Whether you're working from home, sick or just hanging out in the house for the next few weeks then this is the perfect opportunity to plan your wedding from home! Grab your laptop, a glass of wine and a comfy spot on the couch and spend a few hours every day carefully organising your perfect wedding day.
Plan
When it comes to planning any event, one of the most important aspects to have set in stone from the get-go is a solid plan. If you've taken on the task of planning your own wedding day then this is doubly important to ensure you don't over-spend or forget important aspects in the panic of planning. It may sound daunting but planning your wedding can be a really fun and engaging activity for you and your partner! Sit down together and make an honest and detailed list of the elements you do and don't want on your big day and compare ideas. Make a checklist of things you need and when you want to have them sorted by.
The very first thing you need to consider when planning a wedding is your vision for it, you can't build a budget, vendor list or detailed plan without first knowing about what kind of wedding you want to host! Are you a fan of intimate, relaxed weddings? Do you drool over huge, elaborate and decadent nuptials? Or are you a classic kind of person (nothing too big but nothing too small)? Gather anything that catches your eye and gives you butterflies in your stomach either on Pinterest or on a mood board and build a solid idea of what your dream wedding looks like!
Research
Researching every detail about your dream wedding is going to be a long and arduous but rewarding task. A plan is all well and good, but it's just a daydream without proper research to back it up! If there are venues you like then price search and compare them, read the customer reviews of bakeries, search for videos of people with similar body types to you trying on dress styles you like. Researching every little detail might seem excessive but it can be the difference between beautiful wedding photos and a photographer that doesn't show up on your big day!
Whether you plan to get married in Ireland or abroad then it's vital that you properly research the legal requirements to do so. You're not going to have the help of a wedding professional so it's up to you to ensure that your marriage is 100% legal and abides by the rules of the religion you follow. Also understanding how to ensure you're not getting caught off guard by extra fees or scammed by vendors. This is even planning after all, you need to make sure that you've not overstepping legal boundaries or leaving yourself open to getting ripped off.
Budget
When it comes to planning your own wedding you have to be very conscious of the budget you have for the big day! One of the benefits of a wedding planner is that they can manage everything around your given budget and will potentially get discounts or professional rates which can leave extra spending money in the budget for fun extras. While you'll be saving on not paying for a planner, you may end up spending more money on silly expenses or uneducated purchases.
It may seem better to low ball your budget so you'll leave yourself with extra money for fun purchases, however, you'll be less likely to overspend if you have an exact budget to work from. If you don't know exactly how much you have to spend but know that it's more than you've planned then you'll be more likely to allow extra splurges and small transactions until it eventually runs over your budget into the overly expensive territory.
Keep your wedding fund in a separate current account then your personal or joint savings, life happens and before you know it you could have accidentally spent a chunk of your venue budget on new brake lines for your car! Keeping everything in a separate account will make managing and tracking transactions much easier as the only payees with that account will be wedding vendors and having bank statements that aren't flooded with everyday transactions will make keeping track of who was paid and when far easier.
Help
Planning a wedding is a huge job to undertake with no prior experience so don't feel ashamed to ask for a little help here and there! You may be shocked at how eager your friends and family will be to help you plan certain details and feel involved in your happy day. If you have a friend who bakes then ask them for cake advice, if your sister is a musician then see if she knows any other performers who could play on your day; just because you don't have the contacts and connections of a wedding planner doesn't mean you have to plan everything from scratch, use the opportunities already available to you!
Your biggest asset for wedding planning is going to be the internet! From budget organisation to vendor reccomendations you'll find the perfect online tools to help you organise your dream wedding from the comfort of your own home, here are some of our favourites:
- Gráinne