Planning your Own Wedding

Adventure is just bad planning.
Roald Amundsen

So you decided to plan and arrange the wedding yourself. Well, it saves you much expense and gives you a lot of trouble. First, you need to plan carefully every detail of your wedding. Find or work out several checklists for not to forget anything. If you are armed with a good plan you will arrange everything without fuss.

Second, you won’t be able to do it alone. Try to find one or two volunteers to help you (think about your relatives or friends of yours as the associates). Then decide what exactly you can assign to them. With a bit of luck it would happen that one of the volunteers is an expert in a particular field of the arrangements.

Since then don’t bother your associates. Let them enjoy their responsibility. You can find the checklists quite useful here, too. Ask the volunteer associates to put a tick opposite each point done just for you to be sure everything is OK. The most important issues like choosing the wedding dress should be done by you personally.

BUDGET

Consult with your groom and both families. You will need to find out what you want and what exactly you can afford. Decide how to share the expenses and which way you can save not trespassing upon what is crucial for you. If you don’t hold the belief that you need a very traditional wedding, you can cut the cost of some unnecessary formalities.

PEOPLE

It’s easy to compose a guest list but it’s usually quite a problem to shorten it. Decide whether you want to invite kids or not. If not, think about how to tell that to their parents. Select the bridesmaids. Make room reservations for out of town guests. After the final editing give your guest list to the ushers.

Stationery. Order invitations and announcements, personal stationery and thank you notes. Send thank you notes as gifts arrive. Mail invitations.

Miscellaneous. Don’t forget about favors, candies, groom’s & attendant’s gifts.

ARRANGEMENTS

Apply for marriage licence. Then you can assign some of the further arrangements to your associates. Choose what you’d like to do yourself and assign the rest to your volunteers:

Prewedding Parties. Plan showers. Make reservations for bridesmaids’ luncheon and rehearsal dinner.

Ceremony & Reception. Plan the ceremony and inform clergyman of all the details of it. Plan the reception and go over details of it with caterer/hotel manager. Arrange transportation for the ceremony and reception. Order a wedding cake. Choose a florist, a professional photographer and a cameraman. Make music arrangements and check the selections.

Honeymoon. Pick a honeymoon destination. Renew passports and inoculations if necessary. Make honeymoon reservations and start shopping and packing.

BEAUTY

This pleasant work is all yours. Shop for wedding gown and keep in mind that several fittings will be required. Choose the hair style and jewelry. Wedding rings require special attention. Be extremely careful with hair-coloring and perm and better do it in advance. Schedule hair and make-up appointment for the wedding day (don’t forget about the veil). Have manicure and pedicure done the day before wedding.