Has the thought of wedding planning caused heart palpitations and stress in your life? Are you feeling like your brain is all over the place and you just don’t know where to begin? Well, this is our guide to becoming the most organised bride! With these tips in mind, you’ll begin to feel like you have a handle on your wedding plans, and you’ll be in a place to make good decisions confidently, without letting your wedding take over the rest of your life.
Episode breakdown
Understand your vision
Sometimes engaged couples with very little wedding planning experience (that’s most of us) try to overcompensate for their inexperience by overloading on photos, moodboards, notes and saved posts on social media.
This can result in being even more frazzled and disorganised than before!
Here’s what to do instead: Take time to work out what you want your wedding to look and feel like and then focus on that!
We have a whole episode about choosing your wedding style and colours, where I laid out all the steps you need to take to work out what your wedding will look and feel like.
Choosing Your Wedding Style and Colours
Do you want your wedding to be elegant, sophisticated or classic? How about relaxed, boho or beachy? Settle on your wedding style and then you can put aside all the inspiration associated with other styles, because that’s just going to confuse you.
Find a system that works for you
Let me set the tone first: let’s say you have a daily planner that you use for work. You may also have a note app on your phone that you use for meal planning. Maybe you use the list app on your phone for your grocery list. Then there’s that scrap of paper in your handbag just in case a thought pops into your head.
If the other aspects of your life are feeling a little scattered all over the place, adding a similarly disorganised wedding planning system into the mix is only going to make it worse.
Here’s what to do instead: Find ONE system that works for you and stick with it.
This may be a digital folder (like Google Drive), where you can store all your invoices and quotes, along with a spreadsheet that includes your master to-do list and all your plans.
It may be a physical version, with an actual wedding planning folder, where you store your printed invoices and quotes.
Find a way to set reminders so you know when to book your suppliers, who to check in with and when, and so on.
Having ONE system means that ALL your wedding planning thoughts, ideas, quotes, invoices, inspiration and plans will be in one place.
Get your hands on a checklist
I will consistently sing the praises of a wedding planning checklist because they work! There are hundreds of things to do when you’re planning a wedding and it’s impossible to know where to put your focus if you’ve never done this before.
Unintentionally disorganised couples can start to feel stressed about decisions that they only actually need to make in a few months time!
Here’s what to do instead: Follow a wedding planning checklist
You want to get your hands on a wedding planning checklist that will spell out exactly which tasks you need to do at different stages in your wedding planning journey.
Your 12 Month Wedding Planning Checklist
Don’t be ashamed of getting the pros involved
I know what you’re thinking: I can do this! I’ve dreamed of planning my wedding since I was a child and I have so many ideas and plans that only I can achieve.
If this thought pattern has got you overwhelmed and trying to do the impossible, you’re going to burn out and be even more disorganised and disappointed than ever.
Here’s what to do instead: Work with the pros!
If your budget will allow, this may involve getting a professional wedding planner to take over entirely. The reality is that this isn’t possible for everyone, so it may mean hiring a day-of coordinator to help you put together a wedding day timeline and take over the communication with your suppliers a few weeks before the Big Day.
It definitely means hiring professional suppliers and taking their advice! If your photographer suggests taking portrait photos at a particular time, listen to them. If your wedding venue recommends serving dinner at a specific time, listen to them. If your wedding dress designer would like you to come in for multiple fittings at awkward times, it’s usually for a reason, so listen to them.
Don’t let wedding planning take over your life
If you’ve ever had to multitask and do lots of different things at the same time, you can probably imagine that planning a wedding, while working, maintaining friendships and building your beautiful relationship with your other half feels kind of impossible.
It can feel like you always have something on your list to do, whether it’s a work task, a wedding planning task, or something else. And it can be very easy to get stressed and disorganised.
Here’s what to do instead: Compartmentalise your wedding planning and don’t forget about the rest of your life.
A few tips:
- Set up a free email account for all things wedding. It can be a simple Gmail account, which you use to communicate with suppliers, gather quotes, invoices and RSVPs. This way, your wedding planning admin won’t get mixed in with work and personal emails.
- For the first few months of wedding planning, choose one day each week to sit down with your other half and do wedding planning tasks together. You’ll need to increase the frequency as you get closer to the day, but the goal here is not to let wedding planning spill over into the other aspects of your life.
- Have regular date nights where wedding talk is off limits!
- Continue hanging out with your friends and take a genuine interest in what’s going on in their lives – don’t become that bride that only talks about her wedding.
