Elevating your Experience
Make the most of your planning experience.
As soon as you begin, planning a wedding can seem like it’s going to be a bit overwhelming, but it shouldn't have to be. There are so many things you can do to make the most of your planning experience. First of all, if you are planning to marry the right person, you’ll have a great partner throughout the process. Wedding planning can be a lot of fun for the both of you, especially if you make it fun. Here are some cool ideas on how you can make your wedding planning experience a little easier, and a little more fun.
Picking your Venue and setting a date.
This is perhaps the first and most important step in the whole entire planning process. Your venue will need to embody the emotion and experience of what you envision for your wedding day. It will also need to accommodate your favorite friends and family. And it will also need to be available on the date you want. The best venues book about 18 to 24 months in advance, so keep that in mind when picking your venue. Yes, about a year and half to two years of an engagement. While that may seem like a long time, here’s an idea on how to prolong the romance of the engagement. Once you’ve picked the venue and your date, plan a date night every month on the same day as your wedding. Maybe even make a whole day of it by checking off some things on your wedding planning checklist at the same time. When you get to one month out, consider the timely tradition of burying the bourbon upside down at your ceremony site. It brings good luck and supposedly keeps the rain away.
Picking your Vendors.
The next step in the planning process is finding your dream team. Find a team of vendors that you are going to enjoy working with throughout the entire process. These are the folks that will be with you every step of the way, so make sure they are someone you want to have a beer with (or an entire bottle of wine) when it’s all said and done. When selecting your vendors, make a priority list and then book your vendors accordingly. In our experience, the vendors that tend to get booked just after the venue are planners (often times before the venue), photographers, entertainers, caterers, etc. Plan on booking your most important vendors about 12 to 18 months in advance. And when you’re trying to figure out which vendors you like most, do your research, and get to know them. Schedule a call with them (maybe a video call) and ask questions. What kind of services do they offer, what are they about, are they involved in the community, what do they do in their free time? Yes, it's totally ok to get personal with your vendors. Remember, you’re going to be working with them for over a year, so make friends with them. And once you have your core vendor dream team selected, have them all join you at the venue for a walk-through. Make it fun and share a beverage with all of them. Not only will this make the experience that much more enjoyable, but it will also get all of your vendors on the same page so everything runs that much more smoothly on your wedding day. This could also coincide with that one month out thing we talked about with bourbon.
Picking your Wedding party, and guests.
So you’ve got your gorgeous venue and you’ve got your dream team of vendors. Now’s the time to plan the details. One of the most important details is who you want standing next to you when you say yes to forever. Whether it be siblings or besties, these are your ride or die’s. These are the people that made bad decisions with you at some point, or also helped you make some really good decisions, some hard choices. That’s your wedding party. And then there’s the folks you’ve partied with throughout the years, the ones that you’ve formed awesome relationships with, or worked with For. Ev. Er. These are the folks you plan on finding on the dance floor all night long. And then there are the ones you love. Your favorite aunt, your not-so-favorite aunt, the fun uncle, the crazy cousins, and your beloved grandparents. These are the folks that you have known all your life and you can’t wait to have them there when you say your vows. Big or small, make sure you invite the folks that are going to help you have the wedding day experience you want.
Finalizing everything.
About a month out, you had that walk-through with your wedding vendor dream team, clinked a few glasses of wine, and are in the final stretch. You pretty much have most of the details planned, now you just need to dot the I’s and cross the T’s. Seating charts. This is perhaps the hardest thing you’ll do, maybe. If you don’t have a wedding planner to help you with this, consider inviting over your wedding party for dinner and making it a fun selection process, like draft day. Once wedding week arrives, finalize everything with your wedding vendors, go over questionnaires to make sure everything is completed, and let your venue (or planner) know when the vendors and wedding party will be arriving. For those core vendors, consider meeting up with them in person if possible and grabbing one last drink before the big day. If you’ve become good friends with them by this point, you are going to appreciate how much just meeting up with them helps slow down the moment. Because that’s the name of the game, this whole thing is going to blow by so fast, you have to find ways to slow it down. You have to have a little bit of fun, to make the most of your planning experience, and of your wedding day.
Cheers!
Matthew Davey is the owner of Bow Tied Weddings, a Luxury Wedding DJ service that operates in all of the Southeast. Follow them on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest at @bowtiedweddings.