Your wedding day should be the best day of your life. It is a day when the closest people in your life come together. However, planning a wedding can be highly stressful, and many things can go wrong, especially if it is a large and intricate event.
When you are starting to plan out how your big day will go, it could seem that the list is almost endless. Picking the best man might be easy, or it could be a contentious issue. Who to put on the guest list, and who to leave off? And what about the wedding dress?
Checking out one gorgeous collection of wedding dresses after another can seem great fun at first. Pretty soon though it can turn stressful, as friends and family give you conflicting advice, and you no longer even know what you like yourself.
While no online list could ever be completely perfect for organizing a wedding, Here are 5 tips that will at least help make some parts go a bit easier. Perhaps not all these tips can stop things from going wonky, but at least one or two can help smooth things out.
Budget your wedding properly
It can be very uncomfortable to talk about money for many people, but it is absolutely necessary if you want to be able to plan your wedding properly.
Weddings are expensive, there is no avoiding the fact that even the tiniest event will still need paying for. Differing figures are bandied about but the average wedding costs around $28,000 according to Business Insider.
Often, family members such as parents, or godparents, will want to pay some of the costs of the wedding. As awkward as it may be, you will need to find out how much they want to give so that you can budget properly ahead of time.
Search for the right venue
Choosing the perfect venue can make all the difference to your day, and getting it wrong can too.
When you are working out the costs of your wedding, it is important to understand that the venue is likely to take the biggest chunk out of your budget. The average price when it comes to wedding venues is around $10,000.
Your choice of location is likely to be partly decided by what the theme of your wedding is if you have one. Are you looking at an outdoor wedding? Then you will have to consider the weather at that time of the year. Want it to be by a beach? Then you will need to consider whether your guests can travel.
One other thing to consider when making your booking is to find out what else might be occurring on that day. Your beautiful outdoor wedding location could be marred if there is a music festival in the field next door.
Of course, before you book your venue, you will have to set your date too.
Get some extra (special) help
Bringing in the right people to help with the wedding can make all the difference.
You may want to consider a coordinator or wedding planner to help you plan. These specialists can help with areas such as budgeting and venue booking too. This way some of the weight is lifted off your shoulders.
Uncle Archie may own a mobile disco, but hiring a professional DJ could ensure you have a great reception after the ceremony. Caterers and bartenders will also be needed although the venue may provide these as part of a package.
If it is all just getting a bit much then you can seek out some very special help. You might find it useful to use a banishing spell if you feel the need to clear the air. You might be able to banish negative energy this way and get back on track with your planning.
Choose your guests carefully
This can be one of the most contentious parts of planning a wedding. Your parents, and those of your partner, will often want to invite every relation you have, and some you didn’t even know existed. This can be problematic when the parents are helping to fund the event, and the guest list is spiraling out of control.
You need to think about what you want from your big day. Do you want an intimate event where you get to spend quality time with your nearest and dearest? Or do you envision a huge wedding reception with hundreds of people coming together for your big day?
You will also need to consider the size and location of the venue, and how many people it can accommodate. Then there are the wedding invites to think about.
One important thing to think about when making a thoughtfully designed wedding invitation is the date. Send out the invites early enough so that everyone has plenty of time to make plans. This is especially important if some of your guests will have to travel fair distances.
Get wedding insurance
You may not even realize that wedding insurance is a thing, but it is getting more popular these days. Due to the costs involved for weddings, it is perhaps not that surprising that the event can be insured.
When you are spending tens of thousands of dollars on your big day, it is probably worth spending a little bit more to ensure you are covered in the event of a disaster.
Wedding insurance will cover you for any unforeseen incidents such as cancellation, or damage, or loss to your wedding dress. Hopefully, nothing will go wrong but if there was a sudden illness and your event needs to be postponed, then the insurance would cover it.
Some venues may have insurance that covers you in certain situations, such as theft of property. It may be hard to comprehend, but there really are people who would think nothing of stealing a couple’s wedding gifts. This couple from Tampa Bay found this to be true not so long ago.
What else should you be thinking about?
These are just five things to consider when making your big plans but there are plenty of areas that need to be looked at. You will need to find the right wedding dress, choose rings, and register for wedding gifts.
Just as you think you have covered everything, there will be a honeymoon to think about too. At least when you get to this part you will have successfully planned out your whole wedding.
Summary
If everything goes to plan, and hopefully it does, you should have a beautiful day that you will always remember and cherish. While the months or weeks leading up to the big day can be stressful and sometimes worrying, good planning will help everything run smoothly.
Banish negative energy any way that you can and put your focus into making a wedding plan timeline. This way you can tick off each step that you take along the way.
Once you have worked out your budget and set your date, you will be ready to find the venue that suits you the most. Invite your guests, find the rings and dress that you love, and book vendors to help. And just to be on the safe side, cover yourself with insurance.
