Getting our marriage license outside the San Diego courthouse! Poor Keith was so sick this day with a sinus infection but you would never know it by the smile on his face. I say it over and over again – I have the greatest groom + future Husband!
Now… onto today’s post topic.
Ooooh the end of wedding planning. Where do I start! First, it is crazy to see this thing come together. From my Pinterest board, to things I saw in my head and had to explain to vendors, to now it is almost happening – nuts. There has been maaaaaaany late nights, early mornings, weekends + random time slots in life filled with wedding stuff. My time on airplanes has gone from working on work to wedding planning. I answer emails all day throughout every day. I don’t really sleep anymore. But with all this said, WHAT FUN it has been. And I am a bit sad it will all come to an end. But I am really excited to be married and to dedicate time to my HUSBAND!, and then tackle other new projects.
I get a lot of questions from new brides about what my advice is regarding planning, so – thought I would share some of my experiences. The WeddingWire blog was also an incredble resource to me at the beginning of planning and has tons of ideas/suggestions.
See some advice below!
Be very clear with your vendors on what your vision is. Time and time again I have heard “you know exactly what you want” and they are appreciative of that. There are a lot of components of design – paper goods, flowers, room layouts, food, cake, gifts, lighting, and more… be clear on what you want because it will help your vendors meet your expectations and you will be happy in the end. I am no artist and I have drawn pictures/sketches to clearly get my point across. It’s a win-win for everyone.
Don’t let stress make this a crazy time. I haven’t cried one time when wedding planning or really even gotten crazy overwhelmed. I figured out early on that this wedding was about to take over my life until it was here and I accepted that. I carve out time every single week to get things done. My social life has slowed down so I can knock things off of my to-do list. I have spent holiday weekends at home getting stuff done instead of being social. It is what it is and you only do it once. There are a million things to do which you will never know about until you are doing it yourself. Ask for help where people can help and know the craziness is only temporary and you only do it for a short period of time. It also helps to be very in-particular in this case…. I on the other hand, am extraordinarily particular. So I have really limited myself on the helping hands option haha.
Enjoy all of the fun little moments of building a life together! The wedding planning time is not only about the big day, you learn so much about your spouse and your future marriage. We have talked about combining incomes, what we want our lives to look like in 5, 10, 15 years, how we are going to combine all of our belongings, who is going to do laundry (take a guess who got that one haha), + so much more. While wedding planning you are also planning how you will live your lives. Keith and I had many of these conversations years ago, but I know they can be completely new topics to some couples. We went through pre-marital counseling in the Catholic church and every week after our meetings we would go to dinner and talk about all we learned and discussed. It helped us to create a blueprint of our lives together so there are no surprises down the road. I love this area of the WeddingWire Blog which dives into different topics around this as well.
Document every moment! I have taken pictures of almost everything I have done while wedding planning. From dress shopping with my mom + sister, all of my parties with my bridesmaids, our tasting at the venue, the trip to San Diego where Keith + I took my mother-in-law to see everything, my dad toasting at our engagement party, cake tasting with my mom, so many things! I plan to print all of them out after the wedding and create a little “wedding planning” box. It is a special and unique time with family + friends to cherish forever. Despite some headaches, there are a lot of joyful moments.
Let your fiance plan your honeymoon. Yes, you heard me right. Keith said for years and years before we got engaged he wanted to do this… and I never actually thought it would happen this way. But, he’s done the whole thing! I have not a clue where we are going or what we are doing. It has been nice to not have to focus on that as well. As I said earlier, my groom is the greatest <3
Pick your battles wisely. There is a looooooot of hype around weddings. They are timely (as mentioned above), can be stressful, are expensive, chaotic, have way too many logistics, and much much more. You are bound to bonk heads with people at some point and people are going to upset you. Take a breather. It is a conversation which is revolved around one day or the rest of your lives. You aren’t a perfect human and sometimes your emotions will get the best of you (I am including myself in this!), but try to take a step back and ask yourself, “does this really matter?”
Give your fiance extra love. They will listen to you complain time and time again about the same thing, talk about things they don’t even care about, spend time planning with you, learn more about cake flavors and flowers than they even knew possible, and more. Oh and ask for their opinion! I am a firm believer in the wedding is not just about the bride… ask your groom what would make his day the most fun.
Hire a wedding planner/coordinator. They have TONS of advice. My wedding planner, Rachel of Bliss Events, has been with me throughout the entire process. I have a background in events and she has still been so much help to me. A wedding is an entirely different ballgame from personal parties or corporate events. I know her advice and pieces of knowledge will help us to have the most blissful day.
Have so much fun! Gathering RSVPs, sucks. Spending a lot of money on stamps, sucks. Signing contracts for AV needs, sucks. But cake tasting, wedding dress shopping, picking our your menu, venue, ceremony readings, bridesmaids “proposals”, hair accessories, flowers, rentals, seeing your vision come to life and much much more is so much FUN.
Keep a good attitude and I promise everything will go just fine.
See additional pieces of wedding advice below:
Wedding Band Shopping Advice + To-Do Lists
Creating Meaningful Bridesmaids Boxes
Bachelorette Party + A Dress Crisis
This post is in partnership with WeddingWire. Thank you for supporting the brands which support Curated by Courtney.