Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Grooms Helping to Plan Their Wedding

Have you noticed grooms are getting more and more involved in helping to plan their wedding?  No longer is it just the bride and her family.  He wants to get in on the action, too.   Take Brad Pitt, for instance.  He designed Angelina Jolie's engagement ring and is supposedly restoring an estate in southern France for the wedding as well as having a say on the flowers and ceremony.

As a wedding planner, I have seen many grooms be involved with helping their bride plan “their” wedding.  It’s not just the bride’s wedding anymore.

I actually thought this same thing when planning my own wedding 18 years ago.  My fiancé, now husband, was very involved in the planning of our wedding and I loved it.  I wanted him to be a part of it.  I always thought the wedding is just as much for the groom as it is for the bride.  So much so that I wanted him to also walk down the aisle – and, he did. 

There are still many grooms who say, “Whatever you want, dear.”  But, there are many now that say, “I want to help.”

Dear Brides:  What about you?  Is your groom helping you plan the wedding?  How involved is he?  Please comment and share.

photo credit:  Martha Stewart Weddings

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Do You Think You Need More Than A Year to Plan Your Wedding?


Unless there are extenuating circumstances, you don’t need more than a year to plan your wedding.  Why wait when you don’t have to.  I’m here to tell you, you don’t have to wait a year or two if it’s absolutely not necessary.  I speak from personal experience.  You can read my story here.  

If you and your groom know what you want and are pretty decisive, then why wait.   You do have to be flexible and resourceful, though.  The latest technology certainly helps in planning weddings in less than a year.  Having a shorter engagement period also lends itself to not over-thinking everything and trying to micro-manage it all.  You wait too long, you may end up changing your colors, décor or whatever many times over.  This can become very stressful and possibly blow your budget. Who needs that?  Think of it like fixing Thanksgiving dinner.  You cook and slave for several hours, sit down, eat and in 30 minutes, it’s over.  You think you did all that work and it’s already finished.  That’s the way it could feel with your wedding planning.  If your engagement period is only six months, you won’t feel as bad with it all being over in a few short hours versus if your engagement period had been a year or two, thinking, “All this work and time and it’s already over?” 

Based on my own personal experience of planning my wedding for 150 guests in three and a half months, I have developed a very detailed planning calendar based on planning a wedding in six months or less.  If you would like a free copy, please use the sign up box on the sidebar.

Happy planning!

Dear Brides:  How long is your engagement period and are you running into any frustrations with planning it if it’s less than a year?  Please share and comment.