People getting married must, presumably, have been to weddings before. Yet as soon as it comes to planning their own, many seem to forget all the things they moaned about as a guest. So it is with this in mind that I've drawn up a top 10 guide to throwing a wedding your guests will actually enjoy. Bridezillas take note.

1. If you're having a winter wedding in a marquee, please hire heaters. Guests who come from KZN and the Eastern Cape will FREEZE on even a normal highveld evening, and most just don't have the clothes to deal with the wind chill factor in a draughty tent. It is very hard to enjoy yourself and be a good, sociable guest if you're shivering. It's also a shame that women who've gone to considerable trouble to dress up and look nice spend the entire proceedings draped in their boyfriends' jacket.

2. Keep it simple. An ex-boyfriend thought the best wedding he'd ever been to was a friend of mine's in Port Elizabeth: there was no seating plan, no menu, no speeches and no complicated transport between venues. Everyone walked from the church to the hotel where the reception was held, the food was salads and a cooked-to-order braai - no dried-up supreme of something or other; and everyone sat around on the hotel's terrace nattering and enjoying the sea view. It was as low-key a production as you can imagine - albeit that it probably took months of planning - and it was infinitely more enjoyable than a good many of the formal, gussied-up extravaganzas I've attended.

3. Get married somewhere near the majority of your guests. A wedding on a deserted Wild Coast beach might sound romantic, but if there no accommodation and a four hour drive that requies a 4x4 you'll find you'll be celebrating with very few friends. On the other hand, that might be a good thing...

4. If there's any doubt at all, be specific about the dress code - for both women and men: morning suits used to be de rigueur at a certain type of wedding, then they became optional and finally even weddings that you were sure would be tux's turn out not to be. There is nothing worse than being the only man there in a morning suit. Or the only woman in an evening dress.

5. If you have a seating plan, please don't seat partners miles apart. This doesn't encourage mingling, or help get the party going, it simply ensures that two people who enjoy each others' company, and have gone to the effort of attending your wedding, don't get to have a good time together. They don't have to be sitting next to each other, but the same table would be nice.

6. Have the speeches before you sit down for dinner: it's by far the kindest option on whoever has to make them. Assuming that means the groom, he can enjoy his own wedding rather than getting himself worked up about the prospect of delivering a speech to a bunch of people who've drunk too much and aren't listening anyway. As a guest, I would always rather the speeches were at the END of the meal when I'm not starving hungry and stone cold sober! Looking on it from the speaker's point of view as well a well fed slightly drunken audience are going to much kinder than a bunch of people who just want you to shut up and sit down so they can get their dinner. So that's what we're doing at our wedding.

7. If you're getting married in a city, don't feel you have to lay on entertainment ‘til dawn: I went to a Pretoria wedding where the bride made it clear that she would be leaving the reception at 8pm, so everyone arranged to go out for dinner afterwards. It was a lovely and civilised way to end the day, and made a pleasant change from the inevitable disco. Arguably, if you've dragged people to remotest reaches of Naboomspruit you have to entertain them to the bitter end.

8. Don't spend hours being photographed outside the church after the ceremony. All your guests are either trapped inside or milling round the churchyard getting cold, hot or wondering what to do. Does anyone still want formal, old-fashioned photos of serried ranks of in-laws in the church porch anyway? If you want formal photographs, why not do them at the reception.

9. Feel free to ban babies and small children on any grounds you like. "We want you all to be able to really enjoy yourselves" seems a popular euphemism for “leave your screaming offspring at home."

10. For goodness sake brides please remember it is the Grooms day too! Surely he's one of the most important people to ensure is having a good time (the other being the Bride obviously!) There's nothing worse than hearing the Bride admonish the Groom for a) not dancing with her enough; b) taking his cravat off c) enjoying himself too much with his groomsmen; d) drinking a couple of pints or any other small trivial matter...