How to Start your Wedding Planning like a Pro - Tips from a Wedding Planner

If you’re reading this, you likely are engaged and are ready to start planning your big magical wedding day! So, congratulations, and let’s dive right in, because I know you’re dying to already. 

BUT FIRST! Let’s create an email address to keep you organized. You’ll find you’ll be signing up for stuff left and right, making accounts, sending inquiries, attempting to win raffles, endless Google Docs to keep track of planning- all things that require an email address. While ‘janeandjohnwedding@xxx.com’’ seems like a good idea, I have a better idea. Create a new email that is not for your wedding specifically, but for the joint life you’re creating with your partner, which, yes, starts with a wedding. Consider omitting any mention of ‘wedding’ and instead go with something along the lines of ‘janeandjohnsmith@xxx.com’, or ‘thesmiths2024@xxx.com’. This way, you can use this email after your wedding as a place for bills to be sent to, ticket purchases, subscription accounts, etc. Never forget whose email was used for your Netflix account again. You can thank me later. 

Now that you have a new email to stay organized with, let’s get into the real meat of planning.

1. Finding Your Wedding Day Priorities

The very first step in planning your wedding is taking time to sit down with your partner (preferably with a glass of wine) and chit chat about what each of you see when you think of your wedding day. Go over all the dreams and ideas and concerns. Whatever you talk about in this initial conversation will reflect a lot on what is most important to you. So, take notes on what really excites either of you and definitely take notes on what you both agree on. 

2. Determining Budget

Okay, here’s the tough cookie to crack. Another conversation needs to be had, and it’s less fun than before. How much are you going to spend on your wedding? Wedding funds come from several places: savings, monthly investments, and gifts from family. 

Savings - How much are you willing to pull from your savings? And don’t dip into an emergency fund. 

Monthly Investments - How much of your monthly budget can you set aside for wedding expenses? How many months would this go on for? If your wedding is over a year out, this can be an easy way to accumulate wedding funds. 

Gifts from Family - Is your family contributing at all? It’s okay to ask parents if they are planning on supporting your wedding financially in any way. But, if they say yes, you need them to tell you exactly how much and how and when they are getting these funds to you. Planning a wedding with an expected budget and then having funds taken away because a parent over-committed is not a good time. Be brave, be frank, and realize you are protecting yourself and your wedding day with these conversations. 

Another step in creating a budget is researching what average costs are in your area. Join some facebook groups, peek at random vendors pricing (and realize they could be on the high or low end of pricing, so compare several of the same vendor type), and if you think your budget can accommodate it, hire a planner, cause they’ll know what things cost in your area and what’s a good deal versus a money pit. 

3. Compiling a Guest List

However flexible, creating a rough draft guest list right away is an important first step in planning your wedding. Time to sit back down with another glass of wine. 

Start with closest family and friends - You’ll know who these people are. They’re the ones who are involved in every aspect of your life, and who mean the most to you. 

Extended family - Time to bring in the aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents of all kinds. 

Less-close friends - They’re not your ride or dies, but you enjoy their company and feel they deserve a place at your wedding. 

Co-workers - Who do you chat with most at work? Who do you really connect with? Who has known you the longest or has shown great support in your relationship as it developed? If you work with a small team, it’s easy to invite the whole handful, but if you work in a larger crowd, use the previous questions to help determine who is worth an invite and who gets to hear about it the Monday after. 

Extended acquaintances - Not everyone will go this far, but if you’re a people person, here we are. These are people who are involved in your life circumstantially, or you see them regularly due to a similarity in schedules, but not necessarily because you make an effort to spend time with them. This will include people like fellow church members, or fitness class peers. If you have a weekly run in with a few folks who you’ve become keen to, they are a perfectly acceptable option if you’re interested in growing your guest list further. If you genuinely enjoy conversation with them, they are worth the invite. 

While creating your guest list, it is beneficial to create an ‘A list’ and a ‘B list’, potentially even a ‘C list’. This will rank your guests from top priority, to lower priority. ‘A list’ being your closest friends and family, the ones who you absolutely want to invite. ‘B list’ is where you start to bring in those people who, yes, deserve a seat at your wedding and whom you would genuinely like to see there. ‘C list’ can be for people who you may only want to invite if your budget is large enough to accommodate them, or if you end up with a lot of negative RSVPs and are trying to fill seats. Sorry C list peeps. 

Having a guest list right away is helpful because you may realize you have way less people you want to invite than you initially thought and an intimate gathering is an appealing option, or the opposite may be true, and you may realize you know way too many people and are strapping in to plan a big ol’ party. Either way, start jotting some names down and see where it takes you. 

4. Decide on a Date

Now that you know what your wedding day vibe is, how many people to invite, and how much it’s gonna cost ya (all things that will change as the planning continues, by the way, so don’t hold yourself to these standards too closely), you can determine when you want to get married! You might know you want to get married right away, which means a smaller guest count may be more ideal. Or maybe you want the big white wedding but can’t quite afford it, so pushing the wedding further out so you can save more might be the better option. If there’s a specific date that’s important to you, then roll with it, otherwise, deciding on the general time of year or a specific month or two is a good place to start when choosing a date. The specific date may come along while choosing a venue or other vendors. Either way, you need to know if you have 6 months to plan this thing, or 2 years. Both are acceptable time frames. 

Once you’ve gone over these 4 topics- priorities, budget, guest list, and time frame- you can determine realistic expectations for yourself to really start planning. Go back over your notes and see what your wedding day is looking like so far. A big guest list and small budget might mean making some cuts to your bright ideas, or vice versa, a large budget and small guest count might mean you can dream a little bigger. Determine what you really want from your wedding day, whether that’s an intimate gathering, super cool dinner experience, a bomb a** dance floor, or maybe simply a courthouse wedding and a once in a lifetime honeymoon experience. It’s your wedding day, your marriage, so do it how you want! Don’t go into debt over it, don’t invite people who irritate you, and don’t set your hopes too high. Have realistic expectations- and stick to them! 

Small weddings are beautiful. Big weddings are beautiful. There are no wrong answers as long as you can find joy in what you’re planning. Bottom line, you’re marrying your bestie, so that’s a pretty joyful occasion regardless if there’s flowers and cocktails. 

To conclude- have fun with it! Understand what’s achievable and then go get it! Allow yourself to be a bride or a groom and take advantage of it. Go to wedding expos, have an engagement party, buy yourself a crew neck that says “soon to be mrs.” because you’re only engaged once, and it’s really exciting! 

Okay, get out there and start planning one of the best days ever!