So you are getting married, are you? And what’s the first thing to plan for a wedding? Shop for the perfect engagement ring, then plan on how to enjoy the remaining days of your singleness. Plan on how to enjoy and be happy for being engaged. Then button down and start planning for that big day.
Planning a Wedding
Getting married is not an excursion or going off for a holiday. It requires meticulous planning and a commitment that can last a lifetime (though 50% of marriages in the United States end up in divorce). But before going any deeper in your planning activities, ask yourself this question, “what are the steps to planning a wedding?”
Steps to Planning a Wedding
The main wedding plan involves a hundred other things—enough to make your head spin in frustration. Prior to diving into that, here are some preliminaries, apéritifs if you may call them, to whet up your appetite:
Buy a journal
This is to keep track of the things that will happen in the whole course of your wedding planning. It will also serve as a punching bag (for whatever frustration that may arise), without hitting your husband-to-be.
And for posterity. A journal is a good way to reminisce about those days when you changed your status.
Set a wedding date
This is one of the most important elements of your wedding plan and the first thing people ask when you announce the coming event.
Formally announce your engagement
This is the part where you announce to the tiny world around your intention to tie the knot.
This is easy these days with the proliferation of smartphones, social media, and other modes of electronic information dissemination.
Decide the kind of wedding you want
What kind of wedding do you want? Would it a formal, gala event or the casual kind? Will it be themed, or plain traditional? Is a religious event better for you than a secular one? Will it be on-site or destination?
Of course, these things need to be decided between you and your partner. You can sit down and start writing the pros and cons of each one. Take note, however, that nothing is written in stone at this point. The current pandemic has made employment shaky at best and the possibility of spreading the COVID-19 virus in a crowded environment is as real as ever.
Should you take these things into consideration, it is likely that you may opt for a simple wedding.
Form a guest list
Again, this is co-dependent on the kind of wedding you want. So exercise care. In as much as you want to have a large crowd, you also don’t want to be responsible for a spreader event.
As a guide, the following presentation shows the wedding type, vis-a-vis crowd, in this pandemic era:
- Shift weddings – the guest list can be large, but they come in shifts;
- Micro weddings – the guest list is under 50
- Minimonies – a guest list of 10 and below, mostly close relatives and friends.
Do remember that the success of a wedding does not hinge on the number of people around, but on how the ceremony was conducted and how well-apportioned the reception was. Small is often better.
Make a budget
This is the most crucial factor in your wedding planning. This needs looking into your current finances and your willingness to take a huge portion from it to splurge on your wedding. This part may require seeking assistance from your parents about borrowing.
And this is where having a simple wedding, one that fits perfectly into your budget makes perfect sense. You don’t want to start your married life with a huge debt. Remember that most quarrels between couples center around money or the lack of it.
With the pre-planning steps done, you can now start planning for the meaty part of the upcoming event.
How to Plan a Wedding on a Small Budget
Planning a wedding on a small budget, for practical reasons, is like asking yourself, “how do I plan a simple wedding?
Here’s why…
An average wedding in the US costs about $ 33,900.00—including engagement rings, excluding honeymoon expenses
If you look at it pragmatically, this amount:
- can buy a brand new car
- can be a downpayment for an apartment
- is more than a lot of Americans earn in a year
So you might want to whittle down your expenses a bit and opt for a simple wedding. Then you are faced with a possible $ 8,850 price tag—good for 50 people and below (depending on the state, of course).
Don’t feel let down with this kind of wedding. With the current employment uncertainty and the specter of COVID-19 looming over people’s shoulders like an unshakeable shadow, more and more couples are opting for this minimalist kind. Other than these two reasons, here are more:
- money spent for a large wedding can best be used somewhere else
- breaking with traditions. Millennials think differently and they want to do things differently, too.
- large weddings take longer to plan while a simple wedding is a shop-and-go type.
- give the newlyweds the time for everyone—not possible in a large gathering.
- it removes the frills from traditional weddings like rehearsal dinner or pre-ceremony activities and allows the couple to focus on what’s important to them—togetherness.
How to Plan for a Simple Wedding
First of all, weddings are anything but simple. More than the physical preparations to be made, you must be psychologically resolute to get married. And you make that decision when you get engaged. From then on, your mind is already wired for the event, imagining how things would be, making mental plans of the things to do and contingency plans should things not come up as expected.
And when should you start planning a wedding and put it in writing? Experts suggest three months is a good lead time—and it starts with a planning checklist.
When planning a wedding, checklist is needed to make sure you cover all bases concerning your wedding. To make it look less daunting. think of it as a grocery list. It is to make sure you don’t slap your forehead when you get home when you find out that you missed a crucial ingredient for that gorgeous salad you are planning to make.
Don’t make your checklist complicated. Remember you are planning a simple wedding. So keep it simple and short. Here are suggested items that can go into your checklist.
Budget
This should be the most important time in your checklist. Everything else depends on it.
Wedding entourage
Traditional weddings used to have a dozen or more principal sponsors and a platoon of attendants. Keep it simple. Only have the most important people in your life as your supporting cast
Guestlist
Like your wedding entourage, keep it short and simple. Limit it to those who are close to you and your blossom pals.
Invitation cards
They can cost about 4 to 6% of your budget. You can whittle it down by having a close friend design it, and have it printed by the town’s printing shop
Venue
This is discussed later in the article.
Vendors
Florists, caterers, and wedding dresses and jewelry items. Flowers and catering are easy and cheap. It’s the wedding gowns and paraphernalia that are of concern. Instead of a flowing bridal gown with a long train, there are minimalist designs to get ideas from and have it done by an outside seamstress. And the wedding ring? A white gold wedding band, such as the one in this Kay Outlet review will do.
Miscellaneous, but no less important, matters that may surface along the way.
Once your checklist is done, it’s time to unwind. Party with your close friends or go to a quiet and secluded place to ruminate or meditate on the new life you will soon have.
Wedding Planning Tips
As the name implies, a simple wedding on one that is fuss-free, yet memorable. It is something that people may talk about for its uniqueness and simplicity. It is not the most expensive wedding in town, but no less amazing.
Here are a few tips to make that happen:
Have an A-list, not just a guest list
While a huge crowd of a hundred or more may look impressive, but is ungainly and difficult to manage. Whittle it down to those who really mean a lot to you both; people who are personally dear to you.
Plus, the fact that a shorter guest list is cheaper.
Get a planner or coordinator
Even if you’ve got everything down pat after all those planning, you possibly cannot have everything under control. Only an extra pair of experienced eyes, and hands, can do that. So if you have a friend who can handle such matters, great. Consider it her wedding gift.
Otherwise, get a professional wedding planner or coordinator.
Choose a venue that requires less re-doing
A beach, a park, or your backyard are great places to have a simple wedding. They require less re-decoration. Nature has taken care of that.
They are cool, with lots of natural beauty around.
Have the reception in the same place as the ceremony
This will save a lot of time in moving about and minimizes transportation hassle among the attendees. Plus, the added bonus of having the housekeeping in one place.
Arrange an “all-inclusive” arrangement with the venue
An all-inclusive arrangement with the venue means your booking includes unlimited food, drinks, and entertainment without having any surprise costs.
This saves a lot of time in going about buying additional food items or drinks.
Give your bridal entourage some fashion freedom
Let your wedding make a statement. Instead of having your entourage wear the usual white or pastel colors to assist you in the ceremony, give them the freedom to wear something colorful, something they are comfortable with. And something they can wear again.
They may come in colorful stripes or polka-dots, or any color schemes that suit the occasion. To add more color to the occasion, ask them to wear their birth month jewelry items.
Don’t let the reception drag too long
While there is no hard and fast rule on how long a wedding party would last, it is prudent to set a time cap to avoid seeing it dwindle to a few hardy souls left to celebrate with you.
Work with your coordinator to make sure that the activities are properly choreographed and kept to their timeline. This will make the festivities maintain their momentum. Besides, it assures that you won’t be spending more than your budget.
If there are some people who haven’t gotten the most of it, it is better to take them to your favorite watering hole to party some more.
Discard the unnecessary
While they look gorgeous and grand, but those hand-crafted welcome signs and giveaways are not really necessary to add flavor to the occasions. Nobody really pays attention to those signs and tags pinned on guests and giveaways will just end up in the dumpster.
Avoid these fluffs and whittle a few dollars from your budget.
It’s not a competition
Don’t dampen the spirit of your wedding by thinking about the couple next door who celebrated their destination wedding on a quaint little island in the Bahamas, or your office mate who tied the knot in a little Swiss village.
Think positive and focus on the occasion. Be thankful and grateful for the blessing of an understanding hubby who allows you to have free rein in your relationship.
Make Your Dream Wedding Come True
Weddings always evoke images of a gala event. The bride in her amazing Hayley Paige gown, bedecked with a sparkling wedding ring and her make-up carrying Pat McGrath’s signature. The groom, on the other hand, looks every bit as handsome as his Burberry suit and classy wristwatch. like the one in this Versace review.
Well, except for very rare occasions, things have drastically changed all that, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. It has thrown a monkey-wrench into our lives. Because of the virus, SRO (Standing Room Only) weddings are things of the past. So are destination weddings. In its place are minimalist celebrations that spend a lot less but no less memorable and amazing – as all weddings should be.
Now, if you’re still on the hunt for the ideal wedding band, check out our article “Ring Shopping: What You Need To Remember For Wedding Rings.”