Wedding Stories. Ways to avoid complete disaster?

There are some really helpful practical tips in this other current thread: https://forums.thesims.com/en_us/discussion/1012271/my-wedding-probl-err-stories.

My general tip would be: just make sure you enjoy it! I think that whether or not you will see it as a ‘complete disaster’ will depend on how you approach it. You can get so bogged down trying to get the perfect wedding that it’ll be really disappointing if/when things go wrong (as in rl). I’ve only done one wedding with the pack so far and I didn’t do any practice weddings or trial runs beforehand — I just made it up as I went along, and I loved it! I have some beautiful screenshots. Several things went wrong or didn’t work as I expected, but I still had a lot of fun and it felt like a really special day for my sims. I did some of the pre-wedding events as well, so there was some nice build-up over about a week before the actual ceremony. With all its faults, I much prefer weddings with this pack to those in the base game.

Wedding Stories is still a bit of a hit and miss for me. Sometimes officiants show up, sometimes they don't.

I made sure all members of the wedding party were in the household so I could have direct control of them. Bride, groom, maid of honor, bridesmaid, best man, father of the bride, mother of the bride and officiant.

https://i.imgur.com/cAwGUL7.png

@simgirl1010 I moved Erik's bride into his parents' house for that very reason. Too bad it was already a full house, else moving her sisters, her parents and the Officiant would have been good, too.

I’d say, put everyone you want to control in the same household that you will be playing, and keep it to just a few things for the wedding.

Just make sure you start the event early enough. My best advise would be to avoid adding all possible features, but focus on the arch ceremony and maybe cake OR toasting afterwards. You don't need cake+toasting+dancing in he same wedding event. And, make sure the lot doesn't have many items that might attract guests away from where you want them to be. The pack was shipped with a wedding lot including TWO arch set ups, which is impossible in gameplay because guests will spread. I often make the arch ceremony very quickly, and rather focus on the other features because they involve more socializing and story telling. I never tried to arrange a huge wedding though, and pictures for my memory book won't need to be taken during the real event... My most precious thing will always be a nice and formal group photo for the wall. Still can't believe this pack totally ignored new wedding poses and a group photo feature.