Wedding Blog
…plan your entire wedding now. Ok, maybe you don’t need to plan the WHOLE thing, but at least get familiar with your options.
I have always followed a self-made, arbitrary rule that I could not purchase a bridal magazine or go on a wedding website until I was engaged. Sure, I could look at other’s magazines if they were around, but I was not allowed to actively go and purchase something that so blatantly indicated that I was engaged when I clearly wasn’t.
Fast forward to when I did get engaged…even though we had 11 months to plan, I frequently found myself disappointed that several of my decisions were made not knowing the wealth of options available.
For instance, my dress.
I have long wanted a dress with a portrait neckline, ‚¾ length sleeves, box pleats and no ‘crusty stuff’. Once I had the lovely ring on my finger, I looked at lots of magazines and pored over pages and pages of wedding websites, but didn’t see much out there in the way of sleeves. My mom and I went to David’s Bridal around Thanksgiving (note to self…never go to a bridal store the Saturday after Thanksgiving. You are NOT the only one with the incorrect notion that everyone else will be shopping the holiday sales and it will be a crowded, sad experience) and there wasn’t much there that didn’t remind me of the ice-capades.
A few weeks later we went to a bridal boutique near Boston, but they didn’t have any dresses with sleeves, either. It was a wonderful shop and had beautiful gowns, and I eventually chose the one I liked the most out of what was in the store…but had I known all of the options, I may have done things differently. Perhaps I would have looked into finding the exact dress I wanted online, or maybe gotten a dress made to fit, or maybe I would have known to call around and find the dress to try on in other stores. As it was, I ended up purchasing a perfectly lovely dress, but it isn’t what I always dreamed it would be, and I can’t help but feel that if I had known, I would have at least looked at my other options before biting the bullet.
I also find it very ironic that I saved looking at wedding magazines until after I was engaged, but by then, I was so busy making arrangements, I never really had time to look at the magazines for inspiration. Instead of spending adequate time dreaming up color schemes and invitation layouts, I feel like I made most of my early-on wedding vendor bookings without as much inspiration as I could have had.
So here you go, I am personally giving you my permission to do all the research you want even if you aren’t engaged yet; peruse the websites, sign-on to the knot, buy out the local drug store’s supply of the latest and greatest bridal bibles…just one word of caution…please try to hold back when you do get engaged so your fiancƒ© doesn’t get alarmed when you have your wedding dress and a ceremony-in-a-box kit in the trunk of your car. 
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Hey! I followed that rule too. Hmm…
The day after I got engaged I bought my wedding Bible, Martha Stewart Weddings.
Miss Corn–I hear ya, sistah! My only allowable wedding “contact” was what I got at other weddings (ie: what NOT to do). I agree 100% (now) that it is okay to browse the mags and sites to see what is out there. With just over 80 days left, I feel… well… like I *may* have rushed into some decisions… Example: my veil. I have NO IDEA what it looks like. I saw it once–and was like “Yeah, sure… That’ll do (said in the best Shrek voice “That’ll do, Donkey” that I can muster).
Browse away girls… it can’t hurt to know what’s out there!!
And be discreet so the boyfriend-who-is-about-to-propose doesn’t get scared off that you are gunning for your MRS, ha ha.
I just feel like one wedding magazine is the same as all the others. So i bought a bunch and then once i found my dress i never needed them agian.
I did the exact same thing, and had the exact same problem as a result. Great advice, because it really is never to early to think about this stuff. If you have anything less than a year, you really do get wrapped up in vendor bookings and whatnot, and don’t have as much time to loll about with glossy magazines.
Aww while Miss Corn’s advice is great, I have to disagree. I feel like I’ve been planning my wedding since I was 3 years old, but in the end…I am so very glad I waited until I got engaged. Of course, I would flip through the occassional bridal magazine to take a “peek” or so. And in doing so, it made planning my wedding so much easier because I was able to weed out the things I didn’t like (and to also get a feel of the type of bride I am - traditional, modern, etc.). HOWEVER - I have to say that I am so very glad I did not ‘plan’ my wedding dress because that experience was one of the most memorable thus far. Not only that, but sometimes we “think” we know what dress we want, and when you go to try on dresses, you most likely will end up with something a little different. My advice would be to be patient and let things happen naturally. Yes, wedding planning can be stressful at times and of course being one step ahead is a great idea…just don’t get carried away. Remember - this isn’t just your wedding…it’s your Fiance’s also. Include him in the planning - do research, but definitely do NOT make decisions until you are engaged. Regardless, I say one of the greatest things about getting engaged is planning your wedding to (your) Prince Charming and if you do that before Prince Charming has even popped the question…well, what else do you have to look forward to? Besides the honeymoon of course!
Sort of a good idea. But, it will get you worked up for a wedding, maybe too early. My boyfriend had said to me many times how long he thought we should date before getting engaged. We were very sure we would get married, and I was sure that was when he intended to propose. I had your same rule for myself, but once I was so sure the engagement was just about to happen, I started to peek at dresses online. Just to see. Then I started to really look, since I’d already broken my rule anyway. I got really excited, envisioning the wedding and of course keeping it all to myself.
Well it took several more months after that until we were actually engaged. In retrospect it wasn’t a very long time, but it become agonizing with me getting excited about a wedding by myself, and wanting to pick a dress, and realizing that the longer we waited, the less chance we had of booking a good venue (we’d already decided, before we were actually engaged, that we would get married in 2007), not to mention making sure I had adequate time to shop around for everything. It stressed me out.
I guess it somewhat educated me, but once I tried dresses in person I figured things out much better and faster anyway, so I dont’ think I gained that much. And I do feel like I made myself pretty anxious about wedding planning even before I was engaged, when I should have just been relaxing and enjoying being in love without the stress of worrying about wedding details- I sure have enough of that now!
“Ok, maybe you don’t need to plan the WHOLE thing, but at least get familiar with your options.”
Oh, I’m with ‘ya girls!! I just wish I had been aware of the many options there are now since the last time anyone planned a wedding in my house was 10 years ago!
Amen T! I feel the exact same way as you!!!
I had a vague idea what I wanted when I got engaged but didn’t start the hardcore research ’til after the engagement. I think what saved me is that I didn’t book/buy anything until almost 2 months after the engagement. This gave me time to soak up all the ideas/options before I committed to a theme/venue, etc. It’s tough advice to follow but I highly recommend taking the time to just research and be a sponge.
I totally agree wtih you!! I didn’t start planning until I got engaged… but wish I had started wayyy in advance. Or at least started to think about it. =P
Thanks for the permission to plan early, Miss Corn. I’m serving in a wedding in January, so I considered it my bridesmaidly duty to scope out this site for awesome ideas…but only for the bride’s wedding. After all this time of being a bridesmaid and never a bride (10 weddings), and being the ripe age of 38, it’s looking like I’ll finally be engaged within the year. My mom was so excited just at the hint of it, she bought me the wedding planner book and presented it to me on Mother’s Day. Because I was embarrassed that my boyfriend would get cold feet if he saw it, I told her to hang on to it until I was engaged. She was sooooooo disappointed and near tears that I rejected it. I realized that I ruined a sweet moment between us that I could never get back. Trying to make up for the moment, I’ve since accepted the planning book from her and never looked back. I’m planning theme, colors, favors, dress, etc….for me! Some girls have planned their wedding their whole life. Thinking there was a chance I’d be a spinster, I never allowed myself the thrill. Maybe I shouldn’t be counting my chickens,
but…cluck cluck!
I like Miss Corn’s comment at #9 above. Pre-shop around, but remember it’s his day, too, so don’t get *too* set on any of the ideas quite yet.
Also there was a recent WB post about how those glossy wedding magazines can make you go crazy, thinking you have to buy so much and look a certain way. Just keep your own budget and priorities and values in perspective because it’s easy to get a little brainwashed by the industry.
can i give you a hug miss corn? lol. i’m one of those “plan before the ring” girl, but not until i was sure i would marry the bf [we have talked about it and still do. we're not in a place when we can get engaged yet] and then everything just snowballed. i have a couple rules for myself: don’t buy any magazines or books and don’t look at dresses but i am putting together what i want. i always start big and then scale down from there and this lead as given me enough time to whittle things down to the perfect whatever.
now i have a good grasp of how much i can do with my proposed budget [plus have time to save up the money] and worked out the little details that are very important to me and still have time to experiment with new ideas. plus, when the bf interjects with his ideas i’m not stressed about trying to fit them in “at the last minute.”
but that’s the most important thing for me: my bf knows all about my planning and often refers to “the binder.” he’s been very supportive the entire time.
In college, I met my twin–a fellow wedding lover. We found all sorts of sites and blogs and read magazines including Martha Stewart’s Weddings. While I still haven’t quite admitted to my fiance that my “porn” stash as I call it is actually wedding magazines and not Playgirl, I have been addicted to wedding magazines for way too long.
Thank goodness I did! I am planning a 7 month engagement and I have no clue what I would have done without having all these sites bookmarked and pages turned in my magazines. It has really helped me bargain shop and while I actually ended up following through on about 3% of the plans I had made, I had learned so much from those magazines that I’m so prepared.
Even better, I’ve saved all the magazines starting from early 2004 that I bought. I’ve put them in storage along with all my papers and samples I have received and I will be passing them onto a “not-yet-engaged” friend so she is ready when it’s her turn. I will urge her to hide her “porn” as I did, just so her guy won’t think she’s crazy. 
I say don’t plan early, don’t stress, and just pick what you like and then stop looking. It seems to at least be a good strategy for not becoming a 2-dress bride. Even with all the hoopla over wedding gowns, it’s still only a dress. Decide that something is ‘good enough’ for you and move on.
LOL… I might email this post to my BF. We’ve been pseudo-engaged since about 4 months after we met eachother (crazy, I know), and it was only when I told him his Air Force sister would need to have advance notice to get leave for our wedding did he decide it would NOT be okay to propose to me 2 weeks before the wedding. I’ve gotten a color scheme out of him so far, but nothing else.
i realllllllly want to email this to my bf, but i might freak him out more. he knows i’ve been “preplanning” but i’m trying not to scare him off! at least i’m justified! i already know i’m going to run out of time planning everything, getting a second or third opinion, and comparison shopping as much as possible.
hi! i found you too! SO MANY CONGRATS!!! this made me smile & remember the time you SAVED MY BUTT by pretending that wedding mag on our coffee table was yours when the BF was over. LOL! readers, this girl knows what she’s talking about.
Haha, that’s great! I’m only 20 and I’ve been planning my wedding seriously for the last 4 years…more seriously since weddingbee began though. I’m no where near engaged, and my boyfriend does know about my love for the pretty dresses and cakes, but he thinks that is it. He has no idea that I’ve got most of what I want figured out…I’ve got plenty of time to wait, but when the time comes, I’ll be ready…
I still think it’s kind of weird when girls who aren’t engaged are activley planning their wedding. I think the avg. 1 yr +/- time is the perfect amount of time to obsess…otherwise you get too caught up in it all. There are soooo many things women can be learning about and exploring in their lives and devoting their energy to…weddings just shouldn’t take over years of it.
Despite the tone of my post, which I am hoping came across as slightly-tongue-in-cheek, I really do agree with you BaghdadBride. However, I should point out that one of the things that shocked me when we started booking vendors was how many of the good ones were already snatched up. And this was 11 months before the date. I think in the Northeast you really have to be on the ball because there are SO MANY people who are engaged longer than you are, no matter HOW long your engagement.
Miss Corn, I’m disappointed. You just set up a bunch of readers to agree with your post and now you admit you think they are weird for planning early?
A friend of mine once told me that in relationships, men are more comfortable dating longer, while women are more comfortable being engaged longer. Probably because of the planning thing. However, for those of us with men who are REALLY uncomfortable being engaged for more than six months (like me and my man), some pre-planning (mostly research) is not only okay but almost necessary.
No no no!! (said in a light toned - fast talking way). I certainly do NOT think they are weird for planning early. (I really have to get the hang of this whole tone-does-not-necessarily-come-through-the-way-you-think-it-does-on-the-internet thing). The whole reason for my post was because I wish I HAD gotten over the stigma in my head and at least let myself look at stuff so I had an idea of what was out there before I got engaged. Admittedly, I was exaggerating when I said “plan your entire wedding now”. And I think that came through in my post (or I hope it did).
I also think it is important to keep yourself grounded in thinking that while the wedding is great fun, what matters the most about the commitment when you do get the ring is not that you finally get to have a wedding, but rather that you finally get to have a marriage.
But if you keep yourself grounded with that thought, than by all means, go ahead and do some preliminary investigations!!
If you click on the link of my name, you will see what my boyfriend has done to channel my pre-planning into something productive!! We have talked about our wedding (in concept) we have talked about location, season, married life and children. He has not popped the question. It’s been three years since we became an item and I bought my first bridal mag last week to ‘research’ for my website.
Yeah right. I want to look at pretty dresses for me!!
It’s not wierd, as long as the ideas you get aren’t set in stone. I’m really anxious to make sure that the day, when it comes, is ours and not mine. xx
Already done! haha I’ve been saving pictures in my files for potential ideas when i do get married.
My BF (whom I call my FI in my head) is not allowed to propose yet…yeah, he has a time limit. However, we started planning our wedding last fall on the way back from his family’s reunion. The wedding is in two years, and we already have our location, officiant, bridal party (sort-of), one of my BMs is making ALL the food (yay for cullinary friends!), a woman from his church is making the cake, etc. My BF groans every time I show him wedding-related stuff, but in the long run he’ll appreicate it!
hmmmm… what happens if you never end up getting married? What if no one ever asks you? What if you don’t meet the right person? Wouldn’t that end up being a gigantic wast of time and a possible let down.
It’s not compulsory to get married, you know, and with half of all marriages ending in divorce I can’t help but wonder if some people are getting married just to have their “dream” wedding.
Kelly, I think it depends on the person. I know that there are people out there more concerned about the wedding than the actual marriage, but I hope that they make up the minority.
Wedding magazines would conviently be left sitting out at my aparment before my then-boyfriend now-fiance came over. I think it’s a good suggestion to think about things before you get engaged and do a little (secret) research on vendors. By the time I got around to booking certain vendors, the good ones were already booked.
kelly, i know for myself that it’s more about the marriage than just the wedding. i never spent any time thinking about it [in fact i was convinced there wouldn't be a marriage to plan for!] until i met my bf and knew he’s be the one i’d spend the rest of my life with. it was months after we discussed that and even talked about what kinds of weddings we wanted that i even started putting serious thought into .
i really don’t think there’s anything wrong with looking around and seeing what’s out there, so long as you keep things in perspective and stay grounded. then again, i’m a planner by nature so if i wasn’t this, it’d be something else i was planning.
Thanks for this post. I am “The Not Yet Engaged…” and I am anxiously awaiting to allow myself to purchase a magazine. I view the websites in secret - but won’t register for any of them. I just know that my homeboy will probably propose soon (soon = now - October 07) - and I am so excited to start planning…but simply CANNOT allow myself until he does propose….it is hard to be patient sometimes…
I was so excited when I saw this post, and this is why. I pretty much adhere to the “no bridal magazines till you’re engaged” rule with the exception of a couple of wedding blogs in my RSS reader. I find that part of the “rule” is that no one can see you looking at bridal magazines(unless they’re someone else’s) so you can’t buy them or subscribe to them, and you can’t openly look at them in the stores. But blogs are relatively new, and hence a grey area. I started subscribing to wedding blogs when the BF and I started talking about marriage and I got my promise ring. Just a few minutes ago he caught me looking at the comments on a weddingbee post. “hey, are you supposed to be looking at a wedding blog?” I had told him long ago about the “rules”. However, he thinks that I’ve made the rules up in my head. When I saw the title of this post in my newsreader, I showed the title to him. “See, this post’s for me!” when I read the reference to the “rules” he was shocked. I think it’s encoded into the female DNA.
That being said, I can’t buy or look at bridal mags, but I do stay subscribed to some blogs, and I think it’s a good compromise. It keeps you up to date with the general goings on. Also, I’ve been hoping to get married in 2007, and we’re basically just been waiting for a family responsibility he has to be sorted out to get engaged. I feel like I’m running out of time in this year for an engagement, so I might have to settle for a shorter engagement or sacrifice my preferred year, so I’ve been looking at the wedding blogs a bit more closely lately.
Ha! i’m so used to feeling guilty for all my “pre-planning planning”…it feels like a great burden has been lifted from my not quite engaged shoulders! I’ll spare the boy from this information in order to protect the innocent but thank you Miss Corn!
I didn’t buy/look at a single bridal mag until I was engaged (Sept 06). We’re getting married this August. We’re planning this from like 6.5 hours away, but I can’t say I’ve felt rushed at any point. The only pre-engaged wedding-anything I did was observing at other weddings I went to, or checking out friends’ “the knot”/wedding channel websites.
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Mrs. Corn, Newport, RI
Age and Occupation in '07: 31, HR for public accounting firm
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 33, Consultant for public accounting firm
Engagement Date: October 7, 2006
Wedding Date: September, 2007
Blogging Since: June 1, 2007
Venue: North Lawn of Fort Adams State Park
About Me: I am a lazy scrapbooker who loves the instant gratification of making cards and I am very easily distracted by all things shiny. In honor of my childhood nights spent hibachi BBQing on the beach with my family, we are hosting a traditional New England Clambake for our reception.
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