How to keep from getting overwhelmed with planning?

Question

I won't hire a consultant. 1. We can't afford it. 2. We (or me mostly) want to do everything. I don't want to look back and go "Oh I wish I had planned that myself".

We are getting married August 29, 2009 and in the very early stages. I am okay now but I stress easy. I have a wedding planning binder from Chapters. But in the last few weeks when there is a LOT to do, how do you keep the stress level down? (and yes I have family and friends who have offered to help already and I will take them up on that.)

Answer 1

www.theknot.com

Answer 2

Lists.  Keep lots of lists.  White things down and cross them off.  Sometimes seeing what you've accomplished helps a ton.

Answer 3

When I was planning my wedding I started far in advance, recruited friends and family, created a time table and lists for everything and was as organized as any Bridezilla ever was.  LOL  In the last week, I started to stress big time. Everything had to be perfect. I stressed myself out to the point that my blood pressure was sky high and I was having dizzy spells. Two days before the wedding, my best friend arrived from out of state to help with everything. She took one look at me and said, "Girl....you have got to calm down. This is supposed to be a happy time. The ONLY thing that's important here is that you love him and he loves you and you're about to beging your life together. So stop. And you know what? She was so right. All the planning, all the organizing all the stress and worry ended up being for nothing because on the morning of our wedding we had a freak windstorm in Colorado which literally blew my wedding away. The tents were destroyed, all the decorations we'd labored putting up the evening before we blown to Kansas and literally the entire outdoor wedding was just just in tatters. Four hours before the ceremony was scheduled ot start we were scrambling to throw together a make-shift wedding in an empty building in town. My brothers strung fairy lights from the ceilings and the rest of the family set up borrowed tables and chairs. We had no decorations or flowers because they blew away. But you know what? My family and friends were all there with me, the man I loved was there and we had our ceremony which ended up being lovely. Don't sweat the small stuff, now or later. The only thing that's really important is that you're getting married to the man you love. The rest of it is just "fluff!"

Answer 4

Alcohol! JK ; )....

Just plan as much as you can as early as you can. Stay organized. I have found that it's much easier to do things myself than have to explain it to someone else and have them misinterpret something. I personally like the knot.com website. They have a reminder checklist that basically tells you what to do and when to do it. I live by that. Just take each day one step at a time and remember that everything will work out okay.  

Answer 5

Yes, the last few weeks are stressful.  I'd suggest getting things done ahead of schedule by a few weeks.  Maybe even months.  Also, yes, use friends and family when needed, but don't forget to hire professionals too.  One thing I COMPLETELY regret is not hiring a professional photographer. I would go back and hire someone instead of using family if I could.  So, know when to hire someone versus asking family or friends, too.

Answer 6

I would handle/organize/plan everything you can as early as you can. If they have left things in the binder until the last second, try to cover them now, so you have less to worry about later. Also, if you can cross a couple of those unnecessary things out now, you would be feeling a lot better when that time comes around. In the end, it will 100% be stressful, but remember to take time for yourself and take some time away from wedding planning and go to the park, or go get a massage and separate yourself from the planning. Breathe. Good luck!

Answer 7

the worst thing about family and friends helping is that you also have to listen to their opinions and i've found that that is what stresses me out the most.  i have a vision, don't go trying to change it

mainly just don't try to make everyone happy because you'll go crazy

it's great that you are getting things accomplished this far in advance, i think that will help in the stress area

Answer 8

You have about 12 months to go so you have plenty of time!  We started planning our Dec 08 wedding in Dec 07 and have hardly encountered any stress in my planning.

I know this sounds really dodgy but Windows Excel and a wall calendar saves a lot of sanity!

FH and i took all the timelines and planners we could find and made a spreadsheet that listed everything we had to do in order but didn't have the "do this six months before/three months before/one week before" times added in.  For some things we though were more important to us (and therefore needed more time to get perfect) we bumped them up the list as a special priority to OUR day and not the cookie cutter planner day.

Then we printed out a wall calendar, one month to an A4 page, for every month from when we started planning until our wedding day.  We wrote "6 month check" etc on the first day of the appropriate month and then filed away the strict planners.

We have then just gone down our list from top to bottom moving onto the next item of importance as we finalised something regardless of if it was a two week before thing or a six month before thing.

When we get to a crutial month we check to see everything that had to be done by then has been done (thus why we marked that on the wall calendar reserved for all wedding appointments and related happenings) but that's about all we used the timelines for.

Looking at things this far out gives you much better choice as a lot of places have not taken bookings yet, you have your choice of venue, caterer, florist, cake decorator.....

This saved a lot of stress for FH and i as we could take out time looking for our perfect wedding touches instead of saying "if i want to get my dress made in time i need to order it 6 months out but it's taking me ages to find one i like so this will do!"

For example with my dress i went shopping at the same time of year as my wedding so i could feel how hot/cold the fabric was and see the new year styles.  I found out that it would take 4-6 months to make then another month or two to allow for fittings and alterations if required.  So i chose my dress at the same time of year, took all the details and stopped shopping.  When the time came to order my dress i made an appointment to be measured and said i will take this style in this colour and was out in under 10 minutes.  It's arrived in perfect time for alterations to be done before the day if required.

For fresh flowers they need to be done the day before but it doesn't say anywhere that you can't get quotes, hire a florist & finalise a design twelve months out (when the same flowers are in season) and then just keep in contact with the florist.

Planning our wedding this way allowed FH and i to work things out when we had time to do so rather than questioning if it was too early to start doing x,y or z.  It was just the next thing on the list to do and if we were early then we would just call or email every other month until it was the right time to go ahead with our decisions.

The result is that with four months to go we know who all our vendors are, have prices locked in with deposits, know what we are getting from each person we had to deal with and have everything ticked off our timeline apart from the day before stuff like picking up the suits and finalising the menus.

If you get too caught up in doing a certain thing at a perticular time you will stress if you can't get the time off work that week, or your car needs a service or all kinds of last minute crises.  Do what you need to do when you have the time to do it.  Being early is not so bad but if you are late then that's it and there's nothing you can do about it.

And have a "wedding free" weekend once in a while.  Nothing is more stressfull than a groom-to-be who doesn't want to hear the word "wedding"