No matter the size of your wedding in terms of number of guests invited or number of bridal party members, all weddings are a big deal with a ton of moving parts. So many details! We’ve written about, for example, the most common things brides will forget to bring with them on their wedding day. But here, we’re really backing things up and looking at common wedding planning mistakes.
Hopefully we can help you to create a wedding planning experience for yourself that is smooth and easy and fun.
And remember: no event, particularly one of this size, is ever going to be perfect. And really, who would want that? When you think about some of your favorite or funniest memories from weddings you’ve attended, they are often those moments of imperfection, mistakes, and silly mishaps.
So stay loose and try to chill. Stuff happens. Let’s just try to avoid the big stuff and so let’s take a look at common wedding planning mistakes.
Starting to plan before setting a budget
This is a big one. Without sitting down and seriously looking at what you want to spend and what you can afford to spend, you shouldn’t even be considering the first decision. This is your first decision, period. Before dates. Before destination venues. Before dreamy dresses. Before number of guests and size of wedding party.
Budget. Budget. Budget. First.
And another of the big common wedding planning mistakes that goes along with this one? Not sticking to your budget or not paying attention to the details, as in blowing a huge chunk on the gown and not having enough to make the experience memorable for your guests too. (Remember, they’re usually investing a sum of money to even attend.)
So budget. Did you hear us? Budget.
Picking a date without any research
You might think, what? What does my wedding date have to do with anything but my own preferences? A lot more than you might imagine.
First, is your date doable for the most important people in your life? This is especially important if you’re asking people to travel.
Second, is your date wildly popular, thus creating problems around finding venues and vendors?
Third, what about the weather around your date? Do you want to be able to be outside? Does that matter at all? Even if weather doesn’t matter to you in those ways, it might matter, again, to people traveling.
And finally, are there other important things happening on or around your dream date that would make it a crazy complicated and busy time for you and others? That’s not ideal.
Not prioritizing your vendors
No, your cousin shouldn’t be taking your photos just because they have a great instagram account. No, most likely, it’s asking too much that mom be in charge of the cake and other mom be in charge of all the cookies. And no, your cousin’s son’s babysitter’s uncle is probably not such a great DJ after all.
This is way at the top of the list of common wedding planning mistakes, for sure.
If you’re doing all of these sorts of things to save money, go back to the budgeting phase and reprioritize.
There’s nothing wrong with a little DIY at your wedding, for sure, but for the big vendors, you want to make sure you’re dealing with pros. Check on their ratings. Ask around about their reputation. Thoroughly read that contract.
And please, don’t forget to feed them.
Not setting boundaries
This might seem like an odd thing to include in common wedding planning mistakes, but actually it’s really common and it’s one of those mistakes that can bite you in the bum when you least expect it.
Be clear about who is involved in what. Be clear about wanting or not wanting advice. And be clear about where information should be flowing from (you). Just be clear, and it will save a lot of potential pain in the future. (And this is good advice for your whole life, by the way.)
Forgetting that it’s your wedding
Sure, you would love to wear mom’s dress from the 1980s because love and sentimentality, but think this through. (That’s probably a ton of sleeve to deal with… snort) Maybe there’s another way to honor that dress and your mom.
That’s just one example, but the point is important: weddings can bring out big time sentimentality and it’s easy to get caught up in the energy of that and forget that this is your memory moment.
Curate the day that most expresses your heart in this moment. Your heart… not someone else’s.
Trying to totally change your body
It’s a wedding story trope, right? The bride who goes on a starvation diet and starts exercising so much she’s never out of her gym clothes. And ta-da! She emerges on her wedding day a completely different person. (And probably faints as she goes down the aisle.)
What a load. Be you. You are who got engaged to your loved one. You are the person they fell in love with.
There’s nothing wrong with a little self improvement here and there, but you’ll have enough going on with the stress of the planning. You don’t need to not eat enough or have such a packed schedule that you forget why you’re doing this.
Which leads us to a pretty toxic common wedding planning mistake…
Only focusing on the wedding and not your relationship
This is another of those silly wedding story tropes: the bridezilla who becomes so obsessed with wedding planning that it doesn’t even seem to matter who the groom is.
But this can happen even if not that extreme.
Tend to your relationship now as you want to moving forward. Develop good relationship habits through this process. Focus on building team work skills that can carry you through anything that might happen in the future.
Not having a day-of schedule that is tight enough
Sure, we want to allow for some spontaneity, but with this many moving parts (including all those great, professional vendors you’re employing), you want to make sure that things keep moving. You want to be sure that everyone knows what’s expected of them and where they need to be from moment to moment.
But you also want to have decent control of things like wedding speeches: make sure people giving them know how long is too long. (Here’s a discussion about this very issue.)
Limit the amount of time that toasts are allowed to happen. As people drink, they can get quite…loquacious.
And have an end time on your reception even though, in this time of excitement, you might think you want it to go on forever. Trust us: you don’t. ((ha))
(The couple in these photos really took their planning seriously … not making any of these common planning mistakes. They managed to get married in Erie during the eclipse. If you want to do that, you might have to wait… a while.)
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