Congratulations!! This is such an exciting time – and rightfully so! You’re on the cusp of your next greatest (and possibly tumultuous) adventure: WEDDING PLANNING! Ha! You thought I was going to say marriage…

No but seriously, wedding planning can be exactly what you make of it! I am no frills, low fuss, calm and just go with the flow – so naturally wedding planning for me was not hard. I actually thoroughly enjoyed it because I didn’t stress over the details. My not-so-secret weapon – I hired a wedding planner. Ladies & gentlemen, if you don’t read anything else beyond this point, know that my NUMBER ONE piece of advice to you is hire a wedding coordinator/planner. They are worth every penny and the reason that your event could be a banging party or a bust.

He/She will keep you & your wedding party on schedule, all of your vendors on track, assist guests, prevent breakdowns, maybe even bring an emergency kit equipped with a hot glue gun!! The list goes on… I didn’t want to leave any of these responsibilities to my friends or family, I wanted them all to enjoy this day as much as I did. Hands down one of my favorite vendors from our wedding day!

My SECOND and almost equally important tidbit is hire a professional photographer with a proven track record. I don’t mean hire me (but I would be honored and elated if you did), I just mean don’t hire your mom’s friend just because he/she offered to do it for free or a deeply discounted rate. It makes me so incredibly sad when a bride tells me her uncle photographed her wedding and she only got one good photograph that she likes. I don’t know about you, but I wanted a lot of photos of my wedding day. Because let’s be honest – as an honorary member to the party, the day FLIES by and you don’t get to see everything! Hire a professional that not only you trust, but you love their art & personality. This might be weird, I don’t know, but I have our wedding photos everywhere! We got married in 2017 and one of our photos is STILL the background on my phone. Don’t go bankrupt over your wedding, but plan to spend a little more on your photographer to make sure you have photos you’re going to love the rest of your life. This is totally cliche but it’s so true – these memories, moments, details, are PRICELESS.

My third and FINAL golden nugget that I’ll leave here for you is create a new e-mail address specifically for your wedding! So many of my friends recommended this to me after we got engaged and it was definitely one of the best decisions we made! Haha! After attending bridal fairs, signing up for various contests, messaging vendors, and all the general advertising you receive – it was SO nice to be able to keep it all separate from “real” life. Then once the wedding was over, we stopped using it! We didn’t keep getting e-mails we no longer needed and it was the end of the wedding planning chapter! I’m definitely one of those people that doesn’t like to have unread e-mails so this was a huge stress reliever. Also, my hubby wanted to see e-mails too since he enjoyed planning as much as I did, so it was easy to have us both logged in to answer questions or respond to emails as needed. Thank you to the friends that made this suggestion!! (AND, if you plan to go to a bridal fair and leave your information with vendors, type your info on a return address label, print, and all you have to do is peel and stick at the show! Include your name, phone, email and wedding date.)

I hope this was helpful to all of you! If you have any questions for me, please don’t hesitate to reach out! Is there anything else that would be helpful to you, another topic you’d like me to cover? Leave a comment below 💖 xo