We are changing gears this week to talk about the actual process of planning your wedding! Wedding planning is overwhelming for most couples for several reasons. First, couples are shopping for services they may never have needed before, like catering and floral design. Secondly, there are long lists of venues and vendors to research and vet. And finally, couples are often working within a budget, without knowing what things cost until they talk to vendors. So this week, I wanted to talk about how to develop a wedding planning checklist based on your priorities.
Why should you develop your wedding planning checklist based on your priorities? And why do this before you start talking to vendors? There are several really strong arguments for doing this work up front:
- Getting your ideal wedding. Setting your priorities in advance ensures that your wedding will include the things that are most important to you.
- Easy decision-making. Knowing what is most important makes decision-making easy. No agonizing over items you don't care about!
- Family buy-in. Prioritizing will help you, your partner, and your family all be on the same page before shopping for vendors. (Wedding planning can lead to some pretty wild family scenarios!)
- Budgeting. Having clear priorities will help you distribute your budget among various vendors on your wedding planning checklist. And if you have a smaller budget, it will also let you to say "no thanks" to low-priority expenses.
- Less stress. Imagine having a wedding planning checklist tailored perfectly for your vision, a realistic budget, and your family on board. You will be able to delegate things easily, make decisions quickly, and get those boxes ticked off!
I hope I've convinced you that determining your priorities is an essential step before you start working from a checklist. After all, why have a wedding planning checklist full of items that you don't think are important? Let's work smarter, not harder! This week, I want to share several tools to help you do just that. I don't have room to share everything here, but this week's free PDF covers:
- What To Prioritize: A full list of vendors and expenses to think about. (Many wedding websites stop here with their "free wedding planning checklist," but frankly, that's not super helpful.)
- How to Prioritize: Three easy-to-use methods for determining your priorities, explained step-by-step. The methods include examples and demonstrate listing, surveying, and priority ranking.
- Priority Ranking Tool: A free, pre-filled spreadsheet that will automatically generate your top priorities, ranked by order of importance!
Helping couples lower their stress is one of my favorite parts of the job! So, this week's resources are a labor of love for me. I'm really excited to share them, because I think they are going to make your planning life a LOT easier! To get all of these free tools and start developing your wedding planning checklist, just enter your e-mail below.
Next week, we will continue talking about wedding planning, but move to the floral side of the equation. I have more great resources and tips for thinking about your floral needs! In the meantime, if you have other questions you would like to see answered, please leave a comment below! And whenever you are ready to talk about your wedding, you can read about our approach to weddings and book a consultation here! Hope you all have a great week!