You’ve gotten engaged and now you and your partner want to dive in and start with planning the wedding. You’re excited, and you know there’s a lot to do, so of course you want to get started. It’s not going to happen if you don’t start, right? Here are 8 wedding planning tips to make all of those plans go smoother, make those details more cohesive, so you end up with the wedding you both want.
8 Important Wedding Planning Tips
1) Know Your (And Your Partner’s) Personal Style
Of all the wedding planning tips, this one is possibly the most important. There are so many options out there when you’re planning a wedding. While each option is not “right” or “wrong” in and of itself, it is right or wrong for you and your wedding. You need a way to pare down those options so you’re picking from those that truly fit you and your partner. So how do you do that? You and your partner need to define your personal style. (Don’t worry, this isn’t tricky).
Think about things like: Are you more contemporary or casual? Traditional, or classic? Are you comfortable in large crowds or do you prefer more intimate gatherings? Is your idea of a great evening filled with dinner and dancing or fabulous cocktails and yummy desserts? What style of clothes do you wear? How do you decorate (or want to decorate) your home? What are the types of music and books you prefer? What types of movies do you watch? What are some other favorite past times? Let the answers to these types of questions reflect in your wedding choices.
2) Know Your Priorities
Again, there are so many too many options out there, and some will be more important to you than others, and others not so much.
Make a list of all the things that you will have in your wedding – the music, the cake, the flowers, then rank them by order of importance. What’s more important to you, a delicious cake or awesome flowers? Fabulous food or a killer gown? Get your partner’s input as well. It’s not just your wedding! Besides, if something’s high on their list, and low on yours – guess who’s “to do” list it goes on?
By knowing your priorities, your choices will better reflect you and your partner, and you’ll have a better sense of when to skimp and when to splurge.
3) Set A Workable Budget
I’ll admit, budgets are not fun. But they are super important tools to have. When defining your budget, spend your money on what’s important to you (go back to your list of priorities). Determine which areas you can splurge on as well as where you can scrimp, yet still have the wedding you want.
4) Get Organized
Another one of our important wedding planning tips is to get organized. Even with the smallest, simplest wedding, there are just too many details to go at it willy-nilly. You’ll need a place to keep notes, contracts, brochures, and everything else you’ll collect during this time. Binders and divided folders are perfect with their separate sections.
Also have checklists, including a master checklist for all of the planning details, a photo shot list, a music “want to hear/have to hear/don’t want to hear” list. Have a reception item list (for all those things you will be dropping off to your reception venue the week of your wedding).
5) Create Your Guest List
Making the guest list is many couples’ least favorite part of wedding planning. It’s more than just writing down everyone’s names. WAY more. And, please, for your own sanity, don’t try to do this before you’ve determined your wedding style/size, and your budget. After you know your style and budget, you need to decide the maximum number of people you want to invite. You need to know how many people you can afford to have. Then you need to start gathering names. It’s helpful to divide the list of names into 3 categories 1) Have to be there, 2) Would like to have there, and 3) It’s ok if they’re not there. (This will be useful when you have to whittle down your list).
If you need to pare down your list, but are having trouble deciding how, keep this in mind. Keep cuts even across the board. Some examples are: Don’t invite relatives further than first cousins. Don’t invite children under the age of 13. Don’t invite anyone you haven’t actually spoken to or kept close contact with in the last year. And don’t extend a +1 to people who aren’t in a serious relationship.
6) Delegate
There’s a lot to do, so don’t be afraid to ask for and accept help. You are only going to create stress for yourself (and your partner) if you try to take on and micro-manage every single thing. Choose trustworthy people and delegate errands such as: delivering items to the reception venue, mailing the invitations, tracking RSVPs, and delivering Welcome Bags to the hotel.
Also, delegate someone to be your Go-To Person on the wedding day so you don’t get pestered with little questions all day. If you don’t have a wedding planner/coordinator, choose someone other than yourself, your partner, your moms, or a wedding party member. Among other things, this person will be a combination go-fer, hostess, trouble shooter, and will take care of all the little (and big) behind-the-scenes details so you and your partner can enjoy your wedding day and not worry about a thing.
7) Be Prepared With An Emergency Kit
They say ‘Hope for the best, plan for the worst’, because anything can happen. With all of the ‘moving parts’ of a wedding day, little problems can creep up. So having an emergency kit on hand, with items including a sewing kit, safety pins, first aid kit, stain remover sticks/wipes, and a glue gun is invaluable.
The most commonly used items in my emergency kit are tape, pins, and glue. I have glued together a broken cake topper, fixed the hems of the grooms’ pant legs, pinned falling wedding dress bustles, sewn torn dress straps . . .
8) Remember Why You’re Having a Wedding
Of all the wedding planning tips, this one is probably the most important. Remember why you are having a wedding. The reason for planning a wedding is not for the sake of having a big party. It’s not just because of one day, (although this day is immensely important). Instead the reason you’re having a wedding is for all the days that will follow. For all the days that you will be blessed to get to spend with the love of your life.
Photo Credit: Robert Kintner via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
Hearts, Joy, Love!
Jean
Looking for fun ideas, or need help with your wedding plans?
Weddings From The Heart can help. Contact me today at [email protected] or by phone or text at 937-581-3647!
The guest list can be so hard! Everyone wants input, even the parents and grandparents. When you have a limit of 50 guests per parent, including relatives, and have a big family, it is so hard to pick and choose.
Putting together a guest list can definitely be tricky enough without all the unwanted outside opinions.
Thank you for the amazing wedding planning tips
Glad you liked them.
Great tips. There are often too many people sticking their noses into other people’s weddings so it’s great to have a good list to help with decisions making.
So true. Often those offering their opinions are doing so with the best intentions, but it would be nice if they’d wait until their opinion is asked for.
Great tips and worth sharing for family and friends who might want to!
Thank you. Glad you liked it.
My wife and I planned our own wedding so I could attest to all of your tips. It’s actually simple if you look at it, you just have to manage your suppliers well.
Yes. Being organized, knowing what you want, and making sure to clearly communicate that with your suppliers is key.
Making the guest list was definitely the most challenging aspect of the wedding planning for us, lol! Thanks for these tips!
It seems that it would be an easy task, but making a guest list sure can be tricky.
These are great tips to set any bride in motion. They are really handy and very helpful.
Thank you.
These are some great wedding tips for couples who wants to get married.
Thank you.
These are great wedding planning tips. You must make sure you are on the same page about everything.
Absolutely. Agree or compromise on things, but don’t do something without discussing it with your partner first.
Very nice tips for wedding. These are very useful tips. Thank you for sharing.
You’re welcome.
Sticking to a budget is so hard but so very essential!
So true. Budgets are so important. A wedding day is important, but it’s not worth going into debt over.
Nice tips! I would apply this idea to my future wedding someday “cross-fingers”
Thanks. Glad you liked them.
Thanks for sharing this planning tips, definitely helpful for all going into a marriage soon
cheers, siennylovesdrawing
Thank you.
Thanks for sharing this planning tips, definitely helpful for all going into a marriage soon
cheers, https://siennylovesdrawing.wordpress.com
Thank you.
Having a guest list and sticking with it is important. We dont want to exceed our budget!
Oh yes. The guest list, and number of people on it, directly affects so much of the costs involved.
Wonderful set of ideas. I especially love #2 Know Your Priorities, which is crucial before starting anything.
“I want it all” is definitely not a realistic way to plan a wedding. lol
Incredible tips for your dream wedding!
Thanks.
We hire a wedding coordinator on our big day, but still i’m pretty hands on with everything. I think the crucial part in every wedding was the guest list LOL..
Agreed that the guest list is very important, as the total number of people on it directly affects so much of the planning. Glad to hear that you have a coordinator to help make sure that your hard work goes as planned.
I like the tip of prioritizing. I think once things are narrowed down to top priority then things can be organized.
Exactly. Know what’s most important to you and go from there.
I must say that it always a rigorous task to plan a wedding which may lead to stress depending on the size of the wedding, however, one must always remember and make use of all the awesome tips you have provided above, to make sure everything is well organized.
There are a lot of moving parts to a wedding, which can lead to stress. Getting organized and breaking it down into smaller chunks will help to alleviate the stress.
These are such helpful tips!! One of the problems that we encounter when planning an event such as weddings is delegating – we wanted to accomplish things our way and sometimes that slows the process of accomplishing things.
That’s why you need to carefully choose who you delegate things to, to make sure that they understand and do it the way you want.
My friend is going to be married soon and i think these will be helpful for her to know. Thanks a bunch for sharing.
Hopefully your friend will find these tips useful. If she needs more info she can check out my other blog posts, or send me a message.
I am so so sorry I thoight that the second box was the comment one. 😁😁 Great tips. Especialy the first one. Hubs and I are tottaly different in styles but we make it work.
It can be fun to blend more than one style. Makes it even more personalized. (No worries about the second box).
Thank you for sharing these tips. It’s become a hassle to organize and plan a wedding in these tough times. This article is a life saver,
Planning a wedding can be tricky to begin with, and dealing with Covid and the different rules and mandates doesn’t help. Glad to hear that this article helped.
Hi
Nice tips! I would apply this idea to my future wedding someday. It’s become a hassle to organize and plan a wedding in these tough times. This article is a lifesaver, My friend is going to be married soon and I think these will be helpful for her to know. Thanks a bunch for sharing.
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Thank you, I try to be helpful for couples with their wedding planning. I hope your friend finds these tips beneficial.
Thanks for sharing easy and best wedding planning tips. These tips I found very helpful and looking forward for more content to read from your side.
Thank you. I try to be as helpful, and realistic, with the suggestions I offer on my site.