Wedding planning can be exciting, scary, overwhelming, and exhausting, but it doesn’t have to be – well, it can still be exciting!!

My husband and I got engaged August of 2018 and married June of 2020. Here are 5 things I wish I knew when my husband and I were planning our 2020 wedding and how we managed our “long” engagement!

Figure out your budget + family contributions

If you didn’t know this already, I’m sorry to be the one to break the news to you.. Weddings cost a decent amount of money. Everyone’s budgets are different though so I can’t be the one to tell you how much or how little you should be spending on things. It truly comes down to what is reasonable for you and your fiancé, what your families might be contributing, and then prioritizing various elements of your wedding.

When my husband and I started planning our wedding we were still in college with not a lot of money coming in which made it difficult to make a true budget right away. Since we had a longer engagement, we both eventually started working full-time jobs which gave us a better understanding of what we could afford. Both of our families also offered to contribute money towards certain wedding expenses!

Don’t try to DIY everything

Man oh man, when we were planning our wedding day I thought I was going to be the Queen of DIYing various signs, flowers, the cake, the food.. Pretty much every little thing for our wedding day. I am happy to report that I did not DIY every thing for the wedding and you shouldn’t either.

Looking back now I know I would have driven myself absolutely nuts trying to perfect every little thing (yeah, I might be a little “type A”). Nowadays you have so many options for decor whether it’s going through a company that offers decor rentals (and set-up/take-down), buying it new online through websites like Etsy (support small businesses!), or even finding certain things second-hand through Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist. There are so many wonderful options available that will save you your sanity!

Ask for help

If you’re anything like me you like to try to do everything on your own, no matter how unrealistic it might be to set those expectations for yourself.

I remember planning for our wedding and kind of forgetting about the fact we were responsible for taking down all the decorations we brought in at the end of the night.. In my mind I imagined myself and my husband running around in our wedding attire throwing flowers and random bits of decor into the back of our car once everyone left. Fortunately, that’s not how it worked out (of course!!) but it took me some time to realize that I needed to ask for help from friends and family with certain things.

On your wedding day, and heck, for any wedding celebrations before your big day, it’s your job to ENJOY and be fully present. You shouldn’t be the one worrying about how you’re going to get the “welcome” sign home or how you’re going to pack up all the leftover cake. Let people help you. And if you have the budget for it, hire people to help you to allow you and your family to fully enjoy the wedding day. 

Schedule your “wedding planning time”

This is a piece of advice that my husband and I implemented a couple months in to our wedding planning process.

We had planned on a long engagement (just under 2 years), but I was so excited to plan everything in the beginning that it ultimately burned me out from the experience and overwhelmed my husband because we were trying to make so many decisions so quickly.

After the burnout and overwhelm, we decided we would only talk about wedding planning on Sunday afternoons unless something “urgent” came up. We stuck to this plan until we were a few months out from our wedding day when things started to pick up a bit and we had to finalize all the details! 

(And then COVID hit so our entire wedding plan was thrown right out the window, but that’s a story for a different day)

Most importantly: Plan your wedding day around what matters most to you

Everyone has different priorities when it comes to their wedding days, but what should be front of mind is focusing on celebrating your relationship and the next step you’re taking in it.

Don’t feel like you have to follow certain wedding trends you see online or even traditions that your family did 50 years ago. Your wedding day is all about you and your new spouse!

All the beautiful images you see in this blog post were taken at our 2020 wedding (yep.. we had two weddings) by Samantha Burke Photography.