Wedding Planning Lessons Learned

Wedding planning had so much ups and downs. I started planning my wedding for over a year ago but the stress levels reached its highest peak two weeks before the wedding and reached breaking point on the day before the wedding.

I think I was a very stressed bride on my wedding day but somehow stressing over the wedding details days before the wedding helped me because I had not felt the wedding jitters on the wedding day itself. Somehow, I was so surprised that hours before the wedding I was totally calm and relaxed even though I only had 4 hours of sleep the night before.

When my makeup artist arrived and she started prepping me up, I had not felt any stress nor any anxiety at all. I think it also helped that I was so busy posing for my wedding prep photo and video session that all the wedding jitters just flew away.

So here are what I picked up as great lessons in preparing or planning a wedding.


1. MAKE A CHECKLIST OF THE WEDDING DETAILS

This includes all suppliers list, guests list, to do lists, schedules, wedding day needs, and even wedding essentials or accessories list.

I happen to have a list of my suppliers, of my "things to do", of the guest list, but I haven't penned down the list of accessories and other things I needed for the day of the wedding. That was why I had to do a "last minute" buying and when I say last minute I mean one day before the wedding. Trust me it was super FRUSTRATING that the time seemed to run so fast and I still had so much to do.

So if you want to DIY plan your wedding make sure that you have jotted down all the essential things that are needed, tasks to be done, and people needed for your wedding. This will help you check your progress and help you keep your sanity!

Check out the personal checklists I have made here.



2. BUY OR PREPARE ALL WEDDING ACCESSORIES AND OTHER WEDDING DETAILS AT LEAST A MONTH AHEAD

I must admit I was such a "last minute" bride. I had this mental reminder of all the things to do and to buy but I never really allotted a time to ACTUALLY do it. So I ended up with last minute panic buying, which is a total NO NO for a bride to be.

All the last minute shopping and errands running added to the stress that I was already feeling. So don't be like me and have all the wedding items bought ahead of time.


3. HIRE A WEDDING PLANNER (IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT)

This one is something that "I wish I did". I think I could afford it but I just really wanted to experience the wedding planning itself. My wedding went pretty well but there were some glitches in the middle of the whole wedding planning affair.

I had to endure very minimal sleep two weeks prior to the wedding. I had to make lots of phone calls, texts/chat, and emails to my suppliers. I almost had a heart attack when I learned just a week before the wedding that we were still lacking an important file for our wedding ceremony. I also had to deal with people not responding to my text which almost made me lose my mind. I also had to schedule everything and constantly made followups which was pretty frustrating when I didn't get an instant response. It was pretty tiring and on my wedding day, I noticed I looked really haggard.

So if you totally have no clue on how to plan a wedding, I say you give that job to the experts (if you can afford it)!



4. GET LOTS OF SLEEP!!!!!!!!!

This is a no brainer. Two weeks before my wedding I had very limited sleep because of the wedding preparations not being finalized. So I ended up with dark under eyes, large eyebags, and a very short temper.

So if you are getting married please do try to sleep as much as you can.



5. DON'T STRESS OR WORRY TOO MUCH

I was so guilty of this. I worried over every detail of the wedding even if it was something I had totally no control of. It was absurd but I guess it was just my way of coping with the wedding jitters! lolz

On my wedding day, I woke up to a pouring rain and I was having a Garden Wedding Ceremony! How's that? The rain did stop but the sky was still dark and a downpour was looming ahead. I realized then as the day progressed, that I can't worry about the weather anymore because it was totally out of my control.

What I did was to just pray to for God's will to happen. By the time our wedding started, there were drizzles of rain but we managed to hold the ceremony at the alfresco area of the hotel where we were all safe from the rain. God is Good!