4 Wedding Planning Tips For Couples in Grand Rapids, MI
We see a lot of weddings, as you might have guessed.
And there’s a noticeable difference in the experience had by couples who plan and those who don’t.
Of course, not every couple needs to have a detailed plan, and some prefer things to be as spontaneous and filled with surprises as possible.
However, couples like that are very much in the minority, and if you’re reading an article with a title like this one, you’re probably not one of those couples.
So we’ve put together some wedding planning tips to help you brainstorm, envision, and take the steps you need to make your wedding as hassle-free as possible.
As you’ll find out, reducing hassle and keeping everything consistent with the overall vision is what most wedding planning ultimately comes down to.
Side Note: Apply these same tips when selecting your venue.
1. Create a Budget
Make it realistic, be honest about your finances, and consult with your partner and their family to ensure that you all agree on the budget.
All the ideas and visions in the world won’t matter if you can’t pay for any of them.
See, the thing about ideas is that they’re free and, because of that, you and everyone else around you are probably going to have a lot of them.
However, the problem with ideas is that they often end up being far more expensive or logistically challenging in real life than we think.
That way, you can run every other step through your budget filter to discard any ideas you know you can’t afford before you think too much about them or get too psychologically invested in them.
Don’t Try To Show Off or Make a Decision Alone
There’s nothing wrong with not having as much money as you would like to have.
No matter how much they have, very few people in this world ever have as much as they would like to have.
Your wedding isn’t something to go into massive debt for, and you don’t want to start your new married life in the red just to impress your guests.
Remember that your wedding is a celebration of your marriage.
It should not be something that makes it unnecessarily difficult or stressful for your marriage to start.
We’ve been married ourselves long enough to know that marriage is hard work, and it has plenty of moments that are challenging enough without throwing additional strain and disagreement over finances into the mix.
Set yourself up for success by creating and sticking to a clear and realistic budget that you’ve both agreed on.
2. Don’t Buy Anything Before You’ve Written Your Plan
This kind of piggybacks off the first wedding planning tip we just gave you, but we see issues with it often enough to feel that it’s worth mentioning specifically.
The problem is that many people start buying or signing up for things before they’ve written down and detailed their entire plan.
Naturally, this means that they usually end up spending more money than they either expected or needed to.
Fortunately, there is an easy solution: Write down your entire plan in as much detail as possible before you spend any money on anything.
When you do this, you’ll get a much clearer understanding of what you need and, very importantly, what you don’t need.
You can have a Winter Wonderland-themed wedding without necessarily needing to drop a few grand to have your bar sculpted out of ice.
You can if you want that and you can afford it, but it’s not required.
People were already getting married for thousands of years before ice bars were invented.
Bonus Tip: Ice sculptures are genuinely very cool and, if you want one, you can have a centerpiece custom-made for under $1000.
3. Write Up Your Guest List
Once again, this is related to budgeting.
The fact is that you’ll probably invite more people than will actually show up.
That’s because everyone has their own stuff to handle in life, and they might simply not be able to make it.
They might not be able to get off work, they might have to take care of someone who is sick, or they might not be able to fly across the country to where your wedding is being held.
But you’ll still want to send them an invitation even if you know they can’t make it because it is a gesture showing that you remembered them and that they’re important to you.
You Still Need to Be Ready
While it’s not likely that everyone you invite will actually attend your wedding, they still might.
So, it’s essential to ensure that you can accommodate them if they do.
Be sure that you have enough space, enough chairs, enough food, etc.
In other words, determine whether or not you can afford to host someone before you invite them (even if you’re pretty sure they won’t attend).
4. Hire a Wedding Planner (Optional)
At first glance, this may seem like an added expense that you can do without.
However, one of the primary purposes of any good wedding planner is actually to save you more money than you pay them.
They can help you whittle down your plan or swap out more expensive things for more affordable, but possibly even better alternatives you didn’t know existed.
They can also do most of the legwork, negotiating, and heavy lifting on your behalf.
That way, you can save that time and energy for something else, like working to make more money.
Less Is Often More
Every statistic and academic who studies the topic will tell you that financial issues and disagreements over finances are one of the leading causes of marital strife and breakdown.
That’s why we’ve centered this list of wedding planning tips around budgeting and financing.
And while there’s a lot more we could say on this topic, we hope we’ve sufficiently scratched the surface and gotten you thinking.
Weddings aren’t known for being cheap, but they don’t have to break your bank either.
It’s absolutely possible to have a dream wedding on a budget, and that’s what we’d recommend you try to do.