After the first excitement wears off from the engagement thoughts turn to the subject of how to plan a wedding. While you might think this is equally exciting, the truth is that figuring out the steps to plan a wedding can be stressful, frustrating, and overwhelming. This is unsurprising as everyone wants to prepare a wedding that is beautiful and memorable, as well as enjoyable.
Wedding Plan Stress
If you are feeling stressed over your wedding plan and wedding checklist (you do have a wedding checklist right) it may be that you just don’t know what steps to take. Or perhaps your wedding is too soon. It can be extremely stressful to plan a wedding in 3 months or less. Just know that worrying about your wedding day is natural.
Why Wedding Planning Is Stressful
The fact of the matter is that in most cases your stress is caused by too many choices. The vast number of available options for almost every facet of a wedding is enough to drive anyone bonkers. Too many choices is confusing and often freezes you, meaning nothing gets decided. This of course causes more stress since nothing seems to be getting done and on goes the vicious cycle.
Plan a Wedding Checklist
No matter what type of wedding you are planning, a large lavish affair or trying to plan a wedding on a budget, what you need is a checklist. By having a checklist of system you are able to better organize and cull your choices to the one that truly suits you and your fiancée. This reduces your confusion and feelings of being overwhelmed and can actually make the wedding planning experience a fun one.
The Wedding Checklist Formula
There are really just 3 things you need to keep in mind when making all of your wedding planning decisions. This is true even when you plan a wedding online.
1. Identify those things that you and your fiancée hold dear. These are your values.
2. Using your wedding checklist, prioritize every task and purchase. You should prioritize in two ways. First, by those things you feel are necessary for your wedding. Those things that are just wants versus needs should go lower on the list. Then prioritize by timeframe. For example, the wedding venue usually has the most lead time so that should be handled first.
3. Start at the top of your list and start taking care of the items that have the greatest priority. This allows you to focus on just one thing at a time and remove the overwhelming number of choices and tasks from your mind.