10 Steps to Planning your Wedding like a Pro

Planning & Advice

Right now your wedding might be seeming a little bit overwhelming – where to start, what to buy, how much to spend, who to trust?! It’s all well and good for us seasoned bloggers to be writing about the pros and cons of a dessert table but for those jumping into the wild wild wedding world for the first time it’s hard to even know where to start. Our advice? Approach your wedding like a professional. Get organised now, start ticking those boxes and thank us on the day.

Planning like a professional doesn’t mean being tied to your phone and desk 24/7 (although we’re pretty sure that’s the only way the wedding planners on weddingsonline manage to pull off the spectacular weddings they do) it means getting organised so that you make time to enjoy being engaged. So here’s our guide to planning your Big Day like a pro, hopefully you’ll find these tips (and the few articles we’ve linked within) helpful as you begin your journey from deer-in-the-headlights to new-career-in-her-sights.

  1. Organise

The key to pulling off a successful event is simple – preparation. As soon as you’ve found your engagement celebrations slowing down, it’s time to shift gears and get yourself into the mind frame of a professional. A pro wedding planner is many things at many different times, he/she is well informed, discerning, flexible, resourceful, courteous, composed and above all, always organised. If being organised isn’t your natural state, take a day or two to get to know your new best friends before you get planning. Familiarise yourself with Excel, visit your local stationery shop and pick up some folders and separators, get some ink in the printer and of course sign yourself up to weddingsonline. Begin by drafting a plan of action; download your month-by-month wedding planning checklist and begin tackling your budget tracker. Keep everything together in one folder, and create a list of phone numbers and email addresses as you come across them (mobiles can be a pain when you can’t remember how you saved something). As they say in business (and you are looking to plan your wedding like a professional aren’t you?!) – Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.

Where to Start with Wedding Planning

  1. Research

Finding your perfect venue or supplier and getting the best bang for your wedding buck requires research. Most professional wedding planners in Ireland usually work with the same suppliers over and over because they know they can depend on them and they know they can get them for a fair price. Unfortunately as this is your first foray into the world of weddings, meeting a suppler for the first time – or discovering how much they cost – can knock you for six. Some couples dive naively into wedding plans without having a clue how much a wedding photographer costs, or what he/she does! This is why you have to do your research first. Researching what’s expected of a supplier, shopping around for costs, comparing packages and weighing up pros and cons is your new night in front of the telly. Educating yourself on what you’re about to invest in is top priority, that way when you get a quote from a bakery or a videographer, you’ll understand where the money is going (and you spare another wedding cake supplier hearing the words “sure it’s only a bit of icing!”) Of course you must do your research into the average cost of a wedding to get a guideline into budget allocation but you also should do some research on your shortlisted suppliers by looking for feedback online. Also meeting a supplier and going through their portfolio is so important. Most suppliers are more than happy to show you their past work through photos or videos and if you want to do a bit more research (we’re talking private investigator stuff here) ask your supplier to put you in contact with a past client for an in depth reference.

10 Wedding Planning Notebooks for the Bride

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  1. Trust other Professionals

We say it all the time, and for a reason, you really and truly do get what you pay for. Do you think professional wedding planners put their couple’s precious memories into the hands of a friend who’s “got his own YouTube channel” or give the bride’s dress to their Granny to have a look at hemming? Nope, when professional wedding planners want something done professionally, they hire professionals. And so should you. This doesn’t mean you have to blow your budget on something you simply can’t afford, instead you should be looking to find a professional to work within your budget, whether it means choosing a less expensive wedding package (such as negotiating how the photos are delivered and presented after) or opting for three tiers instead of five. Look to organisations such as the Irish Professional Photographers Association or to legitimate sites like weddingsonline.ie (subtle, I know) to see if your proposed supplier is running a legitimate business. If they are legit, you know they’d be very slow to risk delivering a poor service and harming their company and livelihood and therefore can rest assured everything will be as you expect.

  1. Know your Budget

One thing a wedding coordinator has to do, no matter what their client demands and personal preferences are, is to work within a clear budget. Our advice always is that the first thing you need to do when you start to discuss your wedding plans with your partner is to decide on a budget that suits you financially, and how much you are prepared to spend on each aspect of the wedding. At this stage you may discover that your parents want to help to buy your wedding dress, or that the Best Man would like to gift you some entertainment for your drinks reception, whatever it may be you should factor it all into your budget spreadsheet (that includes the budget for hen parties and honeymoons too don’t forget!) Once you’ve allocated your budget, study it and know it like the back of your hand. Then comes the hard part – sticking to it. Although it will be difficult (and almost no fun at all) don’t try on the designer dress ten times your budget just to see what it’s like, and if you must, do it with a level headed bridesmaid and as far away from a credit card as humanly possible.

10 Things to Ask when Planning your Wedding Budget

bride and father hugging on stairs

  1. Know your Strengths

Let’s get this one out of the way quickly – just because you’re getting married doesn’t make you a DIY specialist, and no amount of Pinterest boards are going to change that. We admire anybody who takes the challenge of hand making their 100+ wedding invitations after seeing Martha’s 5 Easy Steps to Home Calligraphy but we despair at the thought of a bride weeping over a glitter gun at 5am because she thought it was the only way to make her wedding ‘personal’. Know your limits when it comes to DIY – writing a couple of funny and personal table name cards is hardly going to break your spirit, but hand tying six wild flower bouquets at half ten on the morning of your wedding might. A professional wedding planner knows his/her strengths, they know where they can save money and when to hire professionals, and they don’t delude themselves into thinking they have the time and talent to do everything themselves.

10 Fabulous Things you’ll Learn about yourself while Planning your Wedding

  1. Leave your Emotions at the Door

Of course planning a wedding is going to be an emotional time, it has to be by definition. But there will be times over the course of your wedding planning that you’ll need to take a deep breath, count to ten and let those emotions wash over you. Event planners are recognised for having a stressful job – anything that involves trying to make hoards of people happy is going to test the patience of any individual, no matter how many years experience they have or what they’re being paid – but they are also known to keep things professional when they need to and that includes not letting their emotions rule them. Obviously we don’t mean you to fight back your happy tears when you’ve finally found the dress, or to agree with your bridesmaid or mother when they tell you ‘that’s the way everyone does it’, what we mean is to stick to your guns and don’t let anyone emotionally manipulate you when it comes to challenging your idea of your Big Day. Take for example the hotly debated topic of children at weddings – you don’t want kids at your big day? Don’t. Don’t let people sway you and if they do and you invite one or two, draw a line under it and deal with it after the Big Day, don’t allow it to ruin your wedding plans. And if you need help on how to handle these tricky moments, check out our piece on Magic Words to Use when Planning your Wedding.

Of course it’s not just the external emotional stresses that are a buzzkill to the bride, sometimes the bride herself can be her own worst enemy and without warning can transform you Bruce Banner-like into what has become known as a ‘bridezilla’. A ‘bridezilla’ is defined as “a woman whose behaviour in planning the details of her wedding is regarded as obsessive or intolerably demanding,” some hate the term, others are just happy to have something to refer their friend to when they’re becoming a little too demanding when it comes to wedding day dramas. Remember you have to look these people in the face after the day is over, don’t regret how you treated them before.

  1. Use Resources Available to you

Couples can count themselves extremely lucky today to have so many amazing resources to help them plan their wedding. From wedding websites such as weddingsonline (don’t forget to check out our venue finderservice finder and directory to help you find your ideal suppliers), to social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, couples are spoiled for choice when it comes to researching their Big Day and their suppliers. Of course there’s no point just knowing these exist, you have to delve in and discover for yourself what they can do for you. Get inspiration and the insight on suppliers from real Irish weddings on weddingsonline, create Pinterest moodboards to explore your wedding style (although make sure to read our How Not to go Crazy on Pinterest article before you jump over there), enter competitions to win your wedding suppliers or follow your photographer’s day to day on Instagram.

Wedding Apps – Making your Wedding Day Even ‘Appier

real-wedding-clonabreany-house-ireland-julie-cummins (19)

  1. Trust your Gut

When it comes to planning your wedding – whether it be choosing your ideal dress, finding your perfect photographer or deciding if aunt Mary and uncle Joe can sit at a table and be civilised throughout three courses and a bottle of wine – all the advice in the world goes out the window if you don’t feel that something’s right. Go with your heart, trust your gut, listen to the little voice in your head telling you if something’s off. Wedding planning isn’t all about ticking boxes, it’s about how you feel about your decisions and if you’ve been true to yourself while making them.

Wedding Planning Milestones

  1. Protect Yourself

A professional planner always has a plan B, and a motto that whatever can go wrong will go wrong. Of course you can do all the preparation in the world on the run up to it but its inevitable that something will go wrong on the day. There are some you can live without (i.e. the place cards got mixed up) and some you couldn’t prep for (i.e. your gluten free friend didn’t get dessert) and then there are some you can plan for. The weather is a good example – no matter what time of the year it is (and whatever part of the world you’re marrying in) always have a plan B if you’re having an outdoor ceremony, that’s a standard. Always plan for indoor wedding photos and always have an umbrella waiting at the door. Other things like flower girl or ring bearer stage fright and first dance song track not working can be planned for, as can your inability to remain in your stunning but crippling Louboutins for more than two hours. Other things, such as a supplier cancelling or failing to turn up on the day is more serious, and for that it’s worth considering wedding insurance. You’ll be relieved to hear that it’s almost not even heard of that a professional supplier (and we emphasise the word ‘professional’) wouldn’t turn up on the day, without sending an equal in their place at least, however suppliers are people too and one may (and we emphasise ‘may’) be forced to cancel a few weeks before the Big Day. If you’ve protected yourself you’re in a better position to find someone new (we suggest asking Sophie to help with her service finder) but you should try to have a second and third choice on your list of suppliers in case anything goes wrong.

PSST! Did you know weddingsonline offer a Deposit Guarantee on all services booked through us? The weddingsonline Deposit Guarantee Plan gives you peace of mind when choosing one of our recommended wedding suppliers to provide their services for your wedding. We will guarantee up to €1000 for deposits paid to weddingsonline venues. For all our other suppliers, weddingsonline will guarantee up to €500. Click here for more information.

  1.  Take a Day Off

It’s not a bad idea to treat wedding planning like a job and that means taking time off. Though you may not think it now, there will be times when the wedding will overwhelm you and all you’ll want to do is scream and shout or jump under the covers and not be disturbed until it’s time to put your dress on. It’s completely natural that such a high pressure, high emotion, highly anticipated life event will take its toll on even the most headstrong. The trick is to allow yourself time away from it all to enjoy other things in your life. Healthy wedding and event planners enjoy hobbies that get them completely out of the office and away from the distractions of work. Go to your yoga classes, read a non-wedding related book, paint a room or cook a nice meal and have a date night with your partner (needless to say wedding talk strictly off the menu). Some people spend so much time and put so much into planning their Big Day that they can’t even see life beyond it (the important part of it all, really) and can even suffer from post wedding depression. Don’t let yourself fall into that trap, remember your wedding day is one in a host of other incredible days in your life that are still to come. If you’ve found you’ve fallen for the highs and lows of planning a wedding and have excelled in pulling off the wedding of a lifetime, why not take the time after to help somebody else plan the day of their dreams? Who knows, you may just make a career out of it!

Main image by Daniele Torella via A Chic Italian Wedding by Infinity Wedding Planners