Weddings are stressful. It’s basically throwing a massive all-day party that has to go perfectly, costs a bunch of money, and any number of things going wrong can ruin the entire event. There are flowers to order, foods to test, dresses to pick out, people to keep happy, and tons of requests and dreams to fulfill.
It’s so hard that people take entire months, or even years, to plan their dream wedding. The logistics alone can cripple a single person. Thankfully, there are tons of tools and technologies that can help with practically every step of planning a wedding.
Looking for Inspiration
50+ Epic Wedding Photography & Engagement Ideas
Before you start setting up appointments and getting all of your ducks in a row, you’ll need to get inspiration and ideas for what you want from your wedding. Sure, you’ve probably thought about little things here and there while growing up, but now it’s time to buckle down and plan everything.
Luckily, you aren’t alone in this pursuit. Tons of other people are in a similar mindset as you, and they are posting tons of stuff online.
Social media is a good place to start if you know where to look. Facebook and Instagram can give good visual ideas but offer little explanation of how a specific something was made or where it was purchased from. Also, you are often limited on who you can look at by who you are friends with.
More open platforms are Pinterest and wedding blogs. Along with being able to look at different wedding ideas and themes, these places will often have explanations of what they did, how they pulled it off, and somethings even how much it cost.
Another cool tech rising in the world is 360-degree cameras and video. If somebody films a wedding in 360 degrees, that means you can get an even better sense of the wedding as a whole by being right in the middle of it. You can get a better sense of how things look in relation to each other, how everything contributes to the feel as a whole, and how things work with the venue. It’s even possible to use VR and AR headsets to get a new look at how your dream wedding will look in your chosen venue.
Scheduling Your Appointments
Complete Wedding-Day Timeline
If you are planning on having a big wedding, expect to meet with tons of people. The more features you want to have at the wedding and receptions, the more appointments you can expect. You’ll need to meet with a florist, the cake maker, the catering company, check out venues, listen to the wedding band/DJ, try on wedding dresses, pick out bridesmaids dresses, and more. Plus, it’s likely you won’t pick somebody you like in the first meeting, meaning you’ll need multiple meetings to figure out each aspect of the wedding.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed, plus you need to keep up on the rest of your life too. Luckily, there are many smartphone apps that can help. Look for ones that connect to an account that, in turn, can be accessed across all of your devices, that way you can put in appointments and get notifications regardless of what device you are on.
If you have a Google account, (and let’s be honest, nearly everybody does) consider putting your schedule into Google Calendar. It has several key features that can make life easier, like detecting appointments in your email and automatically adding them to your calendar, being able to share your calendar with others so they can see when you are busy, and functionality across every device possible. It’s also possible to send invites to people so your appointments with them get added to their own calendar, making sure they don’t forget.
You can also use technology to avoid unnecessary appointments entirely. Most businesses in the wedding industry understand that people want things perfect, so they often ask for approval from the involved parties. This can mean extra trips down to the bakery, or flower shop, or whatever else you have planned. Instead of taking time going, set up a video call to look over what they are doing and give your approval. It’s also possible to digitally sign contracts and purchase orders, and then send them over email, saving the time of going back to the store yet again.
Coordinating With Everybody Involved
How to Become a Professional Wedding Planner
Planning a wedding takes a lot of people. It involves the bride and groom, their families, groomsmen and bridesmaids, and then an extra dozen service providers for the wedding. Making sure everybody is coordinating with each other is difficult and can lead to big gaps in communication.
Instead of becoming an information manager among everybody, look into utilizing a chat app to keep everybody informed. Many chat apps are great at including large amounts of people while still allowing private communications. Instead of creating a single massive texting group, look at chat apps like Slack, Discord, and Skype. These have both desktop and smartphone apps, meaning you can look up and talk to people everywhere and continue conversations seamlessly.
Budgeting Your Money
How Much Does a Wedding Cost?
A major concern for most weddings is how much the whole thing will cost. Often, parents are willing to help pay for this celebration of love, but it’s becoming more common for the bride and groom to put their own money into it too.
So, budgeting for your personal life and the wedding becomes incredibly important. Figuring out how much money you should spend on your wedding, and what money should go where, can be very hard to do.
It’s also common for people to go into a little bit of debt to help pay for their wedding. A common first thought is to put extra wedding expenses on a credit card, but that can lead to unwanted debt you might not be able to pay off. Instead, look into getting a loan, or simply cut back on purchases to stay in budget.
If you are planning on shopping online, there are apps and websites to make sure you get the best deal possible. Some sites can monitor prices on specific products and let you know when the price fluctuates or drops below a specific price. Other services can find coupons that you can use at checkout whenever shopping online. Use these tools to save a few extra dollars on your wedding that can go to other expenses, like your honeymoon.
Use Your Tools to Make Life Easier
The Best Tools to Simplify Your Wedding Planning
Wedding planning is stressful, so don’t make it harder on yourself by not using the tools available. There are tools meant to help with nearly every step of the wedding process, so find what’s giving you the hardest time and find a tool to help. That can include finding inspiration, planning your time, or even figuring out where to spend your money.