Photo credit: Amy Sampson Photography
Table of Contents
Introduction: Successful Wedding planning
Successful wedding planning can be stressful mainly due to the amount of choice on offer and advice that is offered to you. If you remember my three top tips I believe the wedding planning process will be what it should be ….. fun, memorable and exciting.
You will be surprised that none of these tips mention styling, choosing a venue, décor or dresses or any of the trappings associated with weddings. Furthermore, you might be surprised to read, considering I am a wedding celebrant, that they do not concentrate entirely on the ceremony itself, though they do form a part of it.
What can I say? As a wedding celebrant, that’s really all I am really interested in, ….. YOU!
Let’s Build Foundations
If you follow my top 3 tips for successful wedding planning they will provide you with a foundation upon which all the other details will slot into. From the catering to the styling, get the foundations right and these will be a piece of cake. The foundations will help alleviate the sense of being overwhelmed and stressed, feelings that so often come with wedding planning..
So here goes …… 3 top tips to successful wedding planning
Photo credit: Maryanne Weddings
1. Successful Wedding Planning : Take Your Time
First and foremost let’s remember what’s just happened. You have only gone and got blooming engaged! You are getting married! Be excited, enjoy, celebrate, but then be patient; collect your thoughts.
Once the dust has settled take time to pause and really think about what you are doing. It’s so exciting, but the reality is that you are preparing for the next chapter, a different chapter, in both your lives together. Your marriage. So now’s the time to really thing about what it means to you. What are your values? What’s important to you? This is vital, as the answers to both questions will provide you with the foundations upon which the rest of your successful wedding planning will be built.
So many couples are too keen to jump in to full-on wedding planning without having properly thought through what they really want. What the actual marriage means to them, what their wedding means to them.
So top tip number 1 is decide what is important to you within your marriage and then apply the same principles to your decision making for successful wedding planning. I promise it will make all the choices much easier.
Photography credit: DHw Photography
2. Successful Wedding Planning – Research
So now you have stopped, thought, contemplated and percolated. You now know what your vision is for this great day. Now is the time to research.
I cannot emphasise how important this phase is in successful wedding planning. You really are on a voyage of discovery. The likelihood is that neither of you will have done this before. But, having given yourselves space and time to really think about what you want to achieve (tip number 1), you will ensure that your wedding represents the very best version of yourselves. No-one else’s, just yours!
The first decisions should be where and who is going to marry you. Do you want a religious or non religious wedding? If it’s church easy peasy! If it’s non religious then there is another decision to be made. Is your focus on the legal marriage or the wedding itself? They are two different things.
Your research will tell you that in fact you have a choice for a non-religious wedding. You don’t have to include the legal, stifling, restrictive wording within your wedding. Indeed, you can keep it entirely separate, thereby giving you the freedom to reflect all your values and beliefs within your wedding ceremony. This makes it authentically you, and not generic and frankly boring. You need a celebrant! This link will take you to how the process works.
Photo credit: Hannah Barnes Photography
Equally if having all your friends and families witness you sign the legal contract of marriage is important then that’s the type of ceremony you should go for and a registrar will do the job very well for you.
Without research, this type of information would have passed you by.
Good research is invaluable for choosing all your wedding suppliers, whether that be the venue, wedding celebrant, caterer, photographer, florist or planner. As Albert Einstein so eloquently put it “if we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research would it?”
The sheer volume of choice and information is enormous. You need to be well informed but not crippled by it, that’s the key to successful wedding planning. If you stick to what’s important to you both, those foundations that you laid before you started your planning will help enormously.
Don’t allow yourselves to waste time researching areas that are not important to you. Don’t allow yourselves to be swayed. You won’t want people ‘trying to be helpful’ (interfering in other words) in your marriage, don’t allow it in your wedding planning.
3. Successful wedding planning – enjoy the moment
When the day finally comes strive for the experience rather than the expectation. Be in the moment. You are a couple in love who have decided to make the ultimate commitment to each other. It is so easy to get caught up in all the details of the reception but your work is done. With successful wedding planning you have researched and chosen some great suppliers. They will take care of everything on the day, so you can enjoy.
The ceremony is probably the shortest element of your day but actually also the most important and significant and it will go by in a flash. Therefore, my top tip, number 3, is to take it all in. If you are the groom, awaiting your bride, be sure to soak up the atmosphere and the excitement whilst you wait. If you are the bride, take a deep breath and take your time as you walk the aisle. Milk it for all its’ worth.
Absorb every single moment, whether that be the feeling of each other’s hands, when you say your vows, or your first look at one another.
Don’t forget that you have gathered all your friends and families together to witness this event. Look around and bathe in the warmth, joy and love that will be emanating from them. It really is a unique moment, one that will never happen again. Indeed for this reason, at the end of my ceremonies, I sometimes include some words that will give you that important time to reflect. It’s a magical and a once in a lifetime moment, gone in a jiffy.
And then finally when the ceremony is over, you have walked back down the aisle as a married couple. Have a few minutes of private time before you head into the foray of your reception. It is time for the two of you to take in what you have just done and share your thoughts, your feelings, your excitement for what lies ahead, not only at the amazing reception that you have planned so brilliantly, but also the new chapter of your lives – your marriage.
If you would like to talk about your wedding ceremony plans click on the link.
