A Retrospective: My Top Wedding Planning Tips

Fresh from crossing the threshold from fiance to Mrs in 2014, I’m looking forward to my first year as married woman in 2015 and it’s safe to say things look a little different from here. Going from knowing absolutely nothing about weddings, to having planned and had my own (ten years in the making), it’s crazy how different I feel about it now! I was so completely overwhelmed when I started, that I was ready to give up and elope several times. But boy am I glad we stuck it out and had a great big party to celebrate! It was worth it.

Here is my perspective on the process from start to finish, from a wedding newbie starting from scratch, getting married in California and planning from Boston.

Overwhelmed: Where to Start? How about The Dress. I know it’s seems like a strange place to begin, how can you figure out what to wear if you literally have no other details? Well, it’s one of the only things you can do without a date. Most dresses can be altered to add or remove sleeves, for example, if you switch the time of year you get married. It’s also a way to ease in to the wedding world without spending money or making a big commitment, since most salons allow you to try on lots of dresses for free without purchasing right away, or at all.

Find a Venue before you pick a Date. We went through the process of picking our ideal season, best dates and times of year, but when we started searching for venues, that all went out the window. We found the ideal place: a historic walled garden in the heart of downtown old town Monterey, CA: gorgeous, affordable, central: booked two years in advance. They had ONE DATE left for the entire year: August 9th, which at the time, was over a year away. It was the place, we took it. That was after we told most of our friends we would get married in the spring. Oh well! The bottom line: most venues book so far ahead or have seasonal restrictions, that sometimes compromising when you can get married will smooth the planning process.

Invite only as many people as you can feed. It sounds weird, but it’s not a good idea to invite more people, and expect a certain number of “No’s.” Set an early deadline for RSVP’s so you can have a good idea of headcount well before the wedding, and then invite more people as a second tier if you have less than desired. Being underspent is much less of a shock than overestimating.

Have one thing that inspires you. For us, it was our cake. I posted about struggling to find a theme and a color scheme for our wedding ages ago, and how we saw a picture of a cake that gave us the inspiration to start planning. We decided to give that picture to the wonderful ladies at Just Cake and she did an excellent job replicating the original design and preserving our thematic inspiration.

Seriously consider a Wedding Coordinator. I thought it would be a waste of money, with a hefty pricetag and not much value. I decided to hire a coordinator for “Day of” services when it became apparent that planning from afar I would need some boots on the ground with experience. I used Yelp to find Patty Speirs of Every Last Detail. For those unsure of what “Day of” services entail, Patty actually began coordinating two months in advance to get everything organized, interfaced with all my vendors to coordinate set up and clean up, directed the rehearsal, timed the walking down the aisle and the flow of the day, and so many more things that I would never have thought of doing. It might be different for someone else with a lot of wedding experience, but for me, I was able to enjoy the day and be worry-free: a priceless experience.

The best planning resources.

1. Google Drive: We kept all our spreadsheets here: guest lists, research on florists and venues, made it easy to access from anywhere and plan whenever I could regardless of whether I was on a phone or computer. Not only that, many vendors emailed us documents, and it was much easier to add them directly to a Drive folder, rather than printing everything out.
2. Here Comes the Guide: Although this is only relevant for brides planning a California, Chicago, Hawaii, or DC wedding, it’s the most comprehensive resource for venues, vendors, pricing, etc, that I found that isn’t totally overwhelming and not user-friendly. It put together details about venues that I didn’t even know I should be thinking about, but having those things itemized gave me the outline of a mental checklist to keep in mind when I visited places in person.
3. Evernote. I use my iPhone a lot, and this tool was the best way to keep checklists organized, updated, and synced across my computer, phone, and tablet. When something struck me I could just write it down immediately, and it would be in one place, and still everywhere I needed it. It came in most useful toward the homestretch, when there were so many tiny details to think about.
4. Pinterest. While there is an epidemic or Pinterest-perfect wedding wishes and cliches out there, it’s still a good aggregate of styles, colors, ideas, and DIY’s. On Pinterest I was able to find some wonderful ideas that I made my own, such as the aforementioned cake. I also found my invitation vendor by browsing Pinterest: Elli, which is a unique collective of designers who make customizable wedding stationery so gorgeous, I wish they did more than just weddings!

If you’re planning a wedding, good luck! I’m looking forward to NOT having to plan anymore, and just revel in memories of a happy day!

Venue: Historic Memory Gardens, Monterey, CA

Catering: Grapes of Wrath Catering

Photography: Michael Keel Photography

Cake: Just Cake

Flowers: Kate Healey of Big Sur Flowers

DJ: RockBottom DJ

Wedding Planning: Patty Speirs of Every Last Detail

The Registry Dilemma

With the wedding less than two months away,  items from our registry have started arriving at our doorstep. Every time I come home from a long day at work to find a package waiting, reminding me of my upcoming nuptials, it puts a smile on my face and I’m touched that people are thinking of us and spent their hard-earned money on things that make us happy.

However, our Registry didn’t always bring me so much joy. In the beginning, it was a huge source of stress for me. For one thing, I love to shop. At one point I was spending so much of my income on clothes, I went on a self-imposed shopping hiatus and only wore six items of clothing for a whole month (with washing, of course). I attempted to prove that I didn’t need a continuous supply of new clothes. I soon feel back in to my old habits, so it was only natural that when I got engaged the Registry was one of the first things I started working on.

But where to register? Immediately, I made spreadsheets of the best places to register for each type of thing; was I more interested in housewares or honeymooning? Which places had the best perks? Completion rewards? Free gifts? I was quickly overwhelmed by the choices. I liked small appliances from Macy’s and linens from Bed Bath and Beyond, but I liked flatware from Crate and Barrel. Instead of paring down my interests and making a decision, I did what I usually do- I didn’t decide. Instead I went with a “universal” registry where I could add any item from any site…and went a little crazy. Soon, I’d expanded to TWO universal registries: Amazon, and MyRegistry.

My level headed fiance attempted to pull me down to Earth. He patiently reminded me that perhaps we really didn’t need three sets of flatware and four kinds of wine glasses. And while I was inclined to agree, I was stuck in a mental loop thinking about my life to be…and not MY LIFE NOW. I was living in a Pinterest-inflicted wedding nightmare: shouldn’t I use this registry to craft the perfectly manicured home that was to follow? Wasn’t it my only chance??

The concept of “entertaining” suddenly became all too acute, and I was aware that I had nothing specific to serve cheese on, for example. What a travesty! I had to rectify this RIGHT NOW. Immediately I went down the rabbit hole; there are so many choices: wooden boards, marble boards, slate boards… different shapes (hearts! states! animals!), ones with accessories and ones with tools. Cute ones and Classy ones. How can I ever choose? Every now and then my mind would be blown: how can I  turn down a board that features little cheesy islands floating amongst a sea of swirling crackers that ALSO cutely says Cheese and Crackers? Obviously I need it! I need them all! I will become a cheese serving MACHINE! Muhahahahahaa!! Okay no, I didn’t add that one. But still, it’s an adorable idea.

Cheese & Crackers cheeseboard from Uncommon Goods

Just as I was the compulsive Registry adder, my fiance was the compulsive Registry researcher. I would add the first thing I saw that I marginally liked, then add ten more of the same thing, and promptly experience regret and then hopelessness when I found something better and realized I should choose only one. My fiance favored researching all the possibilities for one object then thoroughly and fully vetting each one before deeming it worthy to add.

Both approaches provoked disagreement and unrest, and I started getting anxious, as if furnishing our home together was a terrifying glimpse into the fate of our subsequent marriage. I lost sleep at night, I started to dread our registry conversations. But then I took a step back and a deep breath…and calmed down. I looked at the things we most wished for but couldn’t afford or needed for our life now (not our invisible future life) and I added those. I added things we would use, and better versions of things we had but wanted to upgrade. The registry started to take shape. I was stunned when I read Bon Apetit’s “The Kitchen Tools you actually need on your Wedding Registry” and found that our newly pared down list had almost all of those, but not too much extra fat.

I’ve learned it’s a process not to be taken lightly, but shouldn’t be overly stressful. As with most wedding things, a happy medium is the best, and freaking out too much doesn’t serve much good. Now let’s hope I can bring this zen attitude to the rest of the million things I have to do, and this wedding will be a breeze.