Everyone knows how stressful it can be to plan a wedding. I don’t know about you guys, but from the second I got engaged, to every time I saw a new friend up until the day of our wedding, people would constantly ask me how wedding planning was going. That question that would inevitably be accompanied by, “How stressful is planning?”Don’t get me wrong, from family involvement to finding the perfect vendors that are within your budget, which hellooo, if you haven’t already, sign-up here to start saving on your dream vendors, all of the details do add up and can get stressful really quick!

Weddings also really magnify everyone’s emotions (trust me!) and truly do end up getting stressful! One of the most stressful parts, in my eyes, is the amount of “mistakes” that you can make while wedding planning. But, here at Forever Bride, we’re all about offering you great advice to help you avoid wedding planning headaches. What you need to keep telling yourself is that every bride makes mistakes, but hopefully we can help you avoid some of the major ones!

So, I’m going to write a two-part blog series (yes, there’s that many planning mistakes that we hear brides make) to help you make sure you avoid doing these mistakes. This week, we’ll assume you just got engaged and are at the beginning phase of planning your wedding. I’ll kick things off by sharing four common mistakes you could make right after you get engaged:

1. Rushing into the wedding plans

Don’t have your wedding nearly fully planned out before the sunset on your first day as a newly engaged couple.

They’re already stressed out over the proposal- so take some time to show him how much you appreciate them and everything that they have done to make you feel so special and loved during your proposal. Trust me, unless your future husband or wife is as type A as you are, if you do this you may even frighten your fiancé!

It’s easy to get caught up in everything and want to immediately start planning your wedding. We totally get it, this year we heard from a bride who got engaged in May and her dream venue was already fully booked for Saturdays in Sept and Oct for the following year. Lately, everybody is planning their wedding more than a year in advance and it’s easy to want to do the same to make sure you secure the vendors you’re the most passionate about. Not only will rushing through your wedding plans be pretty scary for you and your fiancé, but it also takes all the fun out of it!

Seriously you guys, I’m guilty of this one, I had my venue and photographer booked within the first two weeks. It was a whirlwind and I wished we would’ve slowed down and soaked in the newly engaged moment more. Just remember that wedding plans can (and typically do) fall into place really quickly, so take your time and enjoy your planning!

2. Not making a priority list

Your wedding plans will come together much more smoothly if you create a priority list of the most important wedding elements that both of you cherish the most. The key in this statement is that both of you are most excited about these elements.

One mistake we commonly hear at Forever Bride is that you’re really concerned about flowers and the venue, but your fiancé cares more about the food and drinks and entertainment. If you’re not on the same page about what’s most important on your big day, you may end up blowing your budget or feeling stressed out (and ultimately spend money) different things than what you actually would’ve prioritized.

Or maybe you both agree that having a more extravagant venue and caterer are very important to you, but wedding favors and a huge cake is not. If you’re able to come up with what (remember, BOTH) your priorities are, you have a set-in stone list of what is most important to you as a couple.

This makes it easy to manage conversations about wedding planning when others (aka parents) try to chime in. It allows you to communicate effectively without coming across as a stressed-out bride. We’ll get into parent involvement later in this post as that’s another thing that we find couples make the most mistakes about.

3. Not researching cost before you make a budget or talk money with parties involved in paying for the wedding

Money is always a huge issue and stressor when it comes to wedding planning. Make sure that you research your favorite venues, caterers, dress designers, and photographers and videographers thoroughly before you sit down and discuss numbers with all the parties that will be involved in paying for your wedding. Unfortunately, a lot of vendors do not put this type of information out freely on their website, so it’s very likely that you’ll either have to either email them to inquire or set up a consultation for you to get the most accurate figures. Trust me, all this hassle is worth it.

I also recommend reaching out to multiple vendors in each category, as then you can more easily get an understanding for general costs of each category. Very rarely do you go with the first person that’s available on your day (unless they end up being your favorite and you get an awesome deal).

Once you do discuss budget with the parties that are helping you pay for your big day, make sure you split it accordingly to the prioritized list you previously made. There are a lot of budget infographics on-line that will try to help guide you into how much of your wedding budget you should plan on spending on each vendor, however, only you know what you guys care about the most. Here at Forever Bride, we say put your money where your heart is!

Spend more freely on your top few priorities and be a little more money conscious on the items that have fallen to the end of your list.

And remember, you can do a lot of your researching and reaching out to vendors about their pricing and awesome Forever Bride savings right on our website! We make it so easy for you guys! We have an almost one-stop-shop for a lot of Minneapolis vendors and offer you so many ways to save money to making your dream wedding a reality!

4. Not having firm boundaries on what parents are involved in

Parents are an inevitable part of everyone’s wedding. And if you are unfortunately parent-less, there will be others who want to get involved. Parents also inevitably have different opinions than you do on some things. After all, you are blending family and family values, and lets face it, you and your hunny probably don’t have the same POV on everything”¦And if you’ve had even one conversation about planning with your families, you are well aware that mixing wedding plans and parents can be a tricky situation. In fact, it’s often one of the things newly engaged couples first have disagreements over.

So, to help make it more pain free, make sure you take some time to sit down with your significant other and decide exactly how your families will be involved in your wedding planning. Then, sit your respective families down and explain (in a nice way) why and how you’re going to have them involved in planning.

It’s important that you think through every little detail, because those little details are the ones that people get hung up on. Who will attend the cake testing? Will both sides attend the food tasting? Reception site viewing? One way to stay organized is to make a chart of what each family’s involvement will be and match it up with what works best for you guys.

Another food for thought – how involved does you hunny really want to be? For brides who think their guy doesn’t really care about that center piece arrangement, you’d be surprised just how much he cares about the little details (and he may surprise you later). Make sure you also connect on how involved you both are going to be with each element. If logistics aren’t your strong suite, lean into your partner, but also be sure to voice an opinion ahead of decision making – it’ll save a lot of stress & fights!

Hopefully if you’re well on your way into wedding planning you can read this blog post, reflect, and pat yourself on your back for avoiding all, orrrr realistically, at least a few of these common mistakes.

If you are a newly engaged bride-to-be, congrats! And, hopefully you were able to learn a trick or two on how de-stress the wedding planning process.

And if all else fails, just check out our Spa Services Forever Bride vendors and book yourself a nice relaxing service after you solidify some of your wedding plans.

Stay tuned for blog post numero dos on how to survive wedding planning. Happy planning brides!