that in her wedding planning experience, groomsmen have been particularly big fans, especially if they've "had too much fun the night before."
Whether they're suffering from a hangover or lack of sleep, members of the bridal party can supplement their water intake with the electrolyte drink mix that claims to hydrate a person's system more effectively than water, Healthline reports.
The packets come in a variety of flavors – they're also lightweight and relatively easy to store in a wedding emergency kit, whatever the size.