Taking The Stress Out Of Wedding Planning

Our life for the last few years has revolved around travelling. Whether it was deciding where to go next, how we could earn money for our next adventure or trying to plan out travel related content for this site.

Needless to say, wedding planning wasn’t one of our strong points. So when Poi surprised me by proposing a few months before we were set to leave the UK, It’s fair to say I got into a bit of a panic. Of course as far as he was concerned his work was done, he’d popped the question and could relax. For me however, the fun was only just beginning.

Everyone wants their special day to be perfect and deciding where to start can be a little overwhelming. Not only that, but everybody’s idea of the perfect wedding is different, even if you find an example of a wedding that seems almost perfect, they’ll always be little bits you want to change to make it your own.

So if you’re beginning the stages of planning your wedding and don’t know where to start, here’s a few simple questions I used to get the ball rolling:

• How big do you want the ceremony to be? Have you always dreamed of a big wedding or would you prefer an intimate day with those closest to you?
• Do you want a separate evening reception? This is usually a good way to share the day with more people but keep the actual ceremony more manageable.
• Traditional wedding or less formal? Deciding the style of this will help you with some of the bigger decisions including the wedding venue and the type of catering you require.
• Do you want a summer or winter wedding? For many this is an obvious choice but being clear what you want will help you narrow down your options and what’s available to you.

Once you’ve answered the few simple questions above it’s a good idea to sit down with your partner and see how they feel about it all. While Poi said he was quite happy for me to go ahead with whatever, he turned out to have quite a few strong opinions when I approached him with ideas. It’s best to get this chat out of the way early so you’re not forced into any late changes that could have a rolling effect.

This should give you the starting point for your big day and you can begin to think about the smaller things and the general theme of the day, also known as the fun stuff!

My absolute number one tip is to use Pinterest to keep your ideas in one place. If you don’t know what Pinterest is then it’s basically an online pin board, you see something you like, you pin it. You can create different boards for different aspects of your wedding, for example ‘wedding food’ or ‘wedding decorations’. It’s so quick and easy to do that you’ll soon have boards full of ideas.

Pinterest really helped me lock down the theme of my wedding. As I looked through my ‘Wedding Decorations’ board it was clear I was drawn to vintage and home-made style decorations. At the time of adding all the pins I thought I was just adding stuff randomly but without realising it I was deciding on a theme and being drawn to it. Over a few weeks I believe you’d do the same, unknowingly you’ll be drawn so a certain style and Pinterest will help you link all those ideas in one place.

Following these few steps will let you develop a clear idea on exactly what you want in only a few weeks. Having a clear direction is the easiest way to take the stress out of planning a wedding, you know what you want and you can easily show those helping you what it is.

Have you planned a wedding recently? What did you find helped keep your stress levels down during the planning stage?