Planning your Big Day can be one of the most stressful experiences for a young couple to encounter. Some couples are able to foot the bills themselves, while others have the traditional support of their families when funding their wedding. Either way, expenses can add up quickly!
Whether you use a Wedding Planner or not, Made by Hana – Wedding Planning and Coordination suggests the following 5 money saving tips!
1.Off Season Wedding
May to October is usually the busiest and most expensive time of year for weddings. By considering the option of an off season wedding (November to April), many venues and even some vendors are able to provide discounted rates.
2.Hire Students
We have all been there. There are many eager students looking for experience in their field, who are willing to offer services at a discount rate or even free! Everything from photography to apprentice bakers are out there and willing to get the experience.
3.Wedding Attire
Wedding attire is known to have hefty price tags, but when considering other options, it can be a breeze! Sample sales, off the rack selections and even rentals, are becoming more and more popular. Make sure to start early and take your time looking around to find the perfect fit!
4.Flowers
Flowers can add up quickly. Consider the option of shopping at big box grocery stores such as Costco and keeping flowers in the fridge. This should only be done the day before the wedding or the morning of the wedding to make sure they are as fresh as possible.
5.Bridal Shows
Many vendors who attend bridal shows, often offer Show Specials for attendees. Search places like Groupon for discounted tickets to shows and when attending the shows, make sure to collect information from each of the vendors you are interested in.
We took a look at some of the most popular wedding checklists published, and we counted over 80 individual items that need to be completed with planning a wedding! And if your fiancé is anything like my husband, he will complete about 1 of those 80 items!
Reducing your stress during wedding planning is one of the best things you can do for your overall physical and mental health. So get your fiancé to lighten the load! Here are our top 4 suggestions for sharing wedding tasks that we promise your fiancé can handle:
1) Compile a list of his family and choose his groomsmen. This sounds simple and straightforward, that being said it may take a little prodding to get this completed. To help make sure this is done in time, make sure you give him hard deadlines of when you need a rough list and when the final list needs to be ready.
2) Plan the rehearsal dinner. Trust me, you have enough to do with planning the wedding. Let your fiancé and his parents take care of the rehearsal dinner. If you have specific dreams of ideas for the rehearsal dinner, let your fiancé know before he begins planning. Or, do what I did and sit back and enjoy the venue tours and food tasting, and only be responsible for helping make the final decision.
3) Confirm and book items that you have already agreed upon. This could include the wedding transportation for guests, booking the wedding band or DJ, wedding officiant, or booking hotel room blocks. Your time should be spent perusing wedding inspiration on Pinterest…not confirming things that have previously been decided.
4) Make sure guests know your wedding weekend details. Many couples use beautifully printed weekend itineraries, mass emails, or group texts to get this information out. Printed information is expensive and easily lost, group texts require you to be texting during your wedding weekend (which is no fun!), and mass emails get lost in your guest’s mailboxes. The best and most cost-effective solution to this problem is WedTexts!
WedTexts is the easiest way to communicate with your wedding guests. Our website (or app) allows engaged couples to pre-schedule helpful reminders to be sent to their wedding guests for every wedding event. Unlike other wedding apps, there is nothing for wedding guests to download! If your guests can receive a text message, you can be sure they are kept in the loop for every event.
After creating your free Wedtexts account, ask your fiance to manage your account! It’s one of the easiest things he can do to help reduce the stress surrounding your wedding weekend. And your guests will thank you too!
About the author: Kelly is a co-founder of WedTexts.
It is common courtesy to RSVP, whether you will be attending a wedding or not. There is a purpose to it, as it helps the couple make their wedding plans accordingly. However, a last-minute cancellation not only results in money being wasted and seating arrangements threw off but is plain inconsiderate.
As a guest, if you are not sure that you will attend the wedding, it is polite to inform the couple of this. Mention that you will confirm at a later date, and make sure you do. It isn’t right to expect them to accommodate you at the last minute when they have already planned the final details of the wedding. On the same note, it isn’t right to tell them that you will be attending and then just throwing their plans off.
Every bride has good intentions when she starts planning her wedding. You envision a beautiful day, surrounded by your family and friends, bridesmaids in beautiful dresses bursting with happiness and taking in all of the gorgeous details. No bride ever anticipates the pressure that can come with planning such an important day, but it’s inevitable. Everybody feels stressed at some point during their daily lives, and adding wedding planning to your already busy life can be overwhelming.
Remember that you set the tone for the wedding day and the months leading up to it. Those around you will feed off of your energy and if you are stressed, they will feel stressed. Starting off on the right track will not only keep your stress to a minimum but the stress of the people around you as well.
So how do you get from engaged to I do without losing your mind? Here are some tips for feeling calm and balanced during the wedding planning process.
Photo Courtesy of http://www.weddingdaystory.com/
Have a Plan
The best way to avoid any stress during wedding planning is to start off with a good plan. You and your fiancé must first decide on the type of wedding you’d like to have. Discuss the options with your parents as their input often comes into play as well. If you don’t have a wedding planner, you will be on your own to create a budget plan and wedding planning timeline for the months leading up to your wedding. These are very important! Make this your first step before moving forward.
Create a Realistic Budget
The budget is the number one cause of arguments and stress during the wedding planning process. You have to discuss the budget with your fiancé and anyone else that will be contributing to the wedding – come up with a number that works for everyone and stick to it. Be honest and don’t purchase anything that is over budget without discussing it with your fiancé. Prices vary from city to city, so you might have to do some research to see what average wedding costs are in your area.
Stay Healthy
Eating well and exercising has been proven to reduce stress. Physical activity creates endorphins and improves your mood, while a balanced diet can provide the necessary vitamins and minerals that help reduce stress levels. As little as thirty minutes of exercise three times a week will make a huge difference. A few easy changes to your diet like drinking more water, eating more fruits and vegetables, and cutting out fast food will give you the natural defenses you need to combat stress.
Find Your Happy Place
This is my favorite and most beneficial tip I can give any bride. We all deal with stress at some point, so you need to find that one thing you can turn to when things get out of control. Whether it’s reading, or getting a massage or pedicure, yoga, or even if it’s just locking yourself in your bedroom to meditate for five minutes – find something that works for you. When things get too stressful, you are prepared and can automatically turn to your happy place. You’ve heard that expression ‘Just sleep on it’. When you come back from your happy place, you might realize the problem wasn’t even that bad after all, or you’ll come back with the mental focus to face the problem head-on and deal with it.
Be Grateful
This will also be a big year for your parents, siblings, close friends, and family. They will be asked to throw bridal showers and engagement parties, purchase bridesmaid dresses, and take some of their time away from their personal lives to help with the planning of your wedding. Be patient and grateful, and make sure to include everyone in the planning process. Often the root of all family issues stems from someone not feeling like they’ve been heard or appreciated. Family dynamics are a part of every wedding, and this can be stressful when everyone has their own ideas and suggestions and insists on providing their opinions. So patience, forgiveness, and a small thank-you note or a loving hug can go a long way in keeping everyone happy during this time.
Know It Won’t Be Perfect
Let go of the idea that everything has to be perfect. Perfection is impossible to achieve and puts far too much pressure on brides. Every bride wants their day to go perfectly, but I can tell you this, your day will NOT be perfect. Little things will happen that you can’t anticipate, plans may not run exactly to schedule, and people will not always behave or react how you would like them to. In the end, your wedding day will be the perfect day FOR YOU. Have some perspective and appreciate all the good things about the day.Move forward knowing that there will be some bumps in the road, and you will feel less stress when you look at it that way instead of trying to pull off the impossible.
Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff
It can be easy to let your emotions take over when things don’t go how you want them to, especially for the most important day of your life. But if the napkins aren’t the exact color you wanted, or your bridesmaid orders the wrong shoes, or some wording gets mixed up on the invitations – remember there are worse things in life that can happen. Be thankful for the opportunity to be planning such a joyous celebration in the first place. Causing unnecessary drama will only create bad energy for your day.
Have Fun
This is supposed to be fun! If wedding planning is starting to feel more like a job, then you really have to take a step back and re-evaluate. Maybe you need some extra help – wedding planners can step in at any stage of the planning process to take over if you are feeling too overwhelmed or stressed out. Talk to your fiancé and your family – don’t be afraid to delegate some of the jobs so that you aren’t doing it all on your own.
Remember, if the bride is happy, everyone is happy. You set the tone and energy for your wedding day and the months of planning. Making an effort to stay calm and stress-free is important to a memorable wedding planning experience. Otherwise, you could become overwhelmed and turn into the dreaded Bridezilla, which no bride (or those close to her) wants.
– Tammy is a wedding planner, author, and the curator of TheWeddingGuru.ca – a wedding blog offering guidance and inspiration for the balanced bride.
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