Planning a wedding? Good luck!

The love of your life has finally popped the question, now what? The short answer is, enjoy it for a while after all you will only be engaged once. I also highly recommend you purchase a Wedding Planner, mine is from Ellie Font. It’s like the holy grail as everything is included, plus its customized which is always super cute.

Once the initial excitement is over you should start planning your engagement party, social etiquette says it  should be within 6 months of the proposal. Use your engagement party as a more casual trial run for your actual wedding – invitations, venue, food, drinks, guest list, decorations, music and don’t forget thank you cards for gifts and attendees.

Now its time to start planning the main event, the wedding! By now you will be sick of people asking when the big day is and not actually having an answer for them. First step, find the venue, whether its the ceremony location or the reception location, which ever is more important to you – start there. Once you’ve found avenue see what dates are available for the month you like. Not sure what month? Let the weather man decide for you, check average temperatures for the previous years so you get an idea of what it will be like. Make a tentative booking for your now chosen date! I will go into a little bit more detail about the reception and ceremony planning and organization in another blog post as it is quite the hot topic, I will be doing a Hamilton Island Weddings review.

The next most important thing to do is photographer, it may seem to early but they get booked up very quickly. Make sure you read their packages very carefully, check the duration they will be with you – some finish right after you arrive at the reception but you may want the cutting the cake and first dance photos. Before booking always ask if you can do a free engagement shoot so you can see first hand how their style of photos will look and you get a little practice run so you’ll be more relaxed on the day. Our photographer was exceptional, great value and the photos are to die for, we cannot recommend Millyjane Photography enough.

Now call me crazy but it is never too early to go wedding dress shopping. I had my dress in the cupboard for a year before our wedding, while it did come in 6 months early i’m so glad that it was there and I didn’t have to worry about it. The more time you have on your side, the more variety you have to choose from. A lot of wedding dresses can take 6 months to arrive and these are usually the more value for money. If they have to rush to get it in, you will have less choice and it will cost more. When I picked my dress I ordered it to fit me at that moment, I didn’t realize at the time that I would loose 8kg and 20 cm! However, its always better to have it taken in rather than let out, when taken in it will fit you like a glove. My dress was from White Lily Couture and the alterations were done per their recommendation at Ella Moda.

Your bridal party aka the back bone to your sanity. Choose very carefully. Did you know that one in five brides (21 per cent) would drop at least one of their bridesmaids from the bridal party. They say that you should wait until 3 months before the wedding to pick your bridesmaids. I too had some dramas and in hindsight I would make my choices differently but isn’t that always the case? 

Stationery, feel free to send out your Save The Dates as soon as you have your venue 100% booked. People like to start saving and planning, plus it will stop them from bugging you so much. I had a whole lot of trouble deciding on my stationery, it’s quite expensive and there’s so much choice. After lots of googling and putting it off we ordered ours from Vistaprint.  We actually got really lucky because they had a big 40% off sale for 1 night only and I had a 20% off coupon as well so they worked out very cheap.

Weight loss. Now I know everyone says they want to loose weight for their wedding day but if your serious about it, its never too soon to start. Your deadline is not your wedding day, it is the date of your dress fitting. I cannot recommend clean eating enough it just does wonders for your body, so check out the meal/ fitness plans by Ashy Bines or Emily Skye. We did Emily’s 30 day Ab Shred diet for 3 months leading up to the wedding plus 4-5 cardio sessions at the gym a week. One month before my dress fitting I did some PT sessions at my gym, this with the clean eating really made a big difference to my body. As I said I lost 8 kg and 20cm from my stomach alone. Okay this did take 6 months to achieve but I strongly believe that the clean eating really knocked off the cm’s, I was at the smallest I’d been since high school and so proud that I reached my goal. The only downside was that my wedding dress had to be cut down 2 sizes by the alterations lady but that’s still kind of a positive.

So I think that’s pretty much the extent of the big decisions. There’s just other million things left like the flowers, shoes, hair, makeup, decorations, wedding rings, celebrant/ priest, caterers, beverages, suits etc. but a lot of that you can discuss with your venue co-ordinator as they will have preferred suppliers.

Speaking of venue/ wedding co-ordinators, if one is provided to you make sure are very honest and upfront with what you want. Don’t be afraid to go Bridezilla if its called for, after your wedding day you will never need to deal with them again. What’s worse; regret from yelling at someone you will never see again, or regret from your wedding not being what you wanted/ asked for. I’m not saying be nasty, just make sure you are all on the same page. And make sure that everything is backed up in writing, so if you have a meeting either in person or by phone, send a follow up email outlining what was discussed. I know it sounds like a pain, but you will be thanking me when they forget something important that you had vocalized numerous times. 

Changing your name. If you want to change your last name, you will need to take your wedding certificate which has your signatures on it from the ceremony and apply through council for a “Marriage Certificate”. Once this arrives in the mail you will need to take this with various other documents (depending on the company) and apply individually for them to change your name. It is a very long, silly and painful process but once its done you just have to remember to sign with your new name. Drivers License, passport, your bank, medicare, superannuation, ATO, phone company, electricity/ gas, your house, facebook, instagram, twitter… etc etc.

Honeymoon!!!! The best part to plan. If you have decided that you cant go on your big honeymoon straight after the wedding I would still highly recommend you go somewhere afterwards. Weddings are very stressful, it consumes such a huge part of your daily life. Plus the actual day its self is huge so make sure you take a couple days away, even if its 1hr away at a hotel, trust me, you will need it. We initially planned to go to the Cook Islands but half way through booking it was getting over budget so we wore the cancellation fees and booked a trip to Cancun MEXICO! Best decision EVER. Oh my word it is paradise over there. We stayed at Le Blanc and words cannot describe how phenomenal it is. The beaches, the sand, the service, the food, the alcohol, oh and its all inclusive, a term that I will forever search for when booking holidays. For those of you that haven’t experience “all inclusive” .. picture this… you arrive at your resort and all of your meals at the restaurants are free, all of the drinks and alcohol is free, room service is free, the mini bar is free, service by the pool is free.. do you catch my drift? True happiness.

I know this sounds like a lot and you will feel very overwhelmed but at the end of the day you are married and will only have to go through this once. So try to enjoy the experience because it will be over before you know it.