Five Hot Wedding Planning Tips

Want to make planning your wedding easy and stress-free? Here are five great tips on how to get started right and make the best use of your wedding professionals.

1) Know your numbers. The two most important numbers in your wedding planning are your guest count, which is the number of people you plan to invite; and your budget, which is the amount of money you have available to spend. These two parameters guide every planning decision. It’s really important to know these numbers before your start planning. You and every wedding professionals (or if you’re rockin’ Do It Yourself, all of your DIYers) will be making decisions based upon your budget and the size of your guest list. It’s okay right now if the numbers aren’t perfectly accurate. Knowing your budget within a thousand dollars or so and your guest list within ten people will be enough.

2) Start ASAP! As a world-class procrastinator myself, let me tell you, it is absolutely possible to plan a full-on wedding in two months or less, but you will be much happier and way less stressed if you give yourself nine to 12 months to get everything done.

Wedding professionals — venues, caterers, photographers, florists, DJs, bands, and the like — book up much faster than you might think, often a year or more in advance. The earlier you start planning, the greater your chances of getting the wedding professionals you want. Give yourself the gift of an easy, stress-free planning experience by getting right on it once you’ve made your decision to get married.

3) Know what you want. Have as much of an idea as possible about how you and your sweetheart, both separately and together, would like your wedding to look and feel. Two good questions to ask yourselves are: “What’s important to me about this experience?” and “What do I want to see, hear, and feel?” Write it down, and see how your two visions compare. Another fun way to sort out your collective vision is to make a “things we want” and “things we don’t want” list.

Why do all of this preparation? You will save time, money, and that blank look the first time a wedding professional asks, “So, what do you two have in mind for your wedding?” The more you know at the beginning about what you want and don’t want, the better.

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4) Be open. Do a brain dump with your wedding professionals. Tell the truth. Be revealing. Tell them everything that comes to mind about your vision for your wedding. Ask your questions, and write down their answers. Oh, and don’t be coy about the money. Tell them about your overall budget. All of the professionals know how your budget is likely to be allocated, and how to make the most of each piece.

5) One thing at a time. You’ll make yourself crazy trying to work on everything at once. Focus on one part of your planning at a time, in an order that makes sense to you. You’ll almost always want to start with the venue, which will give you place, date, and time. Next is catering, which is likely to take the lion’s share of your budget. Once you have a caterer under contract, it’s time to look at entertainment, photography, decorating, ceremony music, and officiants. The order of these last five is determined by which is most important to you, and where, if anywhere you need to economize. For example, if the budget is tight I often recommend that decor be left until last. While talent and skill are components in all of these areas, what you do with decorating is much easier to scale up and down.

Give your wedding planning the time and attention that it deserves and I promise that it will be fun and easy, and you’ll get the wedding you want!