The beauty of planning a wedding is not only that you get to celebrate one big important day together, celebrating the love you have built and the future you are about to venture into as a married couple – there’s also beauty in the planning.

The engagement is the part that ought to be celebrated too – whether the engagement lasts for 6 months or for 6 years. During this time, you get to celebrate the promise you have made to each other and come to terms with the fact you’ve found your one and only – all whilst planning the special day.

Planning a wedding can be stressful, but it can also be extremely exciting. This is where the wedding begins, you share your ideas and dreams of this day with each other. It tests you both emotionally, romantically – lets not forget financially!

In 2015 planning a wedding can be rewarding and also challenging. The aspect of having so many platforms to draw information from can be useful, but it can also get confusing. There is such a thing as “overexposure” – there are so many websites, blogs, magazines, forums, media platforms – that anyone planning a wedding can start to feel almost overwhelmed.

At the start of your planning, after the hype and celebration of the proposal has started to simmer slightly – you can start focussing your minds as to what it is you want from your day. This means prioritising what you want most.

Priorities vary from person to person; some may want the wedding to have a specific venue as the feature, others may opt for an all important theme. The fact of the matter is, choosing your priorities first – will help make decision making in the long term much easier.
First thing’s first – create a list (or lists – if you’re anything like me!):

• Theme
• Budget
• Location
• Wedding Date
• Ceremony Venue
• Reception Venue
• Guest Lists

As I mentioned before, everyone who is engaged  has a different idea of what is important to them in regard to the wedding. The list above might apply to some but not all. This is only a generic example of what most people need to sort first.

The categories in the list above are more umbrella terms – because underneath each word is a whole truck load more of decisions to make. For example:
Theme: modern vs. vintage, romantic vs. minimalistic, classic vs. contemporary
Location: country vs. city, abroad vs. closer to home
Ceremony Venue: religious vs. non religious, traditional church vs. modern hotel?

This is why setting out a list is so important, it helps clarify things on paper so we can avoid the risk of overwhelming ourselves with the decision making that will follow later on.

I have met many brides (some now wives) over the years and everyone reminisces differently over their wedding planning experiences. some want to do it all over again (this usually the making of a wedding planner), others would rather leave all the responsibility to someone else (this is where the hiring of a wedding planner comes in), others made the most of enjoying their engagements whilst sharing the responsibility of their decisions with their other half.

I do believe that a big part of how enjoyable the wedding planning experience is, depends a lot on the mind-set of the couple entering into it. Stay calm and on the same page throughout – and you’ll be surprised at how much you might enjoy the wedding planning experience with your partner!

Happy planning!

Love ,
Poppy x