Are you feeling a little lost about where to get started with your wedding planning? Don’t worry, you are not alone. With so much information out there to help you, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and put it into the too hard basket. But at some point you have to start and I recommend that you start by getting organised and clear about what type of wedding you want. And that is exactly what this step by step guide is designed to do for you. It’s easy to follow too and I promise if you do these things first, wedding planning won’t be so hard after all.

Are you ready to get started with your wedding planning? Great – let’s go.

1. Choose a way to stay organised  

As you plan your wedding you will need to organise; emails, documents, checklists, spreadsheets and meetings.

When choosing a way to stay organised, consider how you organise yourself now.  For example, do you use a paper diary, or online calendar? Do you save files to your computer or use online systems like Dropbox or Google Drive? It really doesn’t matter which of these you choose, the important thing is to pick a way to organise your wedding planning and then stick to it.

2. Set up a Wedding Email Address

Even organised Wedding Planners (that’s you and me) send a lot of emails when planning a wedding and an address that you use just for this purpose is an ideal way to go.  A dedicated email address will help you to keep all of your emails in one place and away from the rest of your life, which still goes on, even when planning a wedding.

Don’t stop at setting up your email account though. We recommend also setting up these folders to get you started:

• Vendor Quotes
• Our Wedding Vendors
• RSVP’S

NB:  You can also set up a Wedding Calendar using your dedicated Gmail address, to keep track of appointments and tasks. This will work really well if you already use a Gmail calendar, but make sure you link your wedding planning calendar to your existing calendar so you can easily review both before making appointments.

3. Discuss your vision & priorities – with each other

Getting engaged is exciting.  I get it! But where wedding planning can get off track and become an argument, rather than something you enjoy doing together, is if you haven’t taken the time to discuss your wedding day with each other before making decisions about it.

Now is the time to decide on what sort of wedding you both want.  When the two of you take the time to work out what is meaningful to you, what your priorities are and ultimately what you want your wedding to be like, every other decision becomes so much clearer and you get a wedding that reflects your personality as individuals and a couple.

And, if you want (need) to consider the expectations or priorities of close family members on your wedding day – take some time to talk to them before having this discussion between the two of you.  This is YOUR WEDDING, but I know from experience that there are traditions that some couples want to honour out of respect to family members. Now is the time to be open about this with one another and decide together what you are going to include and what you are not.  This is important!

4. Work as a team

Make a decision to plan this wedding together and have fun doing it. To help with this we recommend setting a regular ‘wedding planning date’.  In the early stages you may only need to do this monthly or fortnightly but as the date gets closer, it may need to be weekly (we recommend to our couples that they sign off from wedding planning 2-4 weeks prior to their wedding day so they can enjoy this time together (our Wedding Day Management package facilitates you being able to do this).

Having a set day and time to talk about your wedding, doesn’t mean ignoring important decisions along the way; there will always be things that crop up that have to be dealt with in a timely manner. But likewise there are things that can wait and if you save them for your wedding planning date, you will avoid wedding planning fatigue.  These dates can also be used as a chance for you to go through what tasks need to be done and work out who is going to do them and by when. Remember, you have a life outside this wedding, so don’t stop living it just because you are getting married!

Congratulations! You have just taken some BIG steps forward in your wedding planning!  

Still need a little help? We would love to help you have a stress free wedding day and we can even help you with the planning too. Contact us and let’s chat about how we can make planning this wedding of yours a breeze!