Tips For Planning A Wedding When You Have A Busy Schedule

If you’re reading this post, it’s probably because you’ve either begun or are about to begin planning your wedding day and frankly, you’re finding it to be a little overwhelming. Truth be told, whether you have a busy schedule or not, wedding planning is time consuming. Whether it be researching vendors, comparing quotes, dress shopping or deciding on fonts for the invitations, there are so many details involved when it comes to turning your dream day into a reality. 

For all of the brides and grooms going to school, working full time, being a parent or all of the above, here are a few useful tips to help make planning your wedding an efficient process while not spending every free moment smothered by wedding details!

Create To Do Checklists

Creating checklists will not only save you LOADS of time but they will help you to stay focused on specific details. You can find checklists online, in wedding magazines, or even from a professional planner- The Spruce has a variety of free printable checklists broken down by month that are more manageable and make your life a whole hell of a lot easier!

I recommend choosing one weekend per month to hit the wedding planning hard. Depending on the tasks needed to be completed that month you may want to include your support system a.k.a. mom, bridesmaids or fiancé in the wedding weekend activities!

Delegate Wedding Tasks

As you go through your monthly checklists, you’ll notice there are plenty of things other people can help you out with. Begin highlighting the tasks that your bridesmaids, fiancé, mom or other friends and family can take on for you. For example, have your mom and mother-in-law round up family addresses for invitations and address envelopes. And if you trust enough in their musical taste, have your fiancé choose the DJ or band and get them to decide on music lists!

Hire A Planner

If you are really busy with work and don’t have the time to find vendors, compare quotes and execute the final details, this may be your best route. Keep in mind that hiring a planner doesn’t mean that you can’t be involved in your wedding planning process. You can choose how involved you want to be or not. Planners offer anything from Day of Coordination to Full Planning and everything in between. Find what works best for you and take comfort in knowing you don’t have to do it all alone!

Ask For Vendor Recommendations 

From researching and narrowing down your options, to all of the back and forth emails, finding your vendors will take up a big chunk of your time. I suggest before doing any of that, you ask friends that have recently gotten married for vendor suggestions- a good word is so much better than searching the internet for hours.

After you’ve gone ahead and chosen one vendor, ask them for a preferred vendors list. If you liked them enough to hire them, chances are you will like the other vendors they recommend!

Choose An All-In-One Vendor 

There’s really no question about it, the least amount of vendors you hire, the less work (and headaches) it will be for you.

Choosing a venue that provides catering, bartending services and rentals is super convenient- you won’t have to worry about relaying messages between the venue coordinator and the rental company about drop off and pick up times, layout, etc.  Now if you decide on a venue that doesn’t provide all of those services then not to worry, you can still save time elsewhere by choosing a design company that can provide you with all flowers, centerpieces and rentals. The saying goes “less is more” but in this case, the more services a vendor can offer, the better!

Be Organized

This goes hand in hand with getting your To Do checklists together. Couples have found it to be super helpful if they have a wedding planner (you can use an app or even make your own with a simple notebook) to organize all of their ideas and tasks.

Being able to have everything in one place will not only help you to stay on track with your plans every step of the way, but it will also make it less daunting, especially once you start checking off items as you go!

Know What You Want & Be Decisive

In my opinion, wedding planning can become overwhelming due to the endless amounts of options you have. From different cake styles to decor and wedding attire, it can be hard to choose what’s right for you, but this is where Pinterest can come into play- it’s not only a great place to look for inspiration, but it also allows you to create mood boards for every aspect of your wedding day. Once you’ve begun gathering inspo and have a clearer idea of what you’d like your day to look like, start deleting the pins that are no longer relevant. 

Sure, you can spend an entire weekend looking for shoes, but who has time for that? If you can narrow down the style you’re looking for and your budget, you’ll be able to weed through options much quicker. Being efficient and decisive will save you time and money.

And probably the most important tips of all? Decide on what’s most important to YOU (as a couple,) DON’T compare and HAVE FUN! Your wedding is a unique reflection of the love shared between you and your partner, so whether that means a trip to the courthouse, a backyard wedding or an extravagant affair, this will be a day you cherish for the rest of your life. Don’t worry about what other people are going to think of your wedding, as long as you enjoy it, nothing else matters!

THANK YOU to Michelle from A Perfect Plan Wedding Consulting with her contribution to writing this article!! xoxo