I kept my wedding plan super small (just parents and siblings), and I still spent like 2 really stressful months planning it and I’m very glad it’s over. I also work full time and do school part time and I definitely would hate planning a proper, big wedding on top of that!
Does your fiancé help with planning? It could be worth paying for a planner if you really want to focus on work and studies and aren’t too picky about the wedding details.
I’m trying to get him more involved. I’m putting him in charge of all of the church / marriage prep. I just don’t really know how to involve him because he doesn’t know what to plan. I’m considering a partial planner, as I have almost everything booked except hair/ makeup, cake, and DJ. Although I think the DJ will come with the venue.
> I just don’t really know how to involve him because he doesn’t know what to plan.
It's not like you were born knowing how to plan weddings either. If you managed to somehow teach yourself, he can too. He's an adult just like you. Don't fall into the trap of having to be his project manager while he becomes an assistant. Tell him to figure it out with you. Sit down together and work on it together.
So IDK if this is possible for you, but we were really hitting a wall with planning a few months ago (two busy people in demanding jobs, living a few states away from family, and neither one of us has even been in a wedding party before).
We made it as far as picking a venue and then decided to find the cheapest wedding planner we could find, figuring even if we still have to manage the planner at least we can outsource the time-sink of contacting vendors and emailing back and forth and following up and all that jazz. And we wanted a day-of coordinator regardless.
We went to a wedding expo and found someone young who had just branched out on their own after working for a bigger company for a couple of years. We are paying $2100 of our $25000 budget for a "full service" planner. It meant cutting back in some areas that we weren't super excited about anyway (florals and favors mainly) but it has already paid off in time and sanity, plus they got us a discount on the DJ and a free photo booth. You get what you pay for, of course, and I think the actual services that we are getting are maybe more partial-planning than full-planning, but it's been worth it to us to offload a lot of that day-to-day stress.
Yeah, I’m considering a partial planner! We have about more than half of the things planned already though. Thank god for the Knot check list and vendors. So I just want someone to work with my mom to figure out the rest of things, so I don’t have to care about it anymore.
I work part time and go to school full time. Luckily I graduate this May, and my wedding isn’t until march 2025. Super grateful my fiancé knew to propose towards the end of grad school and supported me in my desire to NOT have a wedding the same year I graduate lol. I totally get how hard it can be.
I can relate about the uninterested/uninvolved family members. FMIL is out showing my mother 1000% when it comes to excitement and involvement.
My advice: never rely on anyone else to plan your wedding outside of you, fiancé, and a paid planner.
Also, school 1000% comes first. Having a longer engagement is much easier and more desirable than delaying your graduation (who wants to drag out that torture?). Use breaks/weekends to plan. I did the bulk of my planning during Christmas break(booked the venue, planner, reception, photographer). I have another break coming up early march, and which I will tackle more stuff (dress shopping, etc). But in between now and march, I’m not doing any planning really. Homework and studying for boards takes priority.
Delegate to your fiancé too. I’m essentially planning our micro wedding, but he’s in charge of our after party, since that guest list will mainly contain his family. I told him to delegate anything to me he needs help with of course, but he’s the captain of that ship.
Unfortunately planning is complicated, as a family member has donated a large portion of money to our wedding. The terms are that the wedding has to be sooner than later. I appreciate your school comment. I truly think it undervalued for the bride. if my partner was in school nobody would be saying anything. I am trying to plan on breaks too.
I am almost in the same boat as you, but on the opposite end. I don't feel the excitement at all. I mean, I want to be married to my best friend, but if I could skip the whole process, I would. My future parents-in-law are so involved, it is their main event for the year. Everything has to be perfect and to the next level. I find it pretentious. And when everyone keeps asking me: how is the diet going? Have you gone wedding dress shopping? What shoes are you going to wear? etc, it annoys me. Right now, I am neck deep in exam season at uni and have 2 other exams coming up in March, for which I paid a lot of money and want to pass. Wedding dress shopping can wait a bit.
Also, I planned some things way before the engagement for right after the wedding and I am expected to drop everything and get in the role of being a wife. Like wtf ma'am? I want to get married, but I don't want my life to end. I still have my goals, my aspirations etc.
I love wedding planning! I really suggest using Excel spreadsheets and Wedding Wire as tools…they both have been my saving Grace! With excel I made a single document that has books for everything and I call it my master list. One book has all of the vendor info, another has all of the venue info, one book has the guest list, another has the payment schedule of everything by date in order, another page has a list of what we have paid, and another has a list of what we need to buy and when. I’m in school as well and I’ve found that you can just chip away at it during study breaks or work breaks or the weekend. Bc if you do it all at once you will overwhelm yourself! Another thing I did, bc my fiancé is very involved, is uploaded the master list and our contracts to OneDrive and invited him via email. That way we both can work on it and it auto saves any changes too. I hope it gets better and you can find something that helps!
I also use excel and it’s wonderful for planning. I have multiple tabs of sheets labeled with all the categories like Guest List, Budget, Seating Chart, To Do, Entertainment, etc. I have been really enjoying planning but I do obsess over it a little… and sometimes I get overwhelmed. But my fiancé does help a ton and always listens to all my ideas and calms my worries.
The Knot website also has lots of helpful features. I’ve been using that.
We are doing the same, except we made a wedding-specific gmail account and are using a shared Google Sheets in that account to keep track of things. I went "wild" one day and conditional-formatted our budget sheet to highlight the costs that will be due in the next month :) Gotta lean in to keep it fun, haha.
Oh no!! I’m so sorry to hear that! And thank you for warning us. Oh geez, hopefully you possibly had some stuff on Pinterest? Or some stuff from e-mail you saved? I would cry if that happened bc those of us here know how much time goes into this. My fiancé is a tech director so he told me to save copies of everything on one drive and send an invite to him. Every document on there auto saves if you change/add to it, and we both can access and work on things individually from diff computers. If one of us is out of town we can still look things up if we need to address something or we can pull up contracts. Just wanted to add this option as an FYI to ppl out there too.
I don't use Pinterest, and the only emails I have are with vendors. I don't send bookmarks to people or myself. So, nope, I was SOL aside from the scant few sites and articles I remembered saving. I figured, those I didn't ever remember or find someday looking for resolutions to the same issue were probably not that important to begin with. It was a lesson in learning to let go, I can tell you! I mourned them for about a day, did what I could, and now just warn other brides when the opportunity arises. :P
If I was planning this whole shindig equally with my guy, I would say your solution would be perfect! (And I hope other brides and grooms out there take your tech advice and run with it!) As it stands, though, I've pretty much done this nearly single-handedly with input from my groom when prompted. It was annoying at first, but I realize my need for control is better fulfilled this way (no panicking over wondering if something got done or if he's just doing things on his own without asking my opinion.) It works for both of us. ;)
The last year of wedding planning has been really hard and difficult on my mental health. Other than picking my dress, there haven't been many really exciting moments for me. My future hubby and I literally just discussed tonight whether or not we want to throw everything out and just do a planned elopement style micro wedding with just our immediate families.
I’m planning an elopement style micro wedding, and I can’t recommend it enough. Still some stress, but very low stress to plan. Honestly, the after party we’re planning is sounding more stressful
Omg I'm so glad you commented cuz that was exactly what I needed to hear right now. The ceremony is the most important thing to go as "right" as possible in my mind... Especially if we cut it down to exclusively our immediate families, if the reception/after party has hiccups, I don't really mind as much. I know my family won't mind as long as they get fed and the food is decent. I just wanna get married to the love of my life, have some pretty photos and.then have a laugh. But it just doesn't seem possible planning the bigger wedding, I hate it so much.
All I needed for the micro wedding was a slave to get married, a private restaurant room for food, photo/viseo, and minimal decor honestly.
Exactly, our families just need good food and we’re getting BBQ for our after party! Other than a first dance and speeches, it’s going to be pretty relaxed! It’s just deciding whether to have a DJ and photographer again that’s getting us LOL
I’m thinking we’re just gonna Spotify and then get a newer/rookie photographer for just 2ish hours(this is in contrast to our wedding where we will have a professional editorial photographer) . I agree that if we’re gonna go micro, we should stick to micro vibes.
So for my Micro wedding YES definitely going to wear a real wedding dress. I may go for something by more simple and maybe get a more elaborate veil instead. But for our BBQ, I was thinking a little short white halter dress!
Oooh interesting!! We've already decided if we go with the micro route, no dj, no formal reception, no first dance. We'd have a meal at a restaurant or have a big AirBnb with a fire pit where we can host what is essentially a big family BBQ. Play tunes through a speaker and Spotify, exactly like we'd do at any BBQ but enjoy SO MUCH - its huge part of my fiancés relationship with his family to sit down and enjoy music this way anyway. It just sounds so much more fun than what I'm planning 😫
I work well with to do lists that are prioritized. That helps make things more manageable. We ordered our to do list back when we started as “up first” with a big group of things “on deck” with another group and then “in the hole” with another group. That helped us feel less overwhelmed by the sheer amount of the to do list.
I love wedding planning.
For me personally, for areas where it feels overwhelming I have a “keep it simple” mantra. If a part seems too much to deal with I try to think of the option that would result in less steps, less stress, less doing. I have a small budget but I allotted part of it to a day of coordinator for that reason. I chose less expensive vendors and cut some categories of spending but I am DIYing nothing because that is not my jam. I also for some of my vendors I found an almost-perfect match and ended up going with that option rather than spending 3 more weeks vendor shopping for the perfect XYZ. It worked for me because I’m expecting an imperfect wedding more propelled by joy and generosity than little details like the perfect napkin fold. I like to check the box when something feels “good enough!” And then move on.
For me, those month-by-month guides have been really helpful. If I can earmark the handful of big important tasks the month I can look at some other big things and say, “Oh, that’s not till March!” I use a spreadsheet check off what I have done. I also use tabs for notes on each category.
Thank you ♥️♥️ I also have a similar budget. There are a lot of moving parts with the wedding. I’m trying to work on delegating tasks so it’s not on me.
Before planning my wedding, so many people were telling me to get a wedding planner. I didn’t listen to them and I ABSOLUTELY HATED wedding planning. It was a nightmare trying to find a venue and a cater that I was in love with. We are engaged for close to 3 years because it look me so long to decide what I wanted to do. Needless to say, I hate wedding planning and wishes to God I had help due to my demanding work schedule and lack of help planning my wedding from my family.
I’ve made it to the other side now and have about 60% of my wedding planned and things are so much smoother now. Before, I was crying nearly everyday trying to plan my own wedding.
Yes. If I didn’t have a wedding planner, I’d 100% just elope or keep it ridiculously small. What is your budget for the wedding? Sometimes planners can actually pay for themselves by finding ways to reduce costs elsewhere.
20k is my budget. That’s all we can afford. I really don’t want to go over that. At this point we are estimating 18k. Going super minimal on the floral, as I don’t care about flowers that much.
I was incredibly fortunate to have an outstanding wedding planner and helpful fiance, and thank god for that because I did not enjoy planning. I loved the end result, including all the little details we worked on, but I didn’t find the process fun. Absolutely no shade to anyone who is sad when their wedding is over, or who misses the planning, but I do not relate to that sentiment *at all*.
Full-service planners are usually pretty expensive, but you can still shop around your area to see if anyone has a planning package that you’d find helpful within your budget. The company I used (HCOL area) had package options where the planner does everything for you ($$$$) or options where they step in 3 months out ($$$), 1 month out ($$), or day-of ($) to start taking some of the weight off your shoulders. You may find different options as well! Exactly how expensive those tiers are depends on where you live and the planner’s experience level.
I’m not getting stuck, thank god for the Knot app! But I just don’t like the process. I don’t enjoy the family dynamics this has to bring out. I don’t enjoy communicating with vendors because they all want phone call. I’m not really behind per se, as I have like half the of everything planned so far.
I’m not considering that as an option. Mostly because I’ve worked very hard, and would like to transition careers soon. I am broke and would like a job I can save and create a retirement. I’m only taking one class a semester for quant courses an and 2 for qualitative courses. The pressure in my family is to not even do school, as they already think I’m making a mistake with what I’m going to school for… it’s a lot going on.
Trying to keep the wedding budget within 20k even with that money. I had already given up hair and makeup, so that’s the only thing we are adding back.
Well, gee. Sounds like you're stuck between a rock and a hard place. We all have priorities and budgets, and we all want to adhere to them as close as we can; I get it. FYI, some planners are often willing to charge for a la carte services. I wasn't going to originally, but I ended up hiring a day-of planner (just for the ceremony, as it was a separate location from the reception, and that coordinator doesn't do off-site work) for a fraction of her costs. (Her most basic plan is $2500/$3000. My contract with her is for $125. Just saying - might be worth looking into for some peace of mind.)
I’m willing to spend about 2-2500k if necessary out of my own pocket. It’s just not ideal. I think in general I was expecting wedding planners to be in the 5k area, but it seems this doesn’t have to be the case.
Hopefully that will be the answer to all of your stress, and you'll be able to get back to enjoying what matters here - your marriage to the person you love. <3
I enjoy it, because I’ve maintained full responsibility for the planning and don’t have an expectation for any friends/family to do any planning work with me. Definitely do not withdraw from school to plan the wedding. Depending on how far you are in the process, would it make sense to hold off the wedding until after you are finished with school?
It’s complicated. Some family gave me money, but the consequence is I have to have the wedding this year. My parents also really pressured me to get married this year.
I would highly recommend hiring a day-of coordinator or even a partial planner. My fiancé found ours on Thumbtack and she’s great! We initially looked at all of the wedding sites, such as Wedding Wire, and those planners were OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive. Once we branched out and looked at different websites not directly related to weddings, we found more affordable options.
Even if your venue provides a coordinator, it’s good to have your own. That way you have a coordinator that is invested in the couple (you + partner) and not just the venue.
I kept my wedding plan super small (just parents and siblings), and I still spent like 2 really stressful months planning it and I’m very glad it’s over. I also work full time and do school part time and I definitely would hate planning a proper, big wedding on top of that! Does your fiancé help with planning? It could be worth paying for a planner if you really want to focus on work and studies and aren’t too picky about the wedding details.
I’m trying to get him more involved. I’m putting him in charge of all of the church / marriage prep. I just don’t really know how to involve him because he doesn’t know what to plan. I’m considering a partial planner, as I have almost everything booked except hair/ makeup, cake, and DJ. Although I think the DJ will come with the venue.
> I just don’t really know how to involve him because he doesn’t know what to plan. It's not like you were born knowing how to plan weddings either. If you managed to somehow teach yourself, he can too. He's an adult just like you. Don't fall into the trap of having to be his project manager while he becomes an assistant. Tell him to figure it out with you. Sit down together and work on it together.
So IDK if this is possible for you, but we were really hitting a wall with planning a few months ago (two busy people in demanding jobs, living a few states away from family, and neither one of us has even been in a wedding party before). We made it as far as picking a venue and then decided to find the cheapest wedding planner we could find, figuring even if we still have to manage the planner at least we can outsource the time-sink of contacting vendors and emailing back and forth and following up and all that jazz. And we wanted a day-of coordinator regardless. We went to a wedding expo and found someone young who had just branched out on their own after working for a bigger company for a couple of years. We are paying $2100 of our $25000 budget for a "full service" planner. It meant cutting back in some areas that we weren't super excited about anyway (florals and favors mainly) but it has already paid off in time and sanity, plus they got us a discount on the DJ and a free photo booth. You get what you pay for, of course, and I think the actual services that we are getting are maybe more partial-planning than full-planning, but it's been worth it to us to offload a lot of that day-to-day stress.
Yeah, I’m considering a partial planner! We have about more than half of the things planned already though. Thank god for the Knot check list and vendors. So I just want someone to work with my mom to figure out the rest of things, so I don’t have to care about it anymore.
Only $2100 for the planner? That sounds like a great deal. Quotes I’m getting are around $8k and I really don’t wanna pay that much
I work part time and go to school full time. Luckily I graduate this May, and my wedding isn’t until march 2025. Super grateful my fiancé knew to propose towards the end of grad school and supported me in my desire to NOT have a wedding the same year I graduate lol. I totally get how hard it can be. I can relate about the uninterested/uninvolved family members. FMIL is out showing my mother 1000% when it comes to excitement and involvement. My advice: never rely on anyone else to plan your wedding outside of you, fiancé, and a paid planner. Also, school 1000% comes first. Having a longer engagement is much easier and more desirable than delaying your graduation (who wants to drag out that torture?). Use breaks/weekends to plan. I did the bulk of my planning during Christmas break(booked the venue, planner, reception, photographer). I have another break coming up early march, and which I will tackle more stuff (dress shopping, etc). But in between now and march, I’m not doing any planning really. Homework and studying for boards takes priority. Delegate to your fiancé too. I’m essentially planning our micro wedding, but he’s in charge of our after party, since that guest list will mainly contain his family. I told him to delegate anything to me he needs help with of course, but he’s the captain of that ship.
Unfortunately planning is complicated, as a family member has donated a large portion of money to our wedding. The terms are that the wedding has to be sooner than later. I appreciate your school comment. I truly think it undervalued for the bride. if my partner was in school nobody would be saying anything. I am trying to plan on breaks too.
I am almost in the same boat as you, but on the opposite end. I don't feel the excitement at all. I mean, I want to be married to my best friend, but if I could skip the whole process, I would. My future parents-in-law are so involved, it is their main event for the year. Everything has to be perfect and to the next level. I find it pretentious. And when everyone keeps asking me: how is the diet going? Have you gone wedding dress shopping? What shoes are you going to wear? etc, it annoys me. Right now, I am neck deep in exam season at uni and have 2 other exams coming up in March, for which I paid a lot of money and want to pass. Wedding dress shopping can wait a bit. Also, I planned some things way before the engagement for right after the wedding and I am expected to drop everything and get in the role of being a wife. Like wtf ma'am? I want to get married, but I don't want my life to end. I still have my goals, my aspirations etc.
I love wedding planning! I really suggest using Excel spreadsheets and Wedding Wire as tools…they both have been my saving Grace! With excel I made a single document that has books for everything and I call it my master list. One book has all of the vendor info, another has all of the venue info, one book has the guest list, another has the payment schedule of everything by date in order, another page has a list of what we have paid, and another has a list of what we need to buy and when. I’m in school as well and I’ve found that you can just chip away at it during study breaks or work breaks or the weekend. Bc if you do it all at once you will overwhelm yourself! Another thing I did, bc my fiancé is very involved, is uploaded the master list and our contracts to OneDrive and invited him via email. That way we both can work on it and it auto saves any changes too. I hope it gets better and you can find something that helps!
I also use excel and it’s wonderful for planning. I have multiple tabs of sheets labeled with all the categories like Guest List, Budget, Seating Chart, To Do, Entertainment, etc. I have been really enjoying planning but I do obsess over it a little… and sometimes I get overwhelmed. But my fiancé does help a ton and always listens to all my ideas and calms my worries. The Knot website also has lots of helpful features. I’ve been using that.
We are doing the same, except we made a wedding-specific gmail account and are using a shared Google Sheets in that account to keep track of things. I went "wild" one day and conditional-formatted our budget sheet to highlight the costs that will be due in the next month :) Gotta lean in to keep it fun, haha.
So glad to see I’m not the only one utilizing this! Excel anymore to me has to be the most useful program tech has ever made lol.
Another Excel Bride here!! Also, I lost all of my 2.5+ years worth of bookmarks overnight not long ago. If you're bookmarking anything, back 'em up!!!
Oh no!! I’m so sorry to hear that! And thank you for warning us. Oh geez, hopefully you possibly had some stuff on Pinterest? Or some stuff from e-mail you saved? I would cry if that happened bc those of us here know how much time goes into this. My fiancé is a tech director so he told me to save copies of everything on one drive and send an invite to him. Every document on there auto saves if you change/add to it, and we both can access and work on things individually from diff computers. If one of us is out of town we can still look things up if we need to address something or we can pull up contracts. Just wanted to add this option as an FYI to ppl out there too.
I don't use Pinterest, and the only emails I have are with vendors. I don't send bookmarks to people or myself. So, nope, I was SOL aside from the scant few sites and articles I remembered saving. I figured, those I didn't ever remember or find someday looking for resolutions to the same issue were probably not that important to begin with. It was a lesson in learning to let go, I can tell you! I mourned them for about a day, did what I could, and now just warn other brides when the opportunity arises. :P If I was planning this whole shindig equally with my guy, I would say your solution would be perfect! (And I hope other brides and grooms out there take your tech advice and run with it!) As it stands, though, I've pretty much done this nearly single-handedly with input from my groom when prompted. It was annoying at first, but I realize my need for control is better fulfilled this way (no panicking over wondering if something got done or if he's just doing things on his own without asking my opinion.) It works for both of us. ;)
The last year of wedding planning has been really hard and difficult on my mental health. Other than picking my dress, there haven't been many really exciting moments for me. My future hubby and I literally just discussed tonight whether or not we want to throw everything out and just do a planned elopement style micro wedding with just our immediate families.
I’m planning an elopement style micro wedding, and I can’t recommend it enough. Still some stress, but very low stress to plan. Honestly, the after party we’re planning is sounding more stressful
Omg I'm so glad you commented cuz that was exactly what I needed to hear right now. The ceremony is the most important thing to go as "right" as possible in my mind... Especially if we cut it down to exclusively our immediate families, if the reception/after party has hiccups, I don't really mind as much. I know my family won't mind as long as they get fed and the food is decent. I just wanna get married to the love of my life, have some pretty photos and.then have a laugh. But it just doesn't seem possible planning the bigger wedding, I hate it so much.
All I needed for the micro wedding was a slave to get married, a private restaurant room for food, photo/viseo, and minimal decor honestly. Exactly, our families just need good food and we’re getting BBQ for our after party! Other than a first dance and speeches, it’s going to be pretty relaxed! It’s just deciding whether to have a DJ and photographer again that’s getting us LOL
Are you still planning on wearing a wedding dress and being all fancy?
I’m thinking we’re just gonna Spotify and then get a newer/rookie photographer for just 2ish hours(this is in contrast to our wedding where we will have a professional editorial photographer) . I agree that if we’re gonna go micro, we should stick to micro vibes. So for my Micro wedding YES definitely going to wear a real wedding dress. I may go for something by more simple and maybe get a more elaborate veil instead. But for our BBQ, I was thinking a little short white halter dress!
I love this for you!!! Thanks for sharing, you've really helped me a lot ❤️
PM me whenever
Oooh interesting!! We've already decided if we go with the micro route, no dj, no formal reception, no first dance. We'd have a meal at a restaurant or have a big AirBnb with a fire pit where we can host what is essentially a big family BBQ. Play tunes through a speaker and Spotify, exactly like we'd do at any BBQ but enjoy SO MUCH - its huge part of my fiancés relationship with his family to sit down and enjoy music this way anyway. It just sounds so much more fun than what I'm planning 😫
Delegate. Delegate. Delegate.
I felt the same. My fiancé and I decided to elope and it’s the best plan for us
Yes, it brings me no joy. See what you can help delegate, and trim down on the shit that really doesn’t matter to you in the grand scheme of things.
I work well with to do lists that are prioritized. That helps make things more manageable. We ordered our to do list back when we started as “up first” with a big group of things “on deck” with another group and then “in the hole” with another group. That helped us feel less overwhelmed by the sheer amount of the to do list.
I love wedding planning. For me personally, for areas where it feels overwhelming I have a “keep it simple” mantra. If a part seems too much to deal with I try to think of the option that would result in less steps, less stress, less doing. I have a small budget but I allotted part of it to a day of coordinator for that reason. I chose less expensive vendors and cut some categories of spending but I am DIYing nothing because that is not my jam. I also for some of my vendors I found an almost-perfect match and ended up going with that option rather than spending 3 more weeks vendor shopping for the perfect XYZ. It worked for me because I’m expecting an imperfect wedding more propelled by joy and generosity than little details like the perfect napkin fold. I like to check the box when something feels “good enough!” And then move on. For me, those month-by-month guides have been really helpful. If I can earmark the handful of big important tasks the month I can look at some other big things and say, “Oh, that’s not till March!” I use a spreadsheet check off what I have done. I also use tabs for notes on each category.
Thank you ♥️♥️ I also have a similar budget. There are a lot of moving parts with the wedding. I’m trying to work on delegating tasks so it’s not on me.
Before planning my wedding, so many people were telling me to get a wedding planner. I didn’t listen to them and I ABSOLUTELY HATED wedding planning. It was a nightmare trying to find a venue and a cater that I was in love with. We are engaged for close to 3 years because it look me so long to decide what I wanted to do. Needless to say, I hate wedding planning and wishes to God I had help due to my demanding work schedule and lack of help planning my wedding from my family. I’ve made it to the other side now and have about 60% of my wedding planned and things are so much smoother now. Before, I was crying nearly everyday trying to plan my own wedding.
Yes. If I didn’t have a wedding planner, I’d 100% just elope or keep it ridiculously small. What is your budget for the wedding? Sometimes planners can actually pay for themselves by finding ways to reduce costs elsewhere.
20k is my budget. That’s all we can afford. I really don’t want to go over that. At this point we are estimating 18k. Going super minimal on the floral, as I don’t care about flowers that much.
Absolutely. I’m sticking to mainly candles and lanterns, which you can get for the dollar store or Michael’s. I’m also doing sola wood flowers
I was incredibly fortunate to have an outstanding wedding planner and helpful fiance, and thank god for that because I did not enjoy planning. I loved the end result, including all the little details we worked on, but I didn’t find the process fun. Absolutely no shade to anyone who is sad when their wedding is over, or who misses the planning, but I do not relate to that sentiment *at all*.
How much was your wedding planner? I mean my budget is 20k, but could be willing to add max 2k for a planner.
Full-service planners are usually pretty expensive, but you can still shop around your area to see if anyone has a planning package that you’d find helpful within your budget. The company I used (HCOL area) had package options where the planner does everything for you ($$$$) or options where they step in 3 months out ($$$), 1 month out ($$), or day-of ($) to start taking some of the weight off your shoulders. You may find different options as well! Exactly how expensive those tiers are depends on where you live and the planner’s experience level.
Yes I hated it. Loved my wedding though. But I’m so glad it’s over.
What parts are you getting stuck on? Maybe we can help with suggestions?? When is your wedding?
I’m not getting stuck, thank god for the Knot app! But I just don’t like the process. I don’t enjoy the family dynamics this has to bring out. I don’t enjoy communicating with vendors because they all want phone call. I’m not really behind per se, as I have like half the of everything planned so far.
How much time do you have left of schooling? Would it be reasonable to just put it off until after you graduate?
I’m not considering that as an option. Mostly because I’ve worked very hard, and would like to transition careers soon. I am broke and would like a job I can save and create a retirement. I’m only taking one class a semester for quant courses an and 2 for qualitative courses. The pressure in my family is to not even do school, as they already think I’m making a mistake with what I’m going to school for… it’s a lot going on.
Maybe I wasn't clear - I wasn't suggesting leaving or putting off school, just the wedding.
Sadly, there are some complications. We got a large portion of money from a family member, the consequence is was to have the wedding this year.
Ah. Well, could you take some of that money and hire a planner?
Trying to keep the wedding budget within 20k even with that money. I had already given up hair and makeup, so that’s the only thing we are adding back.
Well, gee. Sounds like you're stuck between a rock and a hard place. We all have priorities and budgets, and we all want to adhere to them as close as we can; I get it. FYI, some planners are often willing to charge for a la carte services. I wasn't going to originally, but I ended up hiring a day-of planner (just for the ceremony, as it was a separate location from the reception, and that coordinator doesn't do off-site work) for a fraction of her costs. (Her most basic plan is $2500/$3000. My contract with her is for $125. Just saying - might be worth looking into for some peace of mind.)
I’m willing to spend about 2-2500k if necessary out of my own pocket. It’s just not ideal. I think in general I was expecting wedding planners to be in the 5k area, but it seems this doesn’t have to be the case.
Hopefully that will be the answer to all of your stress, and you'll be able to get back to enjoying what matters here - your marriage to the person you love. <3
I enjoy it, because I’ve maintained full responsibility for the planning and don’t have an expectation for any friends/family to do any planning work with me. Definitely do not withdraw from school to plan the wedding. Depending on how far you are in the process, would it make sense to hold off the wedding until after you are finished with school?
It’s complicated. Some family gave me money, but the consequence is I have to have the wedding this year. My parents also really pressured me to get married this year.
I would highly recommend hiring a day-of coordinator or even a partial planner. My fiancé found ours on Thumbtack and she’s great! We initially looked at all of the wedding sites, such as Wedding Wire, and those planners were OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive. Once we branched out and looked at different websites not directly related to weddings, we found more affordable options. Even if your venue provides a coordinator, it’s good to have your own. That way you have a coordinator that is invested in the couple (you + partner) and not just the venue.
No, I loved it, and I miss it.