After you get engaged, create a timeline that works for your existing schedule. You will likely know if you have any travel plans coming up, work engagements, and other activities that could impact the amount of time you can dedicate to wedding tasks. A timeline simplifies your planning experience because you won’t feel pressured to do everything all at once and have sleepless nights putting together centerpieces.
… Then Pick a Date
Once you have a timeline that lets you know how long it will realistically take you to plan your wedding, then pick a date. Unless you're deadest on a particular future date, you can make the wedding date you choose to work for you. It's tempting to solidify a date in your mind first, but it can complicate things if you don’t have enough time to plan accordingly.
All-Inclusive Venues
Did you know some venues will coordinate many of the aspects of your wedding for you? It’s like booking a venue and hiring a wedding planner all at once! All-inclusive venues often can include tables, chairs, catering, and accommodations for you and your guests. This means you can cross off the caterer and rental furniture off your to-do list. If you’re planning a destination wedding, you might even be able to combine your wedding and honeymoon planning if you’re staying on site for your honeymoon.
You’ll likely get a wedding coordinator that you can work one-on-one with during the planning process. They will help you set the timeline for the big day, and may even confirm any other vendors on your behalf to make sure they know what time to arrive. This way to simplify wedding planning is what can drastically decrease the number of contacts you need to coordinate yourself.
Skip Some Steps
If you downloaded a wedding planning checklist from any site, you might have seen some items that you didn’t think of as part of the planning process and felt overwhelmed to include them. If that’s the case, skip those items. Sure, it might be fun to take dance lessons before your wedding to improve your groove, but it shouldn’t stress you out to include it if your schedule is already packed.
Some other items you can consider excluding are:
Wedding favors for guests
Welcome bags and events
Programs for the reception
Calligrapher for anything
Preserving your dress
Professional hair and makeup
Visiting Bridal Expos
Delegate!
This is where your wedding party can shine and really come through for you. If you’re comfortable, assign some tasks to various members of your party. There’s no reason that you need to be the only person researching and doing everything for your wedding. At the very least, they can offer narrow down options for you on Pinterest because they are supposed to be the people who know you best.
Bridesmaids and groomsmen are great for helping address invitations, planning bachelor/bachelorette parties, putting together centerpieces, advising on wedding decisions, and possibly picking up some items if it doesn’t impose too much. If someone in your wedding party is tech savvy, they might even help put together your wedding website or design things like place cards, programs, and save the dates.
Dedicated Email
This tip is guaranteed to help with simplifying correspondences when it comes to wedding planning but might seem counterintuitive. Before you start anything, create a dedicated email address specifically for wedding things. This is the email you’ll give to vendors and use to register anything wedding related.
Having a separate email account dedicated to wedding planning will help make sure no critical emails get lost. You’ll be able to manage any deadlines from vendors easier and not have to sift through a full inbox to find one email. Everything will be in one place, and you can sync it to your phone, so you have everything on the go.
Get Advice Sparingly
This is your wedding day! You will be inundated with people giving you advice for what they did or what they think you should do, and you do not have to listen to any of them. You are free to make the decisions you want to make your vision become a reality.
It is a good idea to limit who you ask for help when it comes to decision making. Your future spouse, bridal party, and parents are good options to use as a sounding board rather than polling everyone you know. So many opinions can become overwhelming, so if you need them, get them from those who matter most to you.
