How to Plan Your Wedding
Set a budget., Set the timeline for planning., Choose a workable method for your record-keeping.
Step-by-Step Guide
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Step 1: Set a budget.
It's important to stick to a budget and to keep your wishes realistic.
While this is a very special day your life, it's not an excuse to be wildly extravagant with money you don't have.
Remind yourself when you feel like fretting that you still have many wonderful days ahead and you don't want these marred by paying back an unplanned overspend.
Aim to never exceed the amount specified as the total of your budget.
If you overspend on one item, another item has to take a cut to meet the budget.
Be prepared to be flexible and to prioritize the big spends that really matter.
You can always make do or DIY on the things that are less important or even the frivolous but desired aspects.
If your parents or future in-laws are partially or wholly funding the wedding, you have an added help.
However, remain conscious to not burden them either.
Ask them for their budget ceiling and stick to it. -
Step 2: Set the timeline for planning.
Of all things about your planning, this is the most important aspect.
Develop a sensible, reasonable timeline depending on how much time you've given yourselves.
Begin with a calendar before you and try following a suggested timeline from a wedding guide.
You will find such timelines in wedding guide books, magazines, online and even at the base of this article.
In general, you're likely to find that most guides assume you have around 12 months to plan your wedding; if you've less time, simply adjust the timeline accordingly (the last three months matter the most anyway). (Timeline suggestions will be provided throughout this article.) Don't panic if you don't have 12 months.
Generally what planning guides suggest happens in the first few months are things that can be done fairly quickly, such as announcing your engagement, sending the announcement to local papers, purchasing planning books and software, planning the budget, selecting the bridal party and settling on a wedding date.
One of the principal reasons for a long lead-in time is the wedding and reception venues––the most popular ones are often booked out a year or more in advance and many people have taken to planning the wedding around venue availability.
If this irks you or you just don't have a year, look around for great alternatives, from public garden spaces, to lesser known churches and mosques or town halls.
Avoid the trap of thinking you have to use the venue every other bride is using this year! , You'll need to keep tabs of everything you've already decided and what's planned ahead.
Also, invoices, quotes, receipts, seating plans, photos of desired decorations/clothing, patterns, instructions, etc. will need to be kept in one place, so have at least one large plastic pocket to keep these in one place.
If you're more organized, use a few pockets to separate by categories.
Wedding software or planning apps can work well for digital planning.
If you have tech-savvy friends helping plan the wedding, you might even consider making a wedding wiki open only to those of you helping with the planning.
This can help enormously with shared planning and strategizing.
On the downside, software and wikis need to be maintained through the inputting of information and scanning in documents, while a notebook can be taken anywhere and you can jot down things quickly and you can simply add the growing mound of papers to a binder.
For many people, both digital and paper planning tools combined are the best of both worlds. -
Step 3: Choose a workable method for your record-keeping.
Detailed Guide
It's important to stick to a budget and to keep your wishes realistic.
While this is a very special day your life, it's not an excuse to be wildly extravagant with money you don't have.
Remind yourself when you feel like fretting that you still have many wonderful days ahead and you don't want these marred by paying back an unplanned overspend.
Aim to never exceed the amount specified as the total of your budget.
If you overspend on one item, another item has to take a cut to meet the budget.
Be prepared to be flexible and to prioritize the big spends that really matter.
You can always make do or DIY on the things that are less important or even the frivolous but desired aspects.
If your parents or future in-laws are partially or wholly funding the wedding, you have an added help.
However, remain conscious to not burden them either.
Ask them for their budget ceiling and stick to it.
Of all things about your planning, this is the most important aspect.
Develop a sensible, reasonable timeline depending on how much time you've given yourselves.
Begin with a calendar before you and try following a suggested timeline from a wedding guide.
You will find such timelines in wedding guide books, magazines, online and even at the base of this article.
In general, you're likely to find that most guides assume you have around 12 months to plan your wedding; if you've less time, simply adjust the timeline accordingly (the last three months matter the most anyway). (Timeline suggestions will be provided throughout this article.) Don't panic if you don't have 12 months.
Generally what planning guides suggest happens in the first few months are things that can be done fairly quickly, such as announcing your engagement, sending the announcement to local papers, purchasing planning books and software, planning the budget, selecting the bridal party and settling on a wedding date.
One of the principal reasons for a long lead-in time is the wedding and reception venues––the most popular ones are often booked out a year or more in advance and many people have taken to planning the wedding around venue availability.
If this irks you or you just don't have a year, look around for great alternatives, from public garden spaces, to lesser known churches and mosques or town halls.
Avoid the trap of thinking you have to use the venue every other bride is using this year! , You'll need to keep tabs of everything you've already decided and what's planned ahead.
Also, invoices, quotes, receipts, seating plans, photos of desired decorations/clothing, patterns, instructions, etc. will need to be kept in one place, so have at least one large plastic pocket to keep these in one place.
If you're more organized, use a few pockets to separate by categories.
Wedding software or planning apps can work well for digital planning.
If you have tech-savvy friends helping plan the wedding, you might even consider making a wedding wiki open only to those of you helping with the planning.
This can help enormously with shared planning and strategizing.
On the downside, software and wikis need to be maintained through the inputting of information and scanning in documents, while a notebook can be taken anywhere and you can jot down things quickly and you can simply add the growing mound of papers to a binder.
For many people, both digital and paper planning tools combined are the best of both worlds.
About the Author
Jonathan Reed
Enthusiastic about teaching DIY projects techniques through clear, step-by-step guides.
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