Wedding Blog
The first few days after we got engaged were awesome. It was all about having fun and celebrating. We drank sangria, we ate Mexican food, we spent time with friends and family and basically just soaked in the happiness and joy of our new level of commitment.
Then the realization that we’d need to spend a lot of time and money getting things together kicked in and I went into a panic.
Where would we get married? What kind of dress should I be looking at? What would we do for food? How would we pay for everything?
I was just about ready to go hide away in the closet and hyperventilate into a brown paper bag when I sat down and talked to my Future Sister In Law Erin. Having planned her wedding back in 2005, she’d been where I was headed, which made everything seem much more do-able. Plus, hearing first hand about the frustrations that come with wedding planning made me feel like less of a freak about some of the stress I was feeling.
It’s been about six months since we got engaged and happily, with Erin’s support, not to mention the great support of my family, our friends and even people I’ve met through blogging, I’ve felt a lot calmer and better prepared to deal with some of the challenges I’ve encountered during the planning process. This is not to say I don’t still have moments where I feel a little overwhelmed (The Knot is seriously hating on me with its little shrieking checklist), but I’m at least relaxed enough to be able to say “Ah, who cares?” when not everything goes my way.
Anyway, the reason I’m writing this specific entry is that my friend Kim (who was part of the Zombie couple I wrote about last week) e-mailed me the other day with a little engagement panic of her own and is now asking for my help. We’re hanging out this weekend to talk about wedding stuff, and though I certainly have bits of advice to impart now that I’m farther into the process, I want to be the best “Wedding Yoda” I can be, so I’m turning to all you other gals for some help.
What is the absolute best piece of advice you could give to someone standing at the precipice of wedding planning? What things were you surprised to learn while planning your own day? What do you wish someone had told you up front?
Be one with the force, young bride - Because my brain is completely influenced by pop culture, when I think of a wise advice giver, I think of Yoda. He might have been small and sounded like Fozzie Bear, but the little green guy knew how to kick some ass and take some names when the situation called for it. 
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My best advice to couples is, despite the planning, always try to make a date night where you don’t do any planning, make any phone calls to vendors, or worry. Go out to dinner, stay home with some pizza and watch a ballgame, or go out with friends… you can “talk” about your upcoming wedding, but no worrying. I think many times, couples forget why they’re getting married because they’re overwhelmed with financial issues, stress, and trying to make everyone happy - on top of your everyday expectations at work.
Tap into your friends/family you have been married recently and get some advice and tips from them. You can also make an appointment with a wedding coordinator (sometimes just 1 meeting is enough) to give you a headstart in your planning and tips on how to stay organized.
1 - I always like to remind people that it’s THEIR wedding. So it should be what THEY want and dream about!
So often I think brides get confused with ‘tradition’ or what’s ’supposed’ to happen. Weddings should be a unique expression of the couple!
(Yes there are some gray areas - especially if the funding is coming from parents.)
2 - Remember to plan for the marriage as well as the wedding! Before we got engaged we had all kinds of deep meaningful conversations about our relationship and the future. Once engaged they kinda halted. It wasn’t until we started pre-marital counseling that these questions resurfaced. It was refreshing because I love those conversations. During the busy/stressful wedding planning it’s really nice to have those bonding/emotional conversations!
3 - I didn’t do an inspiration board (or folder) and I think that would have been very helpful. Especially at the beginning. Even if you maybe have 2 or 3 theme ideas at the beginning and narrow them down as you go 
Have fun! I can’t wait for another friend to get engaged so I can talk weddings with them!!
Okay, here’s my advice:
Make a list of things that are crucial for you to have at your wedding. Do you want an outdoor ceremony? Do you want a sit-down meal? Do you need it to be handicapped-accessible? Must it be in the summer? Have you always desperately longed for a fountain on site? Does the reception need to be at the same location as the ceremony? Only write down things you NEED to have. Wants can come later.
Start asking around about places and vendors your friends have used/seen/heard about, and make a list. If a venue or vendor doesn’t have one of your NEEDS, cross it off the list. No, really. Cross it off. Don’t try to twist it into “well, I didn’t really need a ramp for great-aunt-Sally’s wheelchair, we can carry her…” If you didn’t need it, it wouldn’t have been on the list to begin with.
Then go with your gut. After all, your gut vision is what you want to be satisfying on your wedding day. You can think to yourself “this is a good wedding. I ought to be happy with it” all you want, but if you don’t feel it, you’ll regret it later. Keep in mind that this means saying “no” to things you don’t want, as well as saying “yes” to things that you do.
Don’t stress too much. Your guests will arrive ready to gush over how wonderful everything is. They’ll pick up on the great things and overlook the flaws, because they want to have a fabulous time.
Here’s a couple things I wish people would have told me:
1. It’s your and your fiance’s day - you don’t have to kill yourself being the perfect hostess!
2. No matter how close you are to your family, you will argue about things. But usually stupid things that you can concede on to get the things you really really want.
3. Things will go wrong. It will be wonderful and special, but probably not 100% perfect. After realizing this, all my stress disappeared!
4. Break things down into little manageable projects. It’s easier to make one decision and work from there than trying to decide on a dress/reception site/ceremony site/food/drinks/favors all at once.
Good luck and congrats to your friend!
1. Figure out the things you have to have BEFORE you start doing all of your research. For us, it was Southern/BBQ cuisine, an Episcopal ceremony, and a live country band. Everything else fell into place around those things.
2. Make an inspiration board. It helped SO much when I was meeting with vendors, and they were impressed too. I could point to it and say, “This is the feeling I want,” and they could offer further suggestions.
3. Don’t forget that it’s also about planning for a marriage and not just a wedding. Spend time with your FH planning how you’re going to merge your finances, where you’re going to live if you’re moving in together, your plans and dreams for the future, and whether or not and when you might want to have children. Read some books about marriage and not just weddings.
Hi! Here are a few choice tips, from my own experience of planning our wedding (Oct. 2006):
1. Don’t forget to take time out with your fiance to focus on your continually growing relationship, and try to make some time where you won’t talk about the wedding at all.
2. IT IS YOUR (and your FH’s) DAY!! And don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise, regardless of who’s paying. Make it about you as a couple, and put your personal stamp on the day. I still, a year later and after they’ve been to many other weddings, have friends and family compliment us on how personal and unique we made our wedding. We wanted it to be a reflection of us as a unique couple, and it truly was.
3. Set the budget early on, and do your absolute best to stick to it. Be realistic and do some research though - it’s easy to save money when you have to. There are a lot of great resources out there.
4. Pick the top 3 things that are the most important to you, and give them a little extra budget $. For us, it was our rings, my dress, and the photographer. All three were FAR worth it, and we had a very small budget.
5. Get yourself either a book full of checklists and timeline planning help or print some out from online (like theknot.com). Even for a complete DIY bride like me, at least I felt like I wasn’t missing anything then. And start a binder of ideas, separated by category, for inspiration as you go. My friend made me a binder, and even showed me how to keep track of everything in it so I never lost a contract or a receipt.
6. START EARLY on the projects that are time consuming: once you know what you want to do for favors, start assembling them. Once you have your invitations and even thank you cards, start addressing them little by little. Then the big projects seem much smaller!
7. Most of all, on your wedding day, let go! The best thing I did was assign a few friends and bridesmaids to take care of the details, and I let go. If anything goes wrong (and something, usually minor, always does), you’re probably the only one who will notice and it’s not worth worrying about at that point. The day goes by far too fast to worry - just soak it in and enjoy it with your FH!
Hope that helps, good luck to both you and your friend!
One of the best things that Mr. Dahlia and I did was to make a list together of things we absolutely wanted, and things that we didn’t want. This can help both of you figure out your priorities, and make sure you are on the same page before talking with family about details. We also made a preliminary guest list of everyone we had to have, and thought our parents would have to have, assuming that we were paying for the wedding ourselves.
The biggest thing I wished I knew about was the cost of a florist. Centerpieces and altar arrangements are very expensive, and how much they cost is not readily available online. As a result, it looks like I grossly under-budgeted for that.
Remember that there is life after the wedding. Your friends and family are not as consumed by your wedding as you are. I just got married a month ago and whenever I was getting really fed up with relatives giving their unsolicited input or tired of all the details, I reminded myself that Thanksgiving and Christmas are right around the corner and then the wedding will just be a memory. That really helped me keep perspective and enjoy the process.
Also, hire a day of coordinator! Make room in your budget because it will make your day so much more relaxed and enjoyable.
Remember that your guests will love whatever you choose to do. Only you know what you couldn’t afford or didn’t work out. The centerpieces at my wedding were not exactly what I wanted, but the guests kept raving how pretty they were. They didn’t know what vision I had in my head
This is specifically with regards to wedding planning, though as others have said, it’s very important to remember to plan for the marriage too and take time in your relationship during the wedding planning to have no-wedding-talk dates!
Anyway, my two wedding planning tips:
1. If you do nothing else, keep one thing in mind: you do not need to keep up with the Joneses. Don’t make decisions on what type of centrepieces to use based on trying to outdo your friend’s, and don’t feel pressured into spending more than you’re comfortable with just because other people did. Really. Spend money where YOU want to (where YOU = a combination of bride, groom and whoever is contributing cash). This should not be about impressing others with how much cash you spent.
2. Don’t overdo the wedding talk with everyone, especially if they’re single. Talk about other things too so your friends don’t get overly annoyed. Weddingbee is a great resource for those of us with severe cases of “wedding brain”!
Thank you girls, you are the best! I have been engaged for 3 months now and want to have my wedding next year. But, I still have not picked a date, a location (or city/country…). I am starting to panic!! I start to imagine what my ideal wedding would like if I had all the money in the world, but even then, it’s hard to have a vision of what it’s like!
Have back up plans for your plans. Nothing can seriously get you ruffled if you know that any potential disaster has a solution.
Bridesmaid dresses, caterer, transportation, venues, etc. You don’t have to actually have those backups on call, but if in your mind you know you can roll with the punches on anything, you’ll be a much calmer bride.
Also, it may be one of the most important days of YOUR life, but not everyone else’s. Don’t expect everyone else to be as interested in the details as you are.
Have fun!
1) Make time for the relationship by going to pre-marital counseling. My fiance and I were able to discuss our planning and communication styles, which has aided the wedding planning process.
2) Keep it simple. During the planning process I have tried to make decisions (ceremony site, reception style, vendors, decorations, etc) that will simplify things for me on the day of the wedding — I want to enjoy the day!
3) Its not necessarily about me. I’ve picked my few battles carefully (by prioritizing my wishes for the wedding and sharpening my diplomatic skills) all in an effort to maintain peace with my fiance, my family, and my future in-laws. In the end, its our present and future relationships that matter.
4) Maintain your life outside of wedding planning. It will help you gain perspective on the whole, crazy wedding planning process.
5) And finally… be organized. You, your friends and family will thank you for it.
It was a few days before a family member’s wedding and my aunt was getting agitated and anxious….what if this didn’t work out, this person isn’t showing up, they want to charge me extra etc. It was her second wedding in two months (her eldest married in May and her youngest in July), and she was stressing. Of all the stuff I told her, this is the one she remembered most:
All you need for the wedding is the bride, groom, officiant, rings, witness and the certificate. Everything after that is gravy. I saw such a change in her demeanor; she was ready to enjoy herself at her own daughter’s wedding.
The best advice that was given to me is that I was allowed to stress and think about the wedding all I wanted to up until the day. But when the big day arrived, I was to let everything go and have fun. That helped me so much. I got really worked up over stuff and knowing that there was a point at which I just had to let it go really helped me.
The biggest thing I’ve come across is couples not knowing where to start, so my advice to the newly engaged: enjoy it sans wedding planning, read the knot’s ten things to do once you’re engaged, and then assemble the guest list (a lot of decisions are based on this). (Oh, and read Weddingbee of course! )
The only other thing I can really think of that really helps is to have an ear and a shoulder that is ready and willing to hear about your wedding planning adventures. Sometimes just talking about it makes it seem easier to handle. It’s especially helpful if the ear/shoulder is someone who has been through the process before and knows where you’re coming from.
A great big “I second that” to Emily’s #2 and Nigelsbride’s #4!
Get as much done as soon as you can, especially the big stuff. Then it doesn’t feel quite so bad when you have to worry about all the little things - at least you’ll have a wedding even if you don’t get the favours done quite as you wanted them…
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Mrs. Hummingbird, Toronto
Age and Occupation: 25, Publishing Coordinator
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Videogame Designer/Cartoonist
Engagement Date: May 4, 2007
Wedding Date: June 28, 2008
Blogging Since: September 18, 2007
Venue: A garden wedding followed by a tented reception on Mr. Hummingbird's father's property.
About Me: I’m a pop culture loving, vintage obsessed foodie living in Canada’s biggest city with my fantastic fiancé and our lovable fluffy cat Bettie. I’m stoked to marry my best friend and to throw what I hope will be
the most fun and colourful party of our lives.
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