Your wedding day went perfectly. You’re happily married to your best friend, the food was divine, the dance floor packed, and everyone says yours was the best wedding ever. As you’re getting ready to walk out the door of your wedding venue, keep these important tips in mind so that you don’t wreck it all at the very last minute:

1. Don’t invite friends back to your hotel suite to continue the party. They’ll never leave, and you’ll find yourselves in the awkward position of having to kick everyone one. After-party in the hotel bar instead.

2. Don’t forget to pre-plan a payment arrangement for when you’ll after-party at the bar. When everyone migrates back to the hotel bar and joins you there for late-night cocktails, you could find yourself stuck with a huge bar tab when guests assume you’re footing the bill. If you don’t like the awkwardness of inviting guests to join you, with a mention of “We’re splitting the tab,” you might decide to just use some of your wedding money to treat your loved ones. Or pre-arrange with your hotel to have a small party room set up, with a beer and wine only bar, to keep your costs under control. (Guests often expect that since they just gave you a big wedding check, you wouldn’t dream of asking them to pay for their own drinks now. It’s a good point. But you may be comfortable enough with your close friends to say the bill will be split. It’s your call.

3. Don’t drink too much at your after-party. You’ve likely already had a few at your reception, and going wild with shots and martinis late into the night can lead to a long night of bedspins. Not to mention potentially causing you to miss your own morning-after breakfast (or not being able to eat during it, since you’re so hung over.) At your after-party, enjoy the company and the toasts, but if you feel yourself getting into your drunk zone, it’s perfectly okay for the two of you to depart with a non-driving walk up to your hotel suite.

4. Don’t drunk-invite all of your guests to your after-party. You may have had a VIP guest list already in-the-know about your after-party, but if you’re feeling uninhibited at your reception, you may announce the get-together to all, and wind up with a huge crowd and a huge expense.

5. Don’t forget your personal items. While the venue staff will likely gather all of your belongings from the bridal suite where you got ready for the ceremony to start, it’s a good idea for you to look through that room as well, scanning for your items as well as your bridesmaids’. The groom can do the same for where the guys gathered. Forgotten handbags, keys, cell phones and other items could cause you to have to turn around (at overtime cost!) in your limo to go back and (hopefully!) get your house keys or phone.

6. Don’t forget to have a designated driver for yourselves, and arrange with your venue to call cabs for guests who have had too much to drink. Some wedding couples provide their venue with a cab fund of a few hundred dollars cash, plus singles for tipping cabdrivers) for the venue manager to more easily arrange cab rides for guests.

7. Don’t forget to make a food truck privacy plan. If your wedding will take place in a public location, like a park or beach, the food truck you hired to await your departing wedding guests could be swarmed by strangers who don’t realize this is your wedding food truck. So put up signs, and decide if you like the idea of giving guests wristbands so that they can be served at the food truck. A glow bracelet could work as well.

8. Don’t forget your flats. After a long day of dancing and being on your feet, those gorgeous designer shoes can hurt. Or, if it’s raining or muddy outside, you don’t want to ruin them. Have a pair of Footzy Folds in your bride’s tote/emergency bag, so that you know you have the option of slipping on comfy flats. Some brides get two or three pairs so that they can rescue a flat-needing friend, if necessary.

9. Don’t forget to make plans with your venue for your leftovers. Some NJ wedding venues will pack up to-go boxes for the wedding couple, knowing they can often get distracted during the celebration and not eat very much. Some sites donate leftover food to NJ food banks or nursing homes. And some allow you to bring in your own liquor, which lets you take home leftover bottles of wine, bubbly, liquors and mixers. Have a plan for take-homes, like a big plastic bin in the back of someone’s car, a bunch of volunteers to pack up and move all those wine bottles (and get a few as thanks for their help.) 10. Don’t forget to tip your experts. They’ve done an amazing job for you, so have someone keep track of your tip money envelopes, and give them to you at the end of the night so that you can personally thank your experts. Some wedding couples create an ‘extra tip money’ envelope in case any of their wedding experts really went above and beyond for them. They’ll slide in an extra couple of $20s or $50s to show their gratitude.   Follow Sharon on Twitter.