Now that the holidays are over I'm gearing up to share a bunch more wedding content. We legit get married in 2.5 months and I only freak out about every third day or so - haha.  In case you missed it, I shared two cute ways to pop the big question to your Bridesmaids over on Style Me Pretty back in November! 

Something that has been on my to-write list for awhile is the wedding planning process. The wedding planning process has been a little expedited for us (planning a wedding in 4.5 months), but as "we've" gone through it I imagine all brides-to-be have similar feelings whether it be a 2 year process or multiple month situation. Wondering why I put "we've" in quotes... because let's be real, wedding planning really ends up of falling on the bride's lap. It's almost better that I didn't write this post in November because I've calmed down a bit since then. 

For those of you that have unicorn husbands-to-be that LOVE planning things and are super creative and dialed in to all things wedding then this post isn't for you... haha. This post is for the newly engaged gals who may or may not want to strangle their fiances when they look at the laundry list of wedding to-dos, who are drowning in vendor discussions, and exhausted from the late night Pinterest-ing.

Hear me out, I'm the planner in my relationship. I plan ALL the things, so I GET IT... why would wedding planning be any other way? I don't know... I guess I was wrong to think it would be a group effort.

5 EMOTIONAL STAGES OF WEDDING PLANNING

1. SCARED SH*TLESS: sticker shock (read more about $ here) and a mountain of decisions to be made

2. EXCITED: the venue is secured (and in some cases the wedding planner) - for a moment you're feeling real good about all of this. There's time, so much time...

3. HALP!!: even with guidance from a planner or some master to-do list you found on The Knot, the e-mails about hotel blocks, vendor deposits, and decisions about fonts on your paper goods is pulling you into a tizzy of never ending decisions!

4. I'VE GOT THIS: scheduling wedding convos with your hubby-to-be and delegating to your fiance and planner has changed the game. Transportation to and from the wedding? Snooze fest - "hunny, can you handle that? K. Thanks!"

5. TBD: still planning 😉 but I'll get back to you!

Here's the thing, I'm not sh*t talking on Andy - it's not HIS fault. It's not any guys fault that they don't know what the HECK to do as it's related to planning a wedding. They've never done it before! We've never done it before either but watching our gf's plan their weddings and/or just being the awesome party planners we are, it comes to us a little more naturally. Once I finally realized that... many of my frustrations dissipated. Somehow I can anticipate the things we're going to need to figure out: wedding timeline, tablescapes, paper goods, etc. but that's not something that he even thinks about and/or would ever think about unless I prompted him or asked for help. So, here are some of my learnings/tips to help make the process with your hubby-to-be just a little less stressful: 

TIPS FOR MAKING WEDDING PLANNING BEARABLE WITH YOUR FIANCE

• A MASTER SPREADSHEET: I started a google spreadsheet that has ALL of our wedding info in it for Andy and I to work off of. Tabs include: BUDGET, ACTUAL BUDGET, VENDORS, GUEST LIST V. 1, ACTUAL GUEST LIST, and TIMELINE

• WEDDING DATE NIGHTS: To avoid talking about wedding stuff during every conversation you have, schedule date nights to hit key wedding decisions. I used the TIMELINE section in our shared doc to prioritize what needed to be finalized when. ie: guest list, finish save the date design, identify bridal party, secure photographer, etc. We used this as a guide for our wedding date nights.

• DELEGATE: we are working with a fab wedding planner in Los Cabos , Amy Abbott, who has been great at keeping us on track but at the end of the day we are the ones that need to make decisions. And those decisions on top of everyday work and life decisions start to take a toll. Once I started delegating to Andy it made life SO much easier. Things that you can easily delegate:

  • Wedding Website - I ended up doing much of our website but Andy wrote the "how we met" and "proposal" copy which was so cute and helpful

  • Invite Assembly - this is something we will do together 50/50

  • Wedding Transportation - we will be providing transportation for our guests during a few parts of the weekend and Andy is spearheading (along with Amy) the coordination of all of this

  • Addresses - with our digital save the dates we requested people provide their addresses (such a lifesaver). Of course, not everyone did, so it's Andy's responsibility to get all the missing ones

  • Wedding Block - Andy and Amy did all the negotiations with our hotels, finalized blocks, and continue to follow up as rooms are filled to see if we need more rooms

• COMMUNICATE: like anything new, you don't know what you don't know. When I started feeling frustrated or overwhelmed with my wedding to-do's I made sure to communicate it with Andy so he knew how I was feeling and 100% of the time his response was "how can I help?" and if he couldn't help at least he knew why I was maybe just a little grumpy that evening.

Hopefully this helps if you're in the midst of wedding planning! THINK POSITIVE THOUGHTS: we're all going to come out the other end with the most magical day and lifelong partnership with our best friend! 73 days and counting until #aplusabigday.  

More wedding goodness right this way...