Set A Budget
Before you begin to plan all of the exciting details of your wedding you should set a strict budget. Even weddings that are not excessively extravagant can be relatively costly. You may be in for a big shock and a little disappointment if you start planning your special day’s wish list before you determine your final budget. Having your budget in place will help you determine which items and services are most important to you and which ones you can go without (1). The average 150 guest wedding is $25,000, and this total may be even higher in urban areas (2). On average the percent allotted to each part of your wedding is a follows:
Source: https://www.theknot.com/content/wedding-budget-ways-to-save-money
Set a Timeline for Planning
The last thing you need is extra stress on your wedding day because you had to rush to get things added or planned last minute. Many wedding guides recommend that you have 12 months of planning time, but don’t worry if you have less time because you can still pull it off (2). Get out a piece of paper and write out a heading for each month you have left between now and the wedding, then start to enter in the things you’re going to work on planning for each month. Things like wedding rental items and reception venues that have to be booked should be included in your first month for planning. Things like wedding gifts and wedding attire can be planned later on in the process.
Bookmarking and Tracking
You’re going to be coming across a ton of information and ideas as you start your wedding planning and it can be easy to lose track of everything. There are a bunch of free wedding planning tools that you can find online but you may find these do it yourself options helpful as well.
- Ready to brush up on your Microsoft Excel skills? Excel (or the free alternative Open Office Calc) is a simple way to track your wish list, and to see how much of your budget has already been spent. Just search for Excel wedding planning template in your favorite search engine and you’ll find a bunch of free templates that you can use in Excel or Open Office Calc.
- Create Pin Boards on Pinterest. You can keep track of all the photos you find online in one easy place. Try creating boards like “Wedding Dress”, “Wedding Venues”, and “Wedding Cakes”. As you come across websites you like, pin a picture to your board so you have a visual bookmark to remind you of your favorite ideas and styles. If a website does not have the “Pin It” button built in you can add an extension to your browser from Pinterest’s website so that you can pin from any site.
Every browser has a bookmark feature. Just create a folder for your wedding and be sure to add your favorite websites to your bookmark folder. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to track down an idea or service you loved when you can’t remember which website you found it on. You can start by bookmarking our website for your wedding rental items 🙂
References
- “How to Plan Your Wedding.” WikiHow. Accessed December 30, 2015. http://www.wikihow.com/Plan-Your-Wedding.
- “Wedding Budget 101.” Theknot.com. Accessed December 30, 2015. https://www.theknot.com/content/wedding-budget-ways-to-save-money.
