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Your wedding might be one of the most important days of your life, but it’s no secret that planning one can take a toll on you. Altogether, it can be quite overwhelming and stressful to plan a wedding; much more when it is your own and you want everything to be perfect. However, you can relieve yourself of some of the stress and actually enjoy the process if you take some time, in the beginning, to be organized. To help you get started on this journey, here are five key tips for planning your wedding.
Create a budget for your wedding
The very first thing you need to do when planning your wedding is to create a budget for it. This is because every wedding-related decision you make will be based around it, so you need to start out with this. If you and your spouse are paying for the wedding yourselves, then you’ll both need to have a sit-down and consider your finances.
It defeats the purpose on so many levels if you budget for a wedding that you can’t afford. On the other hand, if family members are contributing to the finances, you’ll still need to have a talk with them to determine how much they’re willing to put down so that you can plan around that.
In the course of drawing up your budget, you may come to realize that you can’t afford every single thing you want at your wedding. Don’t panic or breakdown, simply try and make your peace with this before moving forward. It goes without saying, once you have this budget sorted, it is paramount that you stick to it!
List out your priorities
What are five things that you absolutely must have at your wedding? Sit down with your spouse and determine what these five things are. Spend a good amount of time thinking about this critically. Is there a specific venue that you must get married? Is there a dress that you love and you must wear? The reason for doing this is simple; when you know what the most important aspects of your wedding are, then you can feel a bit more comfortable compromising on other things that you don’t deem as necessary. Remember when you planned your budget? Well, your list of priorities can then be fit into your budget before any other aspects.
Organization is key
You do not want to be that bride that is all over the place when planning her wedding. It’ll only leave you (and your spouse) with a joint case of the blues, as well as frustration. To avoid stress, it is important that you stay organized. You can start by purchasing a wedding book or planner that you can use to organize all your plans. You can also opt for using excel spreadsheets, Microsoft Word, Google docs; whatever you’re most comfortable using.
The main point is that as you plan, you stay organized. Included in your planner should be a step by step checklist of things that you need to complete before the actual wedding day. Once you have this, you can keep track of your activities as well as the things that have been done and the things that are yet to be done.
Get your partner involved
You do not have to be a solo planner, it is a wedding between two people after all. Involving your partner in the planning process can relieve you of some stress, as well as act as a bonding activity for you both. Working together to plan your wedding can also be a way to make your partner feel like their opinion is valued. You definitely want them to feel like some of the things they want are included in the wedding ceremony, and so the best way to achieve this is to involve them along the way.
Pick out some dates
This may seem like such a simple thing to do, but in the end, it never really is. Just picking out one date isn’t going to cut it. Take into consideration the fact that the aspects of the wedding, including venues and vendors, and guests rarely ever fit into one specific date. You need to be a bit more flexible when it comes to this. Things happen, for one, the venue you want may not be available on that perfect date, or some of your important guests may not be able to come for the wedding.
Based on this and so much more, if you can’t be flexible in the planning process, then you might find yourself thoroughly disappointed. A great way to go about it is to pick a season. If you’re keen on a fall wedding, then there’s a variety of days for you to pick from and that gives you some sort of control over the date.