Wedding Planning: Can I afford a wedding planner?

A wedding planner is a professional consultant who acts on the bride and groom’s behalf to get the best deals to save you money and to save you time. They can provide affordable alternatives that fit any budget.

Wedding planners offer many planning packages that can fit your needs and budget. You can decide to use a wedding planner to plan your wedding from beginning to end or to help answer specific questions from etiquette to wording initiations. They charge hourly rates, rates based on the percentage of the total wedding cost, or one flat rate.

Wedding planners can provide the knowledge, guidance, and creativity to bring your dreams to a reality by finding items that best suit your vision.

Bridal Beauty before the Wedding Day

The secret to wedding day radiance is planning and applying your beauty regimen now. Six months to a year prior to the wedding date, is the time to experiment with makeup and beauty products, color and hair cuts, artificial nails, and consulting with your physician for other pressing issues like skin problems or even stress. Implement a workout routine that will help you get those fabulous arms and shoulders for that strapless dress, to help curve stress, and to improve overall health.

Here are a few things that helped me: I began a workout routine by joining the local gym and went in and out of taking the different classes they offered until I found one or two classes that I absolutely loved (cycling and weight lifting). I also made a few changes to my diet. I made sure to drink 6-8 glasses of water a day, cut back on my sweet intake, and decided to start taking a multi-vitamin. With the changes to my weekly workout and to my diet I was able to see a change in a few weeks. The exercise gave me more energy and stamina, and the water and vitamins seemed to help clear up my skin.

I experimented with a few over the counter beauty products for my hair and teeth. I used whitening strips which really seemed to work great on my teeth, and I also applied a deep conditioning treatment for my hair that made it silky and shiny. I looked through magazines and talked with friends and family to get makeup tips and ideas and then bought and tested the different colors and products until I found what I wanted to use for the day of the wedding. If you are using a hair and makeup professional be sure to have a run through before the wedding day.

Give yourself the time to experiment and explore different beauty options. By beginning your beauty regimen now you can plan on looking gorgeous and radiant on your wedding day.

Wedding Planning: The #1 Most Important Thing To Remember

From engagement bliss to budget woes, planning a wedding is like riding a roller coaster; there are euphoric peaks and cheerless dips. The stress of planning a wedding can sometimes leave you second guessing yourself or your mate.

Through the wedding process remember the reasons you decided to say “I do”. You are about to marry your best friend and the love of your life because they truly make you happy. Remember to say I love you and bite your tongue once or twice because you are about to begin a journey of a lifetime and your wedding day will be one of the many beautiful memories you will be creating together.

Wedding Planning: Getting Organized

What should you do next? Start now and get organized!
Organization is the key to a stress free wedding. By keeping all of your wedding ideas, contracts, vendor information, and timelines in a portable format will reduce the amount of stress on your wedding day, I promise.

It is very simple, go to your local office supply store today and purchase a binder, accordion filer, or some manageable filing system. You can also purchase tab dividers or labels to organize your filing system and pouches to store business cards or receipts.

Include these sections and you can add more as you go:
-To Do Calendar / Checklist
-Wedding Planning Budget List
-Wedding Attire
-Bridal Shop Information
-Color Swatches
-Ceremony (Including clergy, music, transportation)
-Vendors & Contracts
-Order of Ceremony
-Reception (music, caterer, cake, seating arrangements, rentals)
-Vendors & Contracts
-Timeline of Reception (first dance, cutting of the cake, etc.)
-Flowers / Decorations
-Invitations, Stationery, Wedding Program
-Gifts
-Parties (engagement party, rehearsal dinner, bride’s maid luncheon, etc.)
-Honeymoon

There are so many choices of fun stationery, ribbons, stickers and colors that you can use to accessorize your “organizer”. Which ever type of organizer you choose to use the goal is to stay organized and find a system that works best for you.