Wedding Planning 101

 

 I am the girl who has planned her wedding for years on Pinterest, even before I met the man I wanted to marry. I have tons of wedding inspiration pinned, and I already had a vision for my special day before we started planning our wedding. However, once I got engaged, I quickly realized there is a huge difference between finding inspiration and ideas for your wedding and actually planning it. There are so many details and aspects to wedding planning, so I've put together my best tips for the newly engaged girl trying to navigate wedding planning!

 

There are truly so many details and aspects to putting a wedding together, so my best tip is to start as early as possible. We started planning our wedding a year in advance, and I'm so glad we started as early as we did. It definitely helped reduce stress, and most vendors start to book up around a year out. Starting early is the best way to ensure you get the venue and vendors you want, and it gives you plenty of time to choose your details (and save up money!)

 

If you are paying for your wedding yourself, make sure you set a budget. This was something we never really did at first, and let me tell you from experiences, things can get out of hand real fast! Make sure your budget is reasonable and write it down. DJ and I saved up for awhile to prepare for our wedding, and I'm so glad we did. We definitely ended up spending more than we wanted to, but we stuck to a reasonable budget. You can have the perfect wedding on a budget, I promise. You just have to be resourceful and do your research!

 

There are so many things that you can make yourself instead of purchasing that will save you tons of money! As long as you start early and give yourself enough time to get it all done, its definitely worth it! Plus, it's cool to be able to tell your guests that your wedding details are handmade! For our wedding, we made our own favors, seating chart, signs, table numbers, and even our flower girl bucket and ring box. It saved us a ton of money and I love looking back at all of our personal details. 

Etsy is a bride-to-be's best friend. You can literally find anything on there, and they have the cutest wedding decor. After our wedding, I started my own shop, November Boulevard, and I have some custom wedding decor listed there as well! It is only in the beginning stages, and I'm hoping to have more up in the shop soon!

In my opinion, this is one of the most important part of wedding planning. With all of the social media and wedding websites out there that share wedding inspo, its so easy to get caught up in too many details. If planning is starting to feel overwhelming, take a step back and ask yourself if all of the little details really matter. You may not need the fancy programs or monogrammed napkins. Sometimes as brides, we get so excited about the little details and we want everything to be personalized and picture-perfect, but your special day will still be just as special without it,

This one seems so obvious, but when you're planning a wedding, it is very easy to lose sight of why you have a wedding to plan in the first place. A wedding is a celebration of marriage, and while every bride wants her wedding to be absolutely perfect, the reality is that there will be something that goes wrong. At the end of the day, you still get to marry the person you love whether or not your centerpieces are perfect. When I was planning my wedding, I was very caught up in the details. But when I was there, at my wedding, exchanging vows with my husband, the details no longer mattered. Just remember the end result, and try to keep wedding planning fun and as stress free as possible!

Are you planning a wedding? I'd love to hear how its going! And if you've been through the wedding planning process, what are your best tips?