Wedding Planning

//all images by Niki Marie Photography//

Guys, being engaged is so fun. I’ve had several requests to share about wedding planning on the blog and truthfully I’ve been so “in the thick of it” that I haven’t had a clue what I would say. With planning a wedding, it sometimes is hard to tell if you are doing anything right until the wedding actually happens. That said, as we get closer it gets more and more fun to talk and dream about the big day because it is finally approaching. When we first got engaged a year seemed forever away, it seemed more like an idea than something that was ACTUALLY going to happen. But now the countdown is on and I get more and more giddy with each day that passes.

With all that said, I thought I would write a little wedding planning update. I will most likely blog more about the wedding in the new year, once I am married, so that I can show pictures and write things that right now I still want to keep private as we brainstorm. But for now, here are some things I’ve learned.

Book your venue and photographer first.

We learned pretty quickly that the venue would determine our date. We had a couple dates in mind and reached out to our favorite venues and photographers to see what they had available and it was so helpful! The photographer we wanted was flexible on our date, it ended up being the venue that was the deciding factor for us. I’ve found (from both working in the wedding industry and planning my own) that these two vendors book the fastest. Venue’s can be booked up to 2+ years in advanced and for our photography, we book on average anywhere from 8 to 16 months out. After we got these two things knocked out we were able to take a breather and relax for all wedding planning moving forward because we knew the two most important things (at least in my opinion) were secured. These two things also most likely will dictate a good chunk of the budget so it’s helpful to have them out of the way moving forward.

Try to find one piece you love love love and build everything around that.

I knew I wanted a Christmas wedding from the beginning, but even within that I’ve had a hard time picking colors, style, venue, etc. I’m not generally a huge fan of bridesmaids dresses and so I didn’t want to finalize a color palate until I found a dress (or dresses) that I fell in love with.

This was kind of a default decision because I was lacking direction, but ended up being one of the best decisions yet. It took until May but when I saw them, I knew they were the ones and in a matter of minutes I had a vision of what I wanted the whole day to look like. From there everything else came into place!

It doesn’t have to be the bridesmaids dresses, but I would encourage brides to find one key item that they love and build from there. All of my ideas felt jumbled and mismatched until I found my “thing” and suddenly I could picture how I wanted it all to come together! It gave us really clear direction and has continued to make design decisions easy because I can quickly refer back to if it matches the style of the dresses. I can’t wait to share them with you!

Registering is hard…don’t put it off.

Now let’s learn from my mistake…I really put off our gift registry. I avoided it for a while because the idea of deciding everything you want in your future home and then essentially asking other people to buy it for you…it’s just hard and weird and uncomfy. I knew I would be indecisive of style and design aspects of our home, but I never thought I would over-analyze the tiny little things like “does this spatula cost too much?” I read way too many reviews on things like vacuums and toasters, but I wanted to make the right decision with each item knowing we wouldn’t be purchasing it again in the near future. My parents still use dishes, cookie sheets, and pans that they got for their wedding… NO PRESSURE RIGHT?

Anyway, the truth was that I just needed to start. By putting it off I made it more stressful for myself than I needed to. The solution is just to start. Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed. Make a list and then go through one item at a time. Take it slow and don’t stress yourself out. haha!

 

Okay, I think that’s enough about wedding planning for today. Although I will say, writing this has me coming up with many more ideas of things to talk about. Maybe another post will be coming soon(!!!)