Wedding season is just around the corner, and plenty of us have given or received a shiny new engagement ring (or are planning on it next month). The next step is clear, but daunting: How on Earth do I start planning a wedding? As someone who’s just been through that territory, believe me, the wedding planning process is scary territory. Lots of big words and even bigger numbers get thrown around like they’re nothing, and you’ll have more contracts than you’d like staring you down on a daily basis.
However planning a wedding doesn’t need to be scary whatsoever! Here are 3 wedding planning tips to help alleviate some of that stress, and get your ducks in line.
1.Have a conversation with your partner about what exactly you both are looking for.
By this point, I’m sure you’ve already laid out exactly what you’ve always wanted in your dream wedding, and have already had plenty of conversations with your partner about it. But this isn’t a fantasy anymore, it’s reality! So now is the time to sit down and have a full, realistic conversation about what exactly you want on your special day, and how you can achieve it.
Don’t forget that there are two of you! There certainly is a stereotype in place that in a typical couple, the wife dreams up the whole scenario while her husband is just along for the ride – and there’s nothing wrong with that – but now’s the time to remember that both you and your partner are sharing this wedding ceremony together.
Make sure that both of you are getting what you want out of your ceremony, whether that has to do with size, food, music, or anything else you can think of. Just make sure that both of you are happy with your ideas. This part might be somewhat stressful, but if you’re thorough about your conversation, then the next part will work so much better.
I know this sounds like a no brainer, but think of this as a meeting with an agenda. You have something to accomplish with this meeting, and you’re gonna need this next tip to make sure that it’s beneficial.
2.Get documentation together
Write down everything that you talked about together, and I don’t just mean a notebook. Get everything together on their own spreadsheets, have checklists of what needs to get done, and collect contact information of the venues and vendors you’re looking at.
I recommend organizing your documentation into a guest spreadsheet with columns organizing names, contact information, and other data that you might want (and even color coding them if you want to go a step further). Put together a playlist of some music that you both like and whittle that down to something that works, have a tier list of the venues and vendors that you’ve looked at.
I recommend putting together a spreadsheet like this that you can use to cross check your different venues to put a visual to how valuable your different choices are to you and what you want!
3.Envision and prepare for your best and worst case scenarios
This last tip is especially important right now: there’s a lot in the air for large gatherings at the moment, there may be unknown circumstances that pop up weeks or even days before the big day, so have a backup plan ready in case things go south. Whether it’s the health of your guests, or an unexpected turn of the weather, there are so many factors that go into planning a wedding that it’s only wise to prepare for multiple scenarios.
One way you can prepare is to put together 2 guest lists, one is the full count of everyone that you want at your wedding, and the other is a smaller, more stripped down version of your guest list that consists primarily of essential guests, like immediate family and the bridal/grooms parties.
And finally:Have fun! Remember, this is YOUR wedding, if you don’t like how something is shaping up for it, you can cross it out!
And if you’re shopping for your venue, why not consider the Berlin Resort in your search? We have plenty of venues, both indoor and outdoor, and of various sizes that we’re sure you can find the space you’re looking for here! And the cost of such a nice venue may surprise you!
Email our events coordinator at [email protected], and we’ll be right there to make sure we do our part to take the stress away from your special day!
You can also check out our weddings page to see some of what we offer at the Berlin Resort for your countryside wedding, whether it’s big or small, outdoors or indoors.