Top 10 Tips for Wedding Planning - Get Started
—Budget First
Why are weddings so expensive? For a number of reasons! I personally believe one of the reasons is that the couple commits to some of the bigger ticket items at the beginning of the planning process and don't realize how much the smaller ticket items can balloon upwards. People often don't realize they have expectations for what their date will look like until they come across the small things. All of the small, personal touches bring an extra level to the day and oftentimes, those take extra funds! It's truly death by a thousand $100 cuts. I know that you can do a lot to save throughout the process but it does feel bad to settle if you have a specific vibe in mind. To help, I would note that this was my pricing breakdown for my wedding so you can use your venue quotes to project totals!
Venue : 19%
Catering: 16%
Day Of Coordination: 4%
Photography: 11%
DJ: 4%
Transportation: 1.5%
Florist: 5%
Bar: 5%
Rings: 2.5%
Officiant: 1.5%
Getting Ready Spaces: 2%
Dress : 6%
Suit: 2.5%
Accessories: 2.5%
Makeup: 2%
Hair: 1.5%
Photobooth: 4%
Cake: 1.5%
Decor: 5%
Ice Cream Cart: 1.5%
Extras: 2-100%
2.—Guestlist Next
Most couples navigate this one of two ways: Finding your ideal venue for your vision and inviting guests that fit into that space
Building a guestlist and finding a venue that can fit all of that
Depending on how stressed you are about drawing lines around your relationships and fielding family requests to include all their loved ones (even if you yourself don’t feel that way), either of these could work for you! Limiting the extras to the space can be more stressful or less stressful depending on the circumstance. It is one of the only times in life that comparison between your relationships is a logistical issue. When you’re building your list, you also have to consider if you are allowing plus ones (including ones that may begin dating in between you getting engaged and the RSVP date!). I’d start making your list approximately and showcase the highest number of guests you really want to invite and their plus ones to understand which venues you can consider.
3.—Dress Shopping
Holy moly does this one shock! I took 8 months to acquire my dress. Reasons for this?
Organizing dress appointments among your people will likely take a lot of work and if you have to go more than once, it’ll be a struggle to find times to coordinate.
Acquiring the dress itself takes a while as they’re often ‘made to order’. Dress shops quote between 6-9 months to get ahold of the dress once ordered.
This was my timeline: I began searching in October and attended 5 dress shopping appointments where I tried on probably around 22 dresses total. I found my dress in early January and ordered it then. I received update that my dress had come in in June and then I had my alterations 6 weeks out from my date (including adding the sleeves) which I found more stressful as I couldn’t check it off as done.
4.—The Group Project
Weddings are often the first official group project between you and your families. Couples often want their families traditions represented during their date as a recognition of how they shaped their beings through their life. Some cultures have auspicious times of day or dates too, which means they'd consider some dates lucky and some unlucky and would shy away from getting married at an unlucky time. People often have ideas of what your wedding will look like and it’s especially difficult to navigate compromising what they want and what you want if they have financially contributed to the wedding. I recommend figuring out how much outside input you take into creating your day to maximize sentimentality and minimize frustration. If you don’t want to change something, don’t ask for opinions! As well, this is a chance as a couple to present a united front. If something doesn’t sit well with one partner, it should be both partners working to solve the problem and defend the unit.
5.—Customizing
As your age group goes to more weddings, there is a rising desperation to create a unique experience for your loves ones in addition to a 100 person dinner party. While these can be pretty epic, at the end of the day the best way to create a unique experience is to lean into your own identity and how it's represented on the day! People can attend all sorts of boho, chartreuse weddings with fruit as decor but they will only attend one of yours. How do we go about adding your identity to these days? Personal touches are everything and finding a classy vibe takes time.
Examples of this?
Custom Vows, Sip & Solves, Wedding Programs with Guest Stats, When We Were _ Table Numbers, Handwritten Notes or Printed Photos with guests, Memorial Tables, Dinner or Cocktail Hour Games or Trivia, Desserts that aren’t cake, Cutouts of Pets etc.
There are tons of ways to incorporate your identity into your day. As you can see, most of these require a bit of effort! Do yourself a favour and schedule your planning to have everything done with 1.5 months to go til the day. For more examples of how I injected some of my own identity into my day, check out this post!
6.—Lock In
Make a concerted effort to keep your wedding planning brain and your day-to-day life brain separate. My pro tip: get a joint wedding gmail that both of you have access to! Store your spreadsheets here and share access to other emails. Gather all your contracts in folders here to share with your planner later! Also, you can use this email to sign up for whatever 10% off coupon websites give when you're doing your first order for anything online and enter giveaways from wedding companies. Next, when you have a proper idea of what your wedding theme and vibe is, take the time to steer your social algorithms away from wedding planning content and stop paying attention to it. The only thing additional wedding content consumption can bring at that point is doubt of your vision and more interest in new trends.
It’s not uncommon for wedding couples to get decision fatigue throughout this yearlong process so be kind to yourself (and to your future self).
7.—Wedding Planner vs Day Of Coordinator
The difference between these two is actually noteworthy and I don't think the average person knows that! Wedding Planners: work with couples to pick the theme, colours, vibes, and securing all of those vendors - usually in addition to everything a Day of Coordinator does
Day Of Coordinators: onboard close to the wedding for vendor communication and finalize the timeline, run the day and ensure all vendors are timely, run the rehearsal
My main note for couples is that if you do not have a Day Of Coordinator, YOU will be the Day of Coordinator because it will almost certainly yank you out of enjoyment mode and into problem solving mode. It doesn’t have to be paid (sometimes a family member can step in) but they WILL be working your wedding, not attending as a guest.