Wedding Prep Tips For Stress Free Planning
Hey there my Chic readers! I’ve gathered some super helpful tips to get you started and keep you on the right path during your wedding planning process. Even the simplest of ideas can slip your mind when planning, and these easy tips can really save you time and money.
Let’s take a look at my 5 top wedding prep tips!
Create A Wedding Email
You’re calling around to different venues, catering companies, and other vendors for your wedding. The perfect quote was sent to you from a vendor you love via email, and you can’t find it because you haven’t cleaned out your email since 2017 ( I’m guilty too! LOL). Keep yourself from having to search around insurance emails and furniture club spam by creating an email specifically for your wedding. It’s a great way for you and your fiance to keep a paper trail to track all the vendor quotes, appointments, and correspondence organized.
More Time Is Fine
Giving yourselves a good 8-12 months to plan this perfect day is essential to budgeting. The more time you have to plan, the more time you have to space out payments and catch errors that can be easily solved without causing a big mess on the wedding day. You also prevent yourself from having an incredibly long list of things to handle the last few months before your wedding. More time also gives you the opportunity for more options, and that could also give you leverage when selecting vendors for your wedding.
Scope Out The Local Hotels
Once you’ve locked down the venue, it’s time to secure the hotel you and your guests will stay at for the big day! Make sure you know how many rooms you can get in a block before attrition. Hotels typically grant you between 10-15 guest rooms before you are charged a percentage for unbooked rooms. The sales team at each hotel should be able to inform you about their specific policy before you secure your room block. A few things I also look for are:
Proximity to the venue, because you don’t need folks to get lost on the way to the wedding.
Ratings. Nobody wants to be uncomfortable, especially when visiting a new city.
Amenities. Free WIFI, breakfast, pools, the more the better ( I personally love a swank and sociable lobby bar ).
Points! If you can get points from every room booked that is a BIG PLUS!
Don’t Plan To DIY Everything
When I tell you that I completely understand the need to save money when planning a wedding, I hear you. However, I need you to understand that the second most important currency during the wedding planning process is time! If you spend all your time making your invites, favors, and centerpieces you may not have time to make sure something more important is handled. Although DIY projects can be fun they can sometimes overwhelm you, and may not even turn out how you wanted which can result in needless spending. Creating a realistic budget at the beginning will help you decide how and when you can put those DIY skills to use. So, as I always say, save time and spend the money to save yourself the frustration. The aggravation just isn’t worth all the rogue glitter. The glitter stays FOREVER!
Check For Popular Blackout Dates
Ready for a true story? Last year in August, some friends and I made plans to go out to a popular restaurant here in Atlanta called Trader Vic’s located at the Hilton downtown for a birthday celebration. Well, the night we planned to go just happened to also be the first night of Dragon-Con. For those of you who don’t know what Dragon-Con is, just know it’s the largest convention in the world focusing on science fiction & fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film. To our surprise, the opening night party was held right at Trader Vic’s! After a few hours, we got to eat and really enjoyed ourselves looking at the people dressed in amazing costumes. We even got a ton of pics with some of the convention-goers too. Now, even though this wasn’t one of my client’s wedding weekends, this could have been a disaster for any wedding scheduled. So be sure to check dates in your city, and verify those big conventions, popular concerts, or any event that may draw a large crowd doesn’t have the potential to land on the day of your wedding. To keep costs and time delays down due to high traffic volume, save yourself the headache and select a new date.
Sidenote: If you want an amazing Mai Tai head to Trader Vics!
Yes, this is actually me (well…my forehead) at the Hilton last year!
There’s so much more I’d like to share with you, but I have to stop at 5…I don’t want you to get bored. Wait! Who am I kidding? If you read The Weekly Chic then I know you’re here to learn, and hopefully are gaining the most knowledge for your wedding or event. So if you want to know more, contact me and let me help you with all of your wedding and event planning needs.
Until next time,
Keep it Chic
XOXO
Amaris T.
