Top 10 Wedding Planning Tips- Keeping it Real

Weddings are wonderful and beautiful time! However, it’s not all smiles and matching “bride squad” shirts. It seems to always get glamourized, but under all that glamour is work and stress. I’m here to keep it real with you and give you some tips that I wish I had when I was planning my wedding. So let’s get started on my top 10 wedding planning tips.

1. Hire A Wedding Planner!

This was out of budget for me, but if I could have, I would have. I had a big wedding, so having someone who knows all the tricks of the trade help with the planning and little details would have been so helpful. Now if you’re thinking “This isn’t a one-woman show. My fiancé will help me!” oh sweet summer child. I have the most caring husband, but it is a one woman show. The bride does the most work. Anything your future husband does will likely be a task that you have delegated to him.

You can find wedding planning binders at stores like Barnes and Nobles. I purchased this one https://www.theknot.com/content/new-the-knot-wedding-planner-organizer-binderIt has information from what to expect at various church weddings to ideas on color schemes as well as timelines on when you should have certain tasks done. Although I didn’t use the binder extensively it was helpful to have this information, especially the timeline.

Add some fun! You deserve it!

Don’t get me wrong. There are a lot of fun parts to the planning too! Like wedding dress shopping and cake tastings! Something I did to add to the fun was subscribe to a bridal subscription box, Miss to Mrs. Each month I got a box full of goodies that I looked forward to! I’ll link it here: https://misstomrsbox.com/

2. Avoid a Huge Wedding Party.

There are so many personalities and opinions you will have to navigate and manage. Weddings bring out different sides to people. Some go with the flow and some do not. If you’re a chill bride this may not affect you. But if your someone who has always had a vision and specific look in mind for your wedding then I say stick to a small wedding party. Avoid creating a Pinterest board with suggested ideas and looks. Don’t expect it to be looked at by all if you have a big party. It’s just not realistic. Expect to send reminders and additional pictures. The members of your party have their own lives and responsibilities and let’s face it; not everyone has a type A personality.

Feeling like you need to include everyone, so feelings don’t get hurt?

I have several friend groups, so it would have been absurd for me to include everyone. Unless a bridal party hitting the teens if your kind of thing. My advice is that if you have a lot of friends maybe limit your party to family with just one or two friends. That way you don’t have to make any tough decisions nor hurt too many (or any) feelings.

What to do if you must have a huge wedding party.

If you must have a big party of people from different parts of your life make sure to have some sort of bonding experience, so these people get to know each other. You may think this is unnecessary. However, people are more likely to reach out and share ideas with people they know. Having them meet early on and get to know each other will help things run more smoothly.

3. Wait Before You Pick Your Bridal Party.

People change when a big life event happens. Fortunately, some are for the best. Unfortunately, some friendships are ruined after a wedding. I know, not an outcome you would expect from the happiest day of your life, but it does happen. You’ll have friends come out of the woodwork thrilled to be part of every step. You’ll have friends who are not as happy or as helpful as you thought they would be. You’ll have friends who stayed true to who you think they are. Your best bet is to wait a bit and how see how people treat you after hearing the big news.

Think about your friendships.

Proximity and everyday communication are not everything. A friend that you may not see or speak to as often may be happier celebrating you at this pivotal point in your life than a friend you text daily. Everyone deserves to be celebrated at different times. Your wedding day and events leading up to your wedding day should be accounted for in those times. A friend who can’t do that for you, may still be a “friend”, but not as close of a friend as you may have thought. I’ve found that friendships initiated during childhood tend to be the strongest. These friends have known you forever, they know your family, they know where you came from, and although you have grown and changed, they know who you are at the core. Although, I do have some great friendships from later on in my life as well.

4. Hotel Weddings are a Great Way to Save Money!

I went crazy and probably looked at 10 plus venues before stumbling onto this piece of advice. Most wedding venues charge by the plate and have a requirement on the minimum number of guests. Tax and gratuity are added to the plate charge. Hotels will often charge you less for the plate than most venues, because the hope is that they make up for it with money made by your guests booking rooms. We had our wedding at the Double Tree by the Hilton in Tarrytown, NY https://www.hilton.com/en/doubletree/

It was great! They had a lovely outdoor space, grand ballroom, and we were able to block rooms for our out-of-town guests. Hotels will also have packages that cover the catering and cake. Ours even included a room for the night for the bride and groom. They set up everything for you from the tables to the assignments board to the card box and favors. It is a huge stress reducer. I highly recommend it. Plus, you’ll be likely to have small “after party” at the hotel bar and breakfast the next morning if they have a restaurant.

5. Splurge On Your Honeymoon!

Weddings are about the bride and groom, right? Wrong! As much as you would like it to be, weddings are really more about your guests and family. They are the ones who really get to enjoy it. Think about it. You’re the one who’s planning this party and during the party you will get pulled in all sorts of directions. Whether it be to take pictures, do the cake cutting, or making your rounds to all you guests; you will be busy. There are also a lot of people that you will have to please. It may be easy to think that things will be your way and you way only, especially if you and your fiancé are paying for everything. However, there will be things expected of you, that you probably didn’t account for when you started to plan. Everyone experiences this to some degree and its okay.

On to the honeymoon! Packages and recommendations.

Now the honeymoon! That is truly the time that is all about you and your future spouse celebrating each other! I know a lot of people who have booked their honeymoons through resort packages like Sandals and have loved it https://www.sandals.com/honeymoons/.

They tend to have great all-inclusive deals. My husband and I aren’t really resort people and wanted something more adventurous, so we splurged on a trip to Italy. It was worth every penny! We got to explore Rome, Florence, the Amalfi coast, and the Island of Capri. I highly recommend booking through a travel agency. We used Liberty Travel. https://www.libertytravel.com/ They help you create a full itinerary and book everything for you as well as transportation. They even have a service called “Travel Butlers” who are there to help you plan during your stay. They’ll give you suggestions on place to dine and even book the reservation. They are also on call should you run into any problems, like a flight delay.

6. DIY If You Can.

This helped me save tons and I liked that you could see my personal touches throughout my wedding. Websites like Pinterest have greats ideas that will help you save! I got most of my materials from places like Michael’s, Home Goods, Etsy, and even the Dollar Tree! Check out my DIY page https://lifewithbecks.com/category/diy/
I have step by step directions on some of my DIY wedding projects.

Customization Websites for Wedding Invitations, Save the Dates, and Thank You cards

I used websites such as https://www.shutterfly.com/ and https://www.minted.com/ to make my “save the dates”, thank you cards, and wedding invitations. These websites allowed me the flexibility of customization and I could set a price that was within my budget. A feature that I really appreciated on Minted was the address book. I had all the addresses for the invitations saved which came in handy after the wedding when I sent out thank you cards.

7. Know What to Expect from Hair and Make-Up.

If you’re getting your hair and make-up done by a professional know that most will offer a trial. One tip is that the trial will often be a subdued version of what will be done on your actual wedding day. Meaning on the big day there may be heavier eyeliner or bigger hair. I questioned my make-up artist on this and her response was that it needs to be emphasized to really show in the pictures. I think that’s a reasonable answer. However, do what makes you feel comfortable and beautiful. Not everyone feels like themselves with heavy make-up on. You can always ask to look through their portfolio for a better idea of their style and what the final product will look like.

Check out your make-up artist. Not like that! haha.

Another tip, for the make-up artist specifically, pay attention to how he or she wear his or her make-up. It will give you a good indication on what this person sees as beautiful. I think what looks good on a bride is subjective. At the end of the day and when you look back at pictures, YOU need to feel like you looked your best.

8. Don’t Delay on the Dress.

Unless you have to find a dress that perfectly fits your body type, you will need to give the seamstress enough time to make alterations. I bought my dress about 9 months before my wedding and the boutique told me I picked it out at the perfect time. You will go for a refitting about 2 times after the initial purchase, so you’ll have opportunities to make changes should you gain or lose weight. Make sure to double check on this with your bridal boutique. Pro-tip: Do the sit test! Make sure you can sit comfortably in the dress after alterations are made. Thank me later! I did not do this. I’ll just say I didn’t sit a lot on my wedding day. Haha.

9. Photography is Worth the Splurge.

If you are able to splurge on your wedding photos, do it. Don’t sacrifice your style for a better deal and get pictures that are subpar to what you want. Pictures will be what you look back on and hang on you walls. There are ways to cut costs from packages and still get the photographer of your dreams. For example, if you’re going to get digital duplicates of all the photos, you can easily make your own wedding album on websites like Shutterfly https://www.shutterfly.com/wedding-photo-books/ or Snapfish https://www.snapfish.com/photo-book
A lot of times these websites will have promotions.

Don’t forget the wedding video!

We almost didn’t get one and I’m glad we listened to other’s advice convincing us that we should! There will be parts of your wedding day that you will miss, especially, if you are the bride. You will literally see no one else walk down the aisle because you are the big finale so to speak. You’ll be happy to have these moments documented on video, so you can enjoy experiencing them for the first time or all over again.

10. Stay True to Yourself!

Trust me you will receive a ton of opinions from the people in your life. That enough can be overwhelming. Coupled with all of the ideas out on the internet you could feel yourself swimming in opinions and might start questioning your own initial choices. While its okay to change your mind try to stay true to what you’ve always envision. After all it is your special day! You’ve got this bride-to-be!