Tips on Planning Your Own Wedding

Are you planning your own wedding? No event planner, no coordinator? I did too! Planning a wedding can be a full time job when you are doing it on your own. Trust me! I was going to school full time, working full time, applying to graduate schools, and planning my wedding. Lucky for you, I have done it, so I am here to give you my top tips to planning a wedding on your own. Trust me, if I could do it, you can too!

1. Guest List - First and foremost, write out your guest list. This helps you figure out how big/small of a venue you need, what your budget needs to be around (if you are having a large wedding, you will need a bigger budget) *Blog post to come about planning a wedding on a budget.

2. Location - Figure out where you want to have your wedding. Not the venue, but the city/state/country. My husband and I are not currently living in the city we are both from. So we had to plan a wedding from a completely different city, which can be difficult.

3. Budget - Your budget is super important when it comes to planning a wedding. You need to find out what you can afford. DO NOT go into debt from your wedding. That is not the way you want to start your marriage.

4. Write out a timeline - When you write out a timeline of what needs to be done when, you are keeping yourself on track. For example, 6 months out- Cake Tasting, 3 months out- Final Tux and Dress Fitting, etc.

5. Find a venue that provides linens, decorations, caterers,etc. - This will really relieve you of multiple headaches. If your venue has decorations, caterers, and all of that, you do not have to go search for vendors, meet with them, get quotes, make sure your date is available and so on. That process gives me a headache just thinking about it.

6. Don't set your date unless you have a venue- If you set your date and then tour a venue and fall in love with it but your date is gone, you have to change the venue. You want gather a couple of dates you would prefer, then ask the venue you want if they have any of those dates open so you can have the date and venue of your choice.

7. Keep a binder or notebook - Doing this will help you keep track of invoices, receipts, and messages from all vendors and everything in case there is a miscommunication between you and any of them as well.

If you have any questions about planning your own wedding Let me know! I would love to help you!

xoxo, Taylor