As a bride, the first thing you should consider is wearing flats the whole day. Think about you, this is going to be a long, involved and tiring event. It can last all day, and you’ll be on your feet for most of the time. That adds up to at least 7 or 8 hours standing and walking around- and if you’re in four inch heels, it won’t take long before your feet are killing you. A lot of brides like the way they look in heels, and want to look their best on their special day, but then end up wishing that they had dropped the ego and just worn something comfortable yet elegant all day. Some brides only wear heels for the ceremony and then switch to flats during the reception, but you might find it easier just to have one comfortable pair for the whole day.

Another thing to consider to maintain your energy and your sanity is to cut back on the traveling. So-called ‘Destination Weddings’ are becoming more and more popular, but heading out 10,000 miles from you home to tie the knot is a big commitment. Not only is it a real hassle for your guests, but it also will take its toll on you. The day you get married is going to be very emotionally and physically draining, and you want to make sure that you can inject as much stability as possible into the proceedings. Not only is it a good idea to stay in one place for the wedding, but you might want to delay leaving for your honey moon until a couple of days after the big day. This will give you time to relax and recuperate, so maybe you can actually enjoy the whole trip you take. Instead of collapsing in a hotel bed for a few days, collapse in your own bed, and then go on your adventure.

As far as planning around you special day goes, it’s also a good idea to make sure you don’t get too drunk the night before. A lot of people have their bachelorette and bachelor parties the night before, and this isn’t always a great idea. It’s a romantic thought, the whole ‘last night of freedom’ thing, but it doesn’t always play out well on the next day. After all, when most people are planning their perfect marriage ceremony, it doesn’t involve the bride, the groom, and at least half the wedding party horribly hung over.

Keep these tips in mind, and you will avoid some of the biggest pitfalls people face on their wedding days. There will still be snags here and there, and some things will most certainly go differently than you expected, but that doesn’t mean you can’t plan around these worst case scenarios.

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The first step to picking these dresses is actually pretty easy- you just need to figure out what you’re going to wear when you get married. Your wedding dress sets the tone for the other dresses, as they need to match yours without overpowering it. If you wear an extremely formal dress, but then you pick out casual dresses for everyone else, then it’s going to create a really clashing image for your wedding party. Once you find your dress, or at least figure out the main aspects of what it will be like (how formal, what color, what style, what fabric), you’ll be able to start thinking about the others.

Your going to want to decide on the color first. It’s relatively easy to flip through a book of swatches and find a color that matches the over all color scheme of the wedding dcor. It’s not particularly easy to find a color that will look good with everyone’s skin tone. This is not an issue if everyone is basically the skin tone, but it can be real problem if you have a diverse line up. The same holds true for the size and type of figure of all your maids. If all of your girls are about the same size and build, then picking out a dress will be easy. In the real world, you’re going to need to find a cut that is flattering to women of all shapes and sizes.

One way these problems have been solved is the emerging trend of bridesmaids wearing a series of matching separates. The overall look and cut of the pieces will be similar and will all be designed to look good together, but each girl can individualize her outfit according to what best matches her particular look.

And of course, there is always the easiest way to solve this problem- don’t make anyone wear bridesmaid dresses! At the end of the day, it’s your wedding and you can make sure everyone is happy which ever way you want. If that means bribing each of them with a special bridesmaid gift (and the lead girl with an extra special maid of honor gift) then so be it. If that means letting everyone co-ordinate amongst themselves to figure out what they would like to wear, than that is a small price to pay to avoid the seemingly never-ending headache of finding one bridesmaid dress that is perfect for everyone.

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First, and foremost, you need to prioritize. You need to know what’s most important to you and what you can let slide. Because there are so many things involved in a wedding, and because a lot of those things carry a hefty price tag, you need to come to the realization that you aren’t always going to get exactly what you want. Even if you’ve been scrapbooking in a journal from the time you were 6 years old about what the day would be like when you got married, you’re going to have to compromise. To do this effectively, and with the fewest number of dreams crushed, you’re going to need to know what’s most important.

Prioritizing is necessary for a few reasons. First, there are just some things that you probably aren’t going to be able to get, no matter what. You might be able to get a replica of the wedding favors that the royal family gave out in the mid 18th century, but you aren’t going to be able to get the real things. So either go with the replicas or go with unique wedding favors.

Secondly, price is a big sticking point for a lot of your plans. It’s important that you figure out a budget that you can spend before you even start any of the other parts of the planning process. Even if you aren’t paying a cent of your own money, you need to sit down with your financier and figure out how much everyone is will to put up to get you married.

Once you have a budget, it’s a good idea to start planning for about 80% of that number. You’re not being cheap when you do this- you’re being smart. The best laid plans always go astray, and no one ever sticks strictly to their wedding budget, and NO ONE ever gets through the day under budget. By sticking to a budget lower then your real limits, you ensure that all the added and unseen expenses that creep up will keep you within the range that makes everyone happy.

You also need to decide ahead of time what role everyone is going to play in the event. There will be people whom you want to play a prominent role who won’t want to be that involved. Most of the time it has nothing to do with you, and has everything to do with either their own insecurities or the practical reason that they can’t commit to such a large role confidently. There will also be people whom you don’t want to be deeply involved, who will insist on this. Family usually fills out those roles, and it’s your job to handle them diplomatically. Doubly so when you’re dealing with your parents. Triply so when you’re dealing with your fiance’s parents.

And when it comes down to it, that’s the most important thing you need to keep in mind about your special day- it isn’t just yours. There are a lot of people involved, and you need to always keep them in mind and be as pleasant as possible about working with them. After all, the happiest day of your life can only be so happy when everyone is upset with all the imagined slights and minor injustices they perceived have been levied against them. Be safe, be nice, and then be happy.

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Perhaps the most important thing you need to do is send out your wedding invitations. You should already have planned them, designed them, printed them, and have them sitting in addressed envelopes stuffed away safely in a box somewhere in your house. Once you hit the one month mark, it’s time to send them out. It might be a good idea to do this a little earlier too, so that you aim to have the invitations ARRIVE at the on month mark. Make sure that all the addresses are up to date, and that anybody who requires a little more time to get theirs (such as people who live overseas) gets theirs mailed out earlier.

Once they are sent out, you’re going to be spending the rest of the month following up with people and receiving their confirmations in the mail. Throughout this last stretch, make sure you block out some time every day to handle this matter. While you’re checking people off the list, it’s a good idea to arrange and rearrange all your seating charts as needed as people inform you of a plus one or not, and whether they are attending or not.

During these last few weeks you’re going to have the final fittings for yourself and the wedding party. People’s bodies change, and a lot of people work extra hard to lose weight prior to their wedding, so earlier measurements just won’t be accurate. This is also a good time to finish up any arrangements or purchases that need to be made for your party and guests. Make sure you have your wedding party favors and wedding guest favors purchased and safely stored. Make sure you’ve worked out any accessories that everyone will be wearing, and that you have enough for everyone involved.

Finally, there are a lot of little official things to take care of at this stage. This is the time to make sure that all the newspapers have your announcement, and if they don’t then this is the time to send it out. This is the time that you want to make sure you have your wedding license, and if you don’t to put in your paperwork for it in time to get it by the wedding. You’ll probably start receiving your gifts, so you want to track them and start putting together your thank you notes. You need to finalize your agenda and schedules for the days before and the day of. Finally, you want to confirm everyone and every location that’s involved in the affair- from the rehearsal dinner space to the location of the ceremony.

Because there can be so many things to take care of and check on, it’s a good idea to make a really detailed calendar with all these dates and things to check on them. If you’re working with a wedding planner, then they should take care of this and have it available for you. Make sure you have a copy, and double check it at every chance you get to ensure that no little detail gets messed up that could derail everything.

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Photography is one of the most important parts of a wedding. Think about it, after the even all you’ll have is your memories to rely on without great pictures. How reliable is your memory on any random day, when everything isn’t going by in a rush and you aren’t worried about all the different things that can go wrong? Not only will great pictures remind you of the all the wonderful moments of your special day, but they will also allow you to share some of your joy with people that weren’t able to make it. This is especially important if you opted to have a small wedding, as there will be plenty of people who want to know what it was like.

It’s not just enough to hire the first photographer you meet. There are a lot of factors to take into consideration when selecting who is going to take those photos. Are you only going to have one person, or multiple? Do you want them to be there just for the ceremony and reception, or do you want them involved for the whole day? How aggressive do you want them to be? Is it better for them to get the perfect shot, or to not intrude at all on the proceedings? What type of camera do you want them to use, and what sort of style do you want the pictures to have? Do they need to capture those unique placecard holders you picked out yourself at an antique sale? Make sure you work these things out as thoroughly as possible beforehand to ensure that when you flip through the photos after the honeymoon you see the same wonderful wedding you remembered attending.

Your vows are another detail that sometimes can go woefully ill-considered. After all, there are so many other big and pricey items that scream for attention that it can be easy to forget about this small, totally free, yet incredibly meaningful part of the day. The first big question you want to ask yourself is whether you want to use traditional vows, or whether you want to write original ones yourself. If you decide to work with traditional vows, you still have a few options. After all, you can select beautiful and meaningful vows that you didn’t write yourself that none-the-less express how you feel. The most traditional vows can feel a little outdated and overplayed, but that doesn’t mean you can’t explore poems and other verses that you wish to say at your wedding.

If you decide to write your own vows, you should remember a few things. First, you need to remember to relax about it. If you’re overly concerned with what everyone is going to think about what you wrote, you’re going to end up putting down something bland and lacking in both color and meaning. As in all writing, the first rule is to simply strive to be honest. Be true to how you feel and what you care to express to this person, and you can’t go wrong.

Of course, you might not be a great writer, and while total honesty can be endearing, in those cases it’s a good idea to sit down with someone who knows how to use their words and have them help you construct something that allows you to express how you feel honestly, without stumbling over your words.

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A coordinator has one big job made up of a million little jobs- she knows everything in your area related to weddings. She knows what the best bakeries are, she knows who the most reliable photographers are, and she knows everyone who is in charge of booking any venue you might want to tap. She acts as the main go between when it comes to you and the million little details and emergencies that pop up, and she acts as a shield to make sure that you can just enjoy the process and enjoy your special day- without a year of stress over whether or not it will go off right. She is up to date on all the modern trends in weddings, yet is well schooled in how things are traditionally done.

While it sounds like I’m exaggerating, a good coordinator will be able to embody all of these different roles. While you and your partner might want to be able to do it all your selves, you will invariably be tripped up by your lack of experience in the industry, your lack of connections, and the fact that you actually have to work your day jobs as well. It’d be nice if you could take off a year to plan your wedding full time, but most people will find this dream one that is forever unfulfilled.

The most important part of working with a coordinator is selecting the right one. You’re going to be getting to know this person very well, and they are going to be intimately involved in one of the most important days of your life. At the very least, you need to find someone whom you feel very comfortable with. At best, you’ll find someone whom you just seem to vibe with immediately- someone who will be able to finish your thoughts and find things that you will love without you having to say so. It’s important that you share as many of the same tastes and sensibilities as possible, to make things easier.

The fact that you need this level of relationship with your coordinator means that you should take your time finding one. You should start looking the day after you get engaged, and you should talk with each candidate you’re considering numerous times. Make sure you put a heavy emphasis on what your priorities are. After all, if it’s incredibly important to you to have crystal wedding favors but one of the candidates can only find you glass wedding favors, then you should probably keep looking. While it sounds a little silly, it’s these little things that will help you find the perfect professional to direct your special day.

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The first thing you need to do is decide where your priorities are. What’s most important for you to have at the event? This is going to be a very different answer for everyone. It doesn’t matter specifically what is important to you, as long as you know what it is and stick to your guns. Obviously if the things that are important to you are completely out of your price range you’ll need to compromise, but otherwise you should put your top priorities first. Explain what they are to your planner, explain what they are to your partner, and find out what his or her top priorities are. These will be your guide post through the rest of the process.

From there on out, you’ll know where you can save money. Some people decide that they are going to save money by having a smaller event. Deciding to have fewer people at the special day makes just about every aspect of it cheaper. You can select a smaller venue, you don’t have to spend as much on the reception as there are fewer mouths to feed. Most of the costs of a wedding are per capita costs, and reducing the heads there will make a big difference, especially if you have expensive tastes. It’s a lot cheaper to give 30 people wedding guest favors than to shell out for enough wedding party favors for 200.

While it’s nice to have everyone and anyone who was ever important to you there to watch you get married, it just isn’t so essential these days. With the internet and its ability to spread photos and videos of anything across any distance, you can feel a little better about only inviting your closest kin. Everyone else will at least be able to see the event and have some small part in it.

There are plenty of other areas of the day where you can cut corners. Go ahead and hire a nice caterer, but resist the urge to only order the most expensive dishes they have. Get a smaller cake instead of a multi-tiered monster. Don’t hire limousines to escort you around- your wedding takes place in one spot, and no one really cares what car you were in for the 15 minutes it took to arrive at your destination. Hire a DJ or have a friend DJ instead of hiring a large live band.

There are tons of places where you can spend less on your special day, provided you know from the beginning what’s most important for you to splurge on. When it comes down to it, your wedding is just about the union of you and your partner, it isn’t about the decorations. Anyone who is special enough to invite to your wedding should understand that and not look down on you for scrimping when you need to.

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The first thing you want to do is set your priorities. What’s most important to you to stand out? Decide this ahead of time, because chances are you’ll get a lot of ideas and only be able to implement some of them. While you’re at it, you should start making note of every picture you see from a wedding that stands out to you. These can be from magazines and blogs, or anywhere that highlights wedding elements. Figure out what really makes an impression in your eyes. While I don’t think you should just outright copy what other people found success with, I do think you should capture the spirit of what they accomplished. If they had a beautiful wedding guest book, then consider having a memorable wedding pen for everyone to sign in with. If they had wonderfully decorated invitations, consider how great a beautiful save the date card could be. Focus on emulating the idea, not the actual item.

Another great way to create a unique event is to include some personal stories into the ceremony. Not everyone is going to know all the details about how you met and your courtship, so it can be nice to include some of these stories into either your vows, the readings, or what your priest says. You don’t want to go overboard, but making sure everyone is up to speed can be a great way to plant the whole story of your courtship from meeting to marriage in their heads. Often we go to weddings and only have a vague idea of how everyone got there, especially if it’s someone whom we haven’t kept in touch with, and this little stories and moments will help everyone feel included in the event.

You can continue this feeling of intimacy on to the reception. While you can have the traditional big tables for everyone to eat at, consider adding some more casual and cozy places for people to relax in the hall. Lay some large cushions around, especially in the corners. Put books from your home near the cushions. Place photo albums of you, your partner, your families and your courtship around the room in these corners. Make people feel at home, and invite them further into your lives. People often get tired at big events, so it’s a nice touch to treat them as intimate guests and allow them to relax and explore more about the two of you.

Making your wedding personal and memorable doesn’t take a lot of work; it just takes a little thought. Don’t go out of your way to be wildly different, just go the extra mile to ensure everyone is as happy, comfortable and included as possible. In the end, your guests are there because they are all important in your life, and it’s your job to make them feel that way.

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The first thing you need to do is realize that starting to plan early on is better than planning later on. The sooner you start working things out, the more time you give yourself to solve problems and deal with things as they come. If you wait until the last minute, then you’re going to feel overwhelmed and not be able to enjoy either the process or the day of. The best way to start early is to look for a planner within a week of getting engaged. This serves two purposes. First, you will give yourself plenty of time to make sure you select the right planner for you. Second, it gives the three of you the time to build up a relationship and understanding of what your needs and wants are, so the planner can best serve your vision.

Once you have the planner, you’re going to want to figure out a system to keep everything organized. You’re going to be sharing at least some version of this system with you, your partner, and the planner, so you need to make sure it works for everyone. It’s a good idea to have a system of files and folders composing all the important elements of your wedding- from the cake to the reception hall, from everybody’s transportation to the food you’ll be serving. Have it all in one handy place. It’s a good idea to have both hard copies and digital copies. Hard copies are good to go over in person, while digital copies give you access to all the information whenever you want it.

While you’re planning your going to want to set priorities about what’s important and what’s not. If you need to have a huge wedding, then set that out at the onset. If you only need a small affair, then let everyone know ahead of time. You need to decide how much more you’re going to prioritize the wedding party members over the wedding guests. Are you going to simply plan to make sure that all the party members can be there, or will you take it to the next level? After all, some people go so far as having separate and different wedding party favors and wedding guest favors. It all depends on how you want to proceed.

Now that you’ve decided on a planner, now that you’ve decided how to organize the event and where your priorities are, it’s time to decide how hands on you want to be with the event. This once again comes down to a personal preference. Some people like to be involved in every step of the process, while others like to simply hire great people to take care of the details. You need to decide which is going to cause you the least amount of stress. Will you freak out if you aren’t there every step of the way, or will you freak out if you have to handle it all? Decide which direction will make you the most relaxed and happy, and follow it. You’ll be happy you did.

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First thing’s first; you need to approach planning the event with as positive and relaxed of an attitude as you possibly can. Think about it, if you weren’t planning it and didn’t have it all on shoulders, it should be a fun year! It’s like having a bunch of mini parties. You get to go to a fancy dress shop and try everything on until you find the perfect piece for you. You get to reconnect with all the members of your friends and family you’ve lost touch with. You get to try all sorts of delicious catered foods and cakes. People are always congratulating you, and people will throw you a couple parties like your bridal shower. When you think about it that way, it sounds pretty great, doesn’t it?

To ensure that you can just enjoy the process, you have to do a few preliminary steps. First, you need to start planning as early as humanly possible. While I’m not suggesting you jump up as soon as you say yes and break out a three ring binder filled with wedding magazines and potential venues, but starting the next day isn’t a bad idea. It’s a good idea to start planning with your fianc. At this time you should figure out what each of you are going to do as far as planning goes. If your fianc wants to be there every step of the way, that’s great. But if not, you need to know as soon as possible so that there aren’t any hurt feelings or broken expectations. This is also a good time to figure out a budget, and how you’re going to pay for it all. Some things will be more important to you. For instance, you might want to splurge to get venue you really want- but do you need to give fancy ring bearer gifts and flower girl gifts?

Once you have some duties assigned and have an idea about the scope of the wedding, you’re going to be in a good position to start bringing other people on board. It’s important that you start looking for a wedding planner as soon as possible, provided you are going to work with one. This will give you plenty of time to make sure you find the right person, and it will give the two or three of you plenty of time to bond so that they can learn what you want from the event.

After that, you can take things at a little more leisurely pace. It’s a good idea to try and find a venue next, as you’ll be more likely to find the place you want on the date you want for the price you want if you book it way ahead of time. Beyond that, you can relax and enjoy the process. Overall you want to first take care of those things that will produce the most good the longer they are in the picture. It doesn’t really matter how far in advance you book the band, but it does matter how long you have to develop a relationship with your planner.

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