Category: Wedding Planning

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Tips For Avoiding Wedding Planning Stress

Every bride has good intentions when she starts planning her wedding. You envision a beautiful day, surrounded by your family and friends, bridesmaids in beautiful dresses bursting with happiness and taking in all of the gorgeous details. No bride ever anticipates the pressure that can come with planning such an important day, but it’s inevitable. Everybody feels stressed at some point during their daily lives, and adding wedding planning to your already busy life can be overwhelming.

Remember that you set the tone for the wedding day and the months leading up to it. Those around you will feed off of your energy and if you are stressed, they will feel stressed. Starting off on the right track will not only keep your stress to a minimum but the stress of the people around you as well.

So how do you get from engaged to I do without losing your mind? Here are some tips for feeling calm and balanced during the wedding planning process.

Photo Courtesy of http://www.weddingdaystory.com/
Photo Courtesy of http://www.weddingdaystory.com/

Have a Plan

The best way to avoid any stress during wedding planning is to start off with a good plan. You and your fiancé must first decide on the type of wedding you’d like to have. Discuss the options with your parents as their input often comes into play as well. If you don’t have a wedding planner, you will be on your own to create a budget plan and wedding planning timeline for the months leading up to your wedding. These are very important! Make this your first step before moving forward.

Create a Realistic Budget

The budget is the number one cause of arguments and stress during the wedding planning process. You have to discuss the budget with your fiancé and anyone else that will be contributing to the wedding – come up with a number that works for everyone and stick to it. Be honest and don’t purchase anything that is over budget without discussing it with your fiancé. Prices vary from city to city, so you might have to do some research to see what average wedding costs are in your area.

Stay Healthy

Eating well and exercising has been proven to reduce stress. Physical activity creates endorphins and improves your mood, while a balanced diet can provide the necessary vitamins and minerals that help reduce stress levels. As little as thirty minutes of exercise three times a week will make a huge difference. A few easy changes to your diet like drinking more water, eating more fruits and vegetables, and cutting out fast food will give you the natural defenses you need to combat stress.

Find Your Happy Place

This is my favorite and most beneficial tip I can give any bride. We all deal with stress at some point, so you need to find that one thing you can turn to when things get out of control. Whether it’s reading, or getting a massage or pedicure, yoga, or even if it’s just locking yourself in your bedroom to meditate for five minutes – find something that works for you. When things get too stressful, you are prepared and can automatically turn to your happy place. You’ve heard that expression ‘Just sleep on it’. When you come back from your happy place, you might realize the problem wasn’t even that bad after all, or you’ll come back with the mental focus to face the problem head-on and deal with it.

Be Grateful

This will also be a big year for your parents, siblings, close friends, and family. They will be asked to throw bridal showers and engagement parties, purchase bridesmaid dresses, and take some of their time away from their personal lives to help with the planning of your wedding. Be patient and grateful, and make sure to include everyone in the planning process. Often the root of all family issues stems from someone not feeling like they’ve been heard or appreciated. Family dynamics are a part of every wedding, and this can be stressful when everyone has their own ideas and suggestions and insists on providing their opinions. So patience, forgiveness, and a small thank-you note or a loving hug can go a long way in keeping everyone happy during this time.

Know It Won’t Be Perfect

Let go of the idea that everything has to be perfect. Perfection is impossible to achieve and puts far too much pressure on brides. Every bride wants their day to go perfectly, but I can tell you this, your day will NOT be perfect. Little things will happen that you can’t anticipate, plans may not run exactly to schedule, and people will not always behave or react how you would like them to. In the end, your wedding day will be the perfect day FOR YOU. Have some perspective and appreciate all the good things about the day. Move forward knowing that there will be some bumps in the road, and you will feel less stress when you look at it that way instead of trying to pull off the impossible.

Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff

It can be easy to let your emotions take over when things don’t go how you want them to, especially for the most important day of your life. But if the napkins aren’t the exact color you wanted, or your bridesmaid orders the wrong shoes, or some wording gets mixed up on the invitations – remember there are worse things in life that can happen. Be thankful for the opportunity to be planning such a joyous celebration in the first place. Causing unnecessary drama will only create bad energy for your day.

Have Fun

This is supposed to be fun! If wedding planning is starting to feel more like a job, then you really have to take a step back and re-evaluate. Maybe you need some extra help – wedding planners can step in at any stage of the planning process to take over if you are feeling too overwhelmed or stressed out. Talk to your fiancé and your family – don’t be afraid to delegate some of the jobs so that you aren’t doing it all on your own.

Remember, if the bride is happy, everyone is happy. You set the tone and energy for your wedding day and the months of planning. Making an effort to stay calm and stress-free is important to a memorable wedding planning experience. Otherwise, you could become overwhelmed and turn into the dreaded Bridezilla, which no bride (or those close to her) wants.

– Tammy is a wedding planner, author, and the curator of TheWeddingGuru.ca – a wedding blog offering guidance and inspiration for the balanced bride.

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Common Mistakes To Avoid [2024] – Wedding Shopping Made Extremely Easy for Slender and Skinny Brides: Here’s Why

Common Mistakes To Avoid

Wedding dress shopping is rarely easy. However, it is even more difficult if you are a bride who belongs to either end of the size spectrum. So, if you are either plus-size or skinny, you may have a tougher time shopping for your wedding dress.

When choosing wedding dresses for skinny brides, finding a dress that suits your slender body frame is the challenge. Not all wedding dress styles flatter the natural body shape of really thin women. Choosing a wedding dress according to your body shape will ensure you find a flattering fit that enhances your best features. If you are slender with a straight, boyish structure, there are certain features to look for in a gown so that it looks good on you.

Let us find out what they are.

Common Mistakes To Avoid - Wedding Shopping Made Extremely Easy for Slender and Skinny Brides: Here’s Why

Factors to look for when choosing wedding dresses for thin brides

The overall bridal look is determined by how the various style elements of a wedding dress come together. Nevertheless, there are certain factors that are known to work well on skinny brides. For instance, textured and thicker fabric is guaranteed to create a fuller figure than fabric that clings. Similarly, a closed neckline is more suitable than a strapless one.

Continue reading Common Mistakes To Avoid [2024] – Wedding Shopping Made Extremely Easy for Slender and Skinny Brides: Here’s Why
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What your wedding planner actually does and 5 things only a planner can do for you

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Are you a soon-to-be bride battling with whether you should hire a wedding planner or not? While it is in no way impossible to have your wedding sans a planner, there are definite advantages to hiring a professional for the job. A good wedding planner will make your wedding planning a lot easier as she has valuable experience handling weddings, whereas you don’t. In fact, I think wedding planners deserve more credit than they usually get.

Anyone who has planned a wedding will know that it is no walk in the park. There are hundreds of details to handle, many things to arrange and several people to coordinate. Few couples have the required time, effort, patience or organizational skills to do it perfectly. Wedding planners are the right people to handle all the details of your wedding efficiently, when you can’t or don’t want to handle all these responsibilities yourself.

Although you have to pay a wedding planner for her services, it usually is money well-spent when you consider the stress that goes into wedding planning. This brings us to the question of who needs a wedding planner, and who doesn’t. To make things simple, look at the following list. You definitely need a planner if:

  • You have no clue about where to begin or how much anything costs
  • You and your partner have full-time demanding careers that leave you little to no time to plan your wedding details
  • Your wedding location is far away from where you live, and you cannot continuously monitor everything there
  • You do not have time or are unable to find inspiration through the internet, magazines or other wedding resources to plan your wedding.
  • None of your family members or friends are available to help you
  • You feel burnt out, stressed or panicky when you think of the wedding
  • You know what you want, but aren’t sure of how feasible it is or how to go about it.

If you don’t fall into any of the groups above, you may be able to handle your wedding all by yourself. Nevertheless, let us take a look at what a wedding planner does, so you can understand why we speak so highly of them.

What does a wedding planner actually do?

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It is crucial that every couple work with a wedding planner who they are comfortable with. Read our article here to learn more about how you should go about choosing your wedding planner.

From the minute your wedding planner is assigned responsibility for your wedding, she starts working towards making your wedding a success. It is a service you are paying for, so she has to deliver to your satisfaction. Her duties include, but are not limited to the following

#Planning your wedding checklist and creating a schedule

A wedding planner knows the sequence in which things are to be carried out, so every task is complete and every detail in place, in time for your wedding. She will custom-create your wedding tasks checklist, and give you a specific timeline of what is to be done and when. This will allow you to mark your calendars for wedding tasks, get every job done on time and not miss out on anything that you may need for your big day.

#Vendor selection

You will need to work with wedding vendors for most, if not all your wedding needs. Just the thought of selecting the right person from all the vendors out there, working with and coordinating many people, perhaps even teams, to get everything in place on time can make a bride jittery. Fortunately, your wedding planner is equipped for the task. Once you share your vision for your wedding, and discuss your budget, your wedding planner can come up with a list of vendors who can handle each aspect. They can even carry out interviews, check rates and just leave you to make the final choice, saving you all the trouble.

#Negotiations, discussions and coordination with vendors

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There are a number of factors that are to be discussed with each vendor—their availability, rates, overheads, what is included in their bills, extra services that may be needed, etc. Meetings will have to be held, phone calls made, emails shared, payment schedules fixed and contracts drawn. This will have to be done with your catering team, decorating team, florist, photographer, wedding dress vendor, baker—the list goes on. Your wedding planner will make sure all this is done on time and to your satisfaction. All you have to do is make your payments (which again your planner will remind you of, in advance) and leave the rest of the planning to her.

#Planning the finer details

Weddings today are displays of details. Every small and big detail at a wedding is important, and it is impossible to take care of everything if you choose to do it yourself. You must have a wedding design, based on your theme. This will cover everything from how the tables will be set at the reception, the centerpieces, the aisle decorations, your outfit, party favors, wedding cake and even how you photograph. Beautiful weddings are those that have plenty of fine details, but come together cohesively. Your wedding planner can help you decide on the palette, décor and every other detail for your wedding. Her experience will help her assist you with what is practical, and what may not work. The best part is that she can provide you suggestions that work within your budget, so you can plan your dream wedding without breaking the bank.

#Questions, concerns and etiquette

Wedding etiquette may be an alien subject to you. From the way your invitation is worded, to whether you should invite a new associate and whether a dress you choose is appropriate for a wedding-related event, there are so many things that you may not know or not be sure of. Your planner can guide you in the right direction. She will be well-versed in wedding etiquette and can make sure that you do everything the right way. By suggesting what is appropriate for your situation, she can make sure there is minimum chance for disappointment or embarrassment.

#Planning and preparing for the day

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It will seem like there is a lot going on, on your wedding day. In fact, the days leading up to it will be filled with activity, that you can easily miss or forget a few details at least. But, this can cost you dearly. The Guardian puts it perfectly in this article, where it says, “Every minor flaw on the wedding day feels like a catastrophe to the bride and groom.” While you may not be able to foresee or plan it to the tee, your wedding planner certainly can.

She will prepare you and all those involved in your wedding, for the actual day by setting everything right during the rehearsal dinner itself. She will make sure that your bridesmaids know when to be where, the venue is decked up just like you had imagined it, everything is where it should be, the guests are comfortably seated, the music is played when it should be, all the vendors deliver on time and everything happens without a hitch. She will also be prepared to handle any last-minute mishaps. Remember how J Lo in the classic movie “The wedding planner” was equipped for every scenario you can possibly imagine; that is pretty much how wedding planners work. Need I say more?

#Take care of all the after-the-wedding details

The duties of your wedding planner aren’t over as soon as you are married. Instead, she will make sure that you have a great day without having to worry about whether the venue is vacated on time, the decorations are taken down, everything is returned to where they belong and the on-site staff are paid for their services. Additionally, she will make sure that your wedding dress is bagged and sent to your house while you set off on your honeymoon, and that your gifts are sent home with the person designated for the task.

In short she ensures that you have a fantastic day, without worrying about what has to be done next or if everything will be where it should be, all because she is in charge.

Now, we have a good idea of all that a wedding planner does, but we aren’t finished. At least a few of you would be thinking that this is all stuff that you can handle, or perhaps your mother or friend can help you to. We agree!

Nevertheless, there are a few things that only a wedding planner can do right. Let us find out what they are.

5 things only your wedding planner can do for your wedding

1.Use their contacts to get you to the right people for the job

Unless you have worked with various vendors before, it will be difficult to find the right vendor for very specific needs within your budget. Plus, you can only find out so much about how reliable they are, from the feedback you receive from your sources. Your wedding planner has worked on several weddings and knows all the right contacts in the industry. This valuable exposure will allow her to put you in touch with the ideal person who will work within your budget, to handle every task for your wedding. This will save you time, effort and stress.

2.Tells you what is possible and what isn’t

Wedding planning can get too exciting, and brides can go over-the-top with certain plans, without really thinking it over entirely. In many cases, they may not recognize the feasibility of their ideas on such a large-scale. Your mother or best friend may also have only so much know-how to tell you what won’t work or suggest what can be done instead. A wedding planner has been there before, and knows what is possible and what isn’t. They will try to make you and your partner happy, but will direct you so you can avoid disappointment later.

3.As a neutral party, can advise you on how to sort out things

Now, here is a person who you can turn to, when you want something sorted out. And trust me, when I say, there are so many occasions when tempers may flare and opinions soar, where wedding planning is concerned. Your wedding planner has only your best interests at heart, and will know how to make sure the plans are made in your best interests. As long as she is in charge, you needn’t worry about how to convince your parents about who sits where at your wedding, or convincing your aunt about why you cannot use her idea at your party.

4.Handle any emergency and come up with Plan B

There are several things that can go wrong on the wedding day, or in the days leading up to it. Your wedding planner is the right person to foresee any such mishaps. She will usually have a Plan B in place for any emergency situation that may arise. Many brides freak out over last minute changes to plan or unexpected problems such as vendors who cancel. With a wedding planner in-charge, it is likely that you will not have to stress over any such issues. She will know what to do, and in most cases may even avert the problem without you even knowing about it.

5. Does her job seriously and you don’t have to feel guilty about her not having fun

Your wedding planner is a professional who you pay to make sure the wedding progresses smoothly. So, you needn’t worry about her not being a part of the fun. If the same task were handled by your family or friends, you would at some point or the other feel guilty that they were so engrossed in handling their responsibilities instead of having fun. With a wedding planner, this thought needn’t cross your mind. This is her job, and she is being compensating for it. So, you can relax and just enjoy your wedding, as you should be doing.

Ultimately, whether you hire a wedding planner or not, the important thing is that you enjoy your wedding and get married the way you always dreamed of it. And to make sure you have everything you have for your big day, whether you plan it with your wedding planner or all by yourself, come visit us at Best for Bride. You will find everything from your wedding dress to dresses for your bridal party, accessories and everything wedding related, with us.

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Say yes to these rules and stay away from wedding planning stress

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Planning a wedding is no easy feat. Gone are the days when the options were limited, and you had to only choose from one or two choices and be done with it. With a plethora of options in wedding dresses, venues, wedding styles, flowers, caterers, invitations and more, brides can easily find themselves stressing out over the wedding planning. So, we thought we’d bring you this set of rules to follow and stay sane during this intensely stressful time. Read on and be prepared to handle it right

#Rule 1

I will stick to the budget, no matter what

Yes, it can be tempting to throw in an extra stash of dollars to get that designer dress, or go with the florist’s recommendation to add those imported delicate flowers to the bouquet and make it just “perfect.” Just remember that “perfect” is how you define it. You can have a perfect wedding even on a shoestring budget if you are content with what you choose. So, stick to what you can afford and don’t splurge. Decide that whatever you find within budget is good enough, and it will be just that.

#Rule 2

I won’t listen to others for the sake of making them happy

Your friend who has started her own baking venture may want to do your wedding cake, or your cousin may have requested to be your wedding photographer. It is also likely that you have friends or relatives who suggest that you do the wedding like they suggest. Keep your cool, and go with what they suggest only if you are convinced it is worthwhile. Unless your friends or relatives are professionals who have worked at weddings previously, don’t take on their offer for fear of offending them. If someone tries to force their preferences on you for your wedding, say you’ll think over it, but stick to your decisions. If these people genuinely care about you, they will understand, no matter what you decide.

#Rule 3

I will not stress over perfection

Everyone wants the best, but when you begin to obsess over it, you lose all the fun of wedding planning. So, don’t be worried if you can’t find the perfect colors for your wedding décor, or if you have to settle for plans that are not exactly as you anticipated. Be flexible with your plans and keep your expectations realistic, you will find wedding planning a lot more relaxing.

#Rule 4

I will be happy with how I look on my wedding day

So, you wanted to shed several pounds before your wedding, or had decided to get a few facials but couldn’t find time. Remember that you will be beautiful, no matter what. You may not even remember this plan to shed weight, when you think back over your wedding years later. So, don’t obsess over what you couldn’t do. Instead, go forward with optimism and you will enjoy your wedding day as you ought to.

What is important today may seem irrelevant tomorrow. So don’t dwell on what could have been, or whether it would be better if done differently. Just go with the flow, relax and enjoy things as they happen.. All that matters is that you have a great engagement and exciting wedding.

To help you with your wedding shopping needs or for more wedding related tips and advice, keep visiting us at Best for Bride.