Essential Tips for the start of Wedding Planning
Set Up A Joint Email
Trust me on this…..a shared email is going to make your “wedmin” so much easier! This makes any planning content accessible to both of you. Once the emails start coming in about all the related wedding services (think venue, celebrant, flowers, catering, music…the list is endless) it will really clutter up your work or personal email. Be even more organised by setting up tabs in your inbox to easily access all your emails.
Hold Off Oversharing To Family & Friends
In the early stages in can be hard to know exactly what you might want your day to look like. If you have a long engagement, ideas you have may also change and develop. By oversharing at the start family & friends may start to crowd your ideas and hold you to promises you made to them months or years ago that you no longer want! Your wedding day is ultimately about you + your partner.
Pinterest Is Your Best…And Worst Friend!
So the good news? Pinterest is the perfect place to really create your vision. It helps you think about vibe, colour, decor, attire….everything & anything. It’s the most incredible visual platform to help affirm and inspire your wedding day decisions. BUT, pin with caution! It can be so easy to get caught up in having the most perfect Instagram/Pinterest worthy wedding day, that you actually forget why you’re even getting married.
Instead, pin realistically. Be careful of styled shoot images…these are essentially staged wedding days that are highly unrealistic! Find images that inspire you, but aren’t impossible to re-create and will end up making you feel like your wedding is inadequate. Because it’s won’t be!
Approach Your Budget With Caution
Weddings are notorious for blowing your budget…and yes I can confirm that is true. I suggest doing some market research before drawing up that dreaded spreadsheet. If your parents told you they got married for x amount in the 1980’s…it’s not going to be close to today’s prices.
There’s a myth about the “wedding tax”. That vendors automatically hike up the price with the word wedding. The truth most of the time is that these prices are justified. The cost it takes to gain the skills, set up and run a small business like many in this industry, is huge.
Discuss what your priorities are in your budget and where you might save. For example you might want to hire an epic photographer, but you don’t mind not having a live band, so use a Spotify playlist instead. DIYing your entire wedding would be quite a stretch, but you might decide to arrange some of the flowers yourself…or maybe ditch them all together. Get creative with how you might save your money & where it matters to hire in a professional.
Scrap The Idea Of Perfection!
This might sound crazy to what most wedding content may tell you…but your wedding is unlikely to be the best day of your life. It may be ONE of the best days of your life, but the truth is parts of it may be stressful & overwhelming. The perfect wedding doesn’t exist, contrary to social media. A wedding is a day to celebrate you and your partner and surprisingly, this is often forgotten in the planning process! Remember what makes you and your relationship unique and that will shine through on your wedding day more than anything else.
Have fun!
People often talk about weddings just being one day. One expensive day to show your love and then it’s over. But really it’s far more than one day. It’s all the days leading up to the moment and the years of memories afterwards. Wedding planning can be stressful, but if approached positively, it can be one of the most bonding and exciting experiences with your partner. You’re getting to plan an epic day with all your favourite family & friends, where every small detail you make can be representative of your love for each other. Don’t forget to have a laugh during the process! Try and plan as much as you can together….cake tasting, invitation making and wine tasting make some pretty epic date ideas that double up as planning!