You’re engaged! Now what? Well other than obsessing over your ring and re-telling your proposal story, planning the big day will be your next priority. As a newly engaged couple, it’s completely normal to feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of things to organise before the big day rolls around, but it can also be heaps of fun! Planning a wedding can take over 200 hours, which means stealing time from work and possibly consuming your life. Even with all the resources available, finding genuine advice can prove difficult. So we have collected our But, if you are at the beginning of your wedding planning journey, here are our top five tips to help your experience be as stress-free as possible.
1. List Your Top Priorities
When you imagine your wedding, what are the key things that come to mind? What are your ‘must-haves’? Is it the dress, the amazing photography, the design and theme or is it the guest experience and good food and wine? If you can list your priorities early (with your partner), you can focus your energy on those ideas. And if things get out of control, budgets are blowing out and opinions flying in from everyone, you can review your list and focus on what is truly important to your day.
This is something you will share not only with your partner, but those on your wedding journey like your planner, stylist and vendors, so it is important to establish a clear set of priorities from the get-go.
2. Understand your Budget and Guest List
In the early stages, often the most stressful part of the wedding planning process is choosing who you’re going to invite. Remember you can have your dream celebration on any budget, it all depends on how many guests you invite, where and when you hold it and the style you are after. Before you lock anything in, sit down with your partner and anyone else who has expressed a desire to chip in (like your parents) to work out a rough amount you can afford to spend and to make sure you haven’t left anyone off the guest list.
It is important to work out both your budget and guest list, as this will determine where you will start your venue search. There’s no point getting quotes for venues for 80 people when your guest list is closer to 150. And if you really like a venue but it could be outside your budget, ask if they have any winter or weekday specials.
3: Know When to Hire Professionals
If you want to DIY bear in mind it takes a lot of work and you need an extensive plan of attack to pull things off well. Unless you happen to be an event planner for a living, this is probably your first time planning an event of this magnitude. Don’t fall into the trap of underestimating how much is involved. Often people will think is just booking a venue, booking a photographer and saying yes to the dress. But it is all the small things that make a wedding truly magical. It is the small touches that people will remember. As bride you want to be able to enjoy the big day and the weeks leading up to the wedding. Instead of running around and stressing about all the details. If you can, why not use professionals to take the stress out of the day. Professionals do this every day and know how to add the little touches that will and make your day truly special.
With how hard you are working in your fabulous job, do you really want to add ANOTHER full-time job on top of your workload? There is a reason that wedding professionals exist. Wedding planning and styling takes a lot of time, so why not leave it to someone who knows what they’re doing and whose job it already is.
Photo: Life and Love Photography
4. Create your Dream Team
The key to a perfect wedding is selecting vendors who best suit you and understand your wedding style. Select those who you connect with, in particular, your celebrant, photographer and videographer. It’s important they gel with your personality leading to a more comfortable and personal approach on the day. Keep this in mind when you get the quotes as sometimes the cheapest one won’t suit your needs at the end of the day.
If you can, select a team of vendors who have worked together before. This will give you peace of mind knowing that they will stick together on the day to ensure everything is perfect.
5. Don’t Forget to Have FUN!
When the day finally arrives and all the work is done, don’t sweat the small things. Remember you’ll have your bridesmaids by your side. If you truly want to be calm and present at your wedding day, you could always hire an experienced wedding day coordinator to support you on the day.
Quite often we confuse wedding planners with wedding day coordinators. A day of coordinator is actually quite different from a wedding planner. A full-service wedding planner basically handles everything for the couple, from start to finish and tasks include the overall design and vision of wedding, keeping the couples within their budgets, contract negotiations, the hiring of vendors, as well as execution of the event vision on the day of the wedding. A wedding day coordinator will jump into the process a few weeks prior the big day, usually to help those couples who are planning the wedding themselves. A wedding day coordinator are there to take over on the day of the wedding to ensure that all details that are planned, are executed. At splash we offer all services.
Need inspiration? View our Wedding Galleries. We’d love to chat more about planning your dream wedding on the Sunshine Coast. If you are ready to chat - Get in touch.