As any spouse-to-be will tell you, wedding planning isn’t all romance and magic. The tasks can often feel endless, and it may even seem like there’s always something going wrong.
While it may not be possible to completely eliminate the stress that often accompanies planning a wedding, there are certainly ways to reduce it. These five tips will help keep wedding planning a lot more fun:
1. Stay Organized
Everyone’s planning style is different, so it’s important to find what works for you. You could use Equally Wed’s LGBTQ+ inclusive wedding tools, a to-do list, spreadsheet, Google calendar, accordion folder, or even purchase a wedding-planning organizer. (Shameless plug: our founder Kirsten Palladino’s wedding-planning book, Equally Wed: The Ultimate Guide to Planning Your LGBTQ+ Wedding, is available wherever books are sold, and is loaded with tasks to tackle at every stage of wedding planning.
Whatever you decide, keeping track of which tasks need to be done by what date can be a massive stress reliever. It can be helpful to see it all written out so the tasks aren’t bouncing around your head all day. Besides, there is nothing more satisfying than crossing something off that list. Need help figuring out which task to do when? Log into our wedding tools and start getting organized!
2. Ask For Help
You and your partner don’t have to do this alone. If it’s all feeling like too much, reach out to friends, family and vendors to see who can share some of the planning burden.
If it’s in the budget, consider hiring a wedding planner or day-of coordinator as well. They can be a huge game changer.
3. Hire Inclusive Vendors
Make sure the vendors you choose to work with are LGBTQ+-inclusive. (Search for LGBTQ+ inclusive wedding vendors near you.) Ideally, they should also have experience working with LGBTQ+ couples, and in the best circumstances, they’ll be Certified LGBTQ+ Inclusive™ (a training program for wedding professionals created by Equally Wed Pro), which will equip the vendors with the knowledge awareness they need to serve you best. There is a big difference between merely being willing to work with you and being excited, educated and experienced. Vetting vendors from the start will ensure you won’t have to deal with ignorance or disrespect at any point throughout your wedding planning journey.
Read this to find out how to spot an LGBTQ+-inclusive vendor.
RELATED: Wedding planning? Try these expert tips to avoid the overwhelm.
4. Be Flexible
You and your partner might not agree on every single thing about the wedding. It’s important to be willing to bend your vision to meld with theirs.
Surely, there are certain aspects of the wedding that are more or less important to you. Make a list of some of your priorities and have your partner do the same. That way, you can have an idea of the areas where it might be most important to give way to what your partner wants, and they can do the same for you.
5. Spend Non-Planning Time With Your Partner
It can be easy to get so wrapped up in wedding planning that you forget the whole reason you’re getting married in the first place: You love spending time with your partner. Try to set aside time every week where you are spending time together not talking about the wedding. This will remind you why you’re doing it in the first place and will help you see that what really matters in the end is that the two of you end up married.
