Wedding Planning: Anyone who has ever been married and had to organize any type of formal ceremony, dinner or reception that involved more than you and your spouse will certainly attest to the fact that it is a stressful event prone to:

• mishaps, bad luck,
  
• mistakes of the highest magnitude,
  
• and all due to poor planning usually.

Wedding Planning: The Good News!

For a virtually flawless wedding and reception, there are many ways to reduce the stress and actually make it an enjoyable process. Here’s a lesson in wedding planning: how to plan my wedding the best way?

• Enlist the help of others.

If you can’t afford a wedding planner, no problem. You don’t need to incur this type of expense until you can really afford it, need and see a huge benefit in having it. For the rest of us, get your friends and family members engaged in the planning, and learn to delegate some of the wedding planning burdens.

• Planning does require some management skills.

Delegating is only a small portion of what you need to successfully accomplish. If you assume things will get done, and get done on time, on budget, and problem free, you have obviously never planned anything more than a luncheon.

If you are inviting more than 20 people, you need an entire group of reliable and experience folks who have the time and experience to give you a hand without driving you crazy with unnecessary questions.

• Choose people who have at least an interest and ability to help out in a certain area.

If your cousin loves flowers, let her choose the arrangements, look at samples and pictures, and let her know your budget. You don’t want her placing orders for rare orchids when your budget is more in line with carnations and daffodils.

Wedding Planning: The real challenge!

• Finding a place to have a reception is usually the most time consuming of all the tasks.

Even if you have dreamed of one particular venue since you were in kindergarten, this may not be possible for a host of reasons. Time, price, and availability might work against you from the start.

Be open for alternatives. With the advent of 360 degree photography, many of these halls have lovely panoramic views online that can give you a very good idea of whether this might be some place to actually go see in person, or delete it from your list of possibilities and go on to the next.

• Once you are engaged, schedule a meeting with everyone.

Ask for help and volunteers. Set up a website, even using Facebook, to communicate effectively about who is doing what, who needs help, who has questions, who makes what, etc.

Plan a daily time where you, as the project manager aka bride to be, will answer questions and provide feedback. Web meetings are a good idea, too. This way, you will most probably not forget anything!

• Start a list of everything that needs to get done.

1. Add due dates,
   
2. check boxes as to when these tasks are done,
   
3. add pricing info so you can stay on budget,
   
4. and make sure the list is expandable because the closer you get to the wedding date,
   
5. …the more tiny details will pop up out of nowhere, etc.
   

Wedding Planning: What if you are an inexperienced bride?

For the truly inexperienced bride, check out some of the new online bridal registries. Most of them have very intricate checklists you can use. They come with reminders that can be set up to go out to everyone, or just the person responsible.

For anyone who has ever used any type of project management software, this is identical. After all, a wedding is a project that needs to be planned down to the last tiny details:

1. with drop dead dates,
   
2. budgets,
   
3. responsibilities sheet,
   
4. milestones, etc.
   

Many of these online self help checklists are the perfect answer for the small or over the top weddings.

=>> Wedding Planning: How about the invitations?

When you add “design wedding invitations” it comes up with incredible suggestions on:

1. how, when, where, and cost.
   
2. Who will be invited?
3. The maximum number of guests.
4. The maximum number for each partner.

Once you answer the questions you are then presented with wonderful solutions, local to the actual event, whether it’s in your home town or across the world.

Wedding Planning: A word of attention!

• Of course, keeping a list is useless if you don’t pay attention to it.

Ignoring the emails and texts reminding you and your team what needs to be done next, or what is severely overdue, is one of the most common reasons for massive problems as the date approaches.

Hearing things like, “I thought YOU were going to do this!” is frustrating for everyone when the problem could have been totally averted if everyone did what was expected of them at the time.

Take advantage of helpers who love technology, because today you need this type of technology to plan any event. If your proposed team members don’t have smart phones, rarely check email, hardly ever answer their phones or return calls quickly, this is a problem waiting to happen.

If you can’t find them, the caterer, the limo driver, and the florist won’t be able to find them either when critical issues need to be addressed. This way, you can guarantee a perfect wedding planning.

=>> Wedding Planning: Put it all together!

Unless you plan on eloping, you will need some help putting it all together. If you “hire” the wrong people for the wrong reason, you are guaranteed to have problems arising at the worst time.

Is the limo going to Uncle Phil’s house to pick him up? No – because no one called the limo company at the last minute to make these arrangements. Did someone order the groom’s father’s buttoneer? No – because the person who was supposed to thought you did it!

=>> A week before the big event, nerves are stretched to the limit – for everyone involved.

Parents, bridesmaids, and everyone who has even the tiniest role in getting the final details put into place. Have a meeting, usually an informal get together with some food and drinks and someone’s home.

Tell everyone to bring their lists and be prepared to provide a complete review of where they are in getting their tasks completed. This way, you have a good step on your way to a perfect wedding planning.

Wedding Planning: A trick!

The trick here is that you need to treat this like a real meeting. Don’t just have everyone milling around with wine glasses and appetizers chatting aimlessly. This is one of the most common mistakes when it comes to wedding planning or non-professional wedding planners.

Have chairs set up so that the room(s) does resemble a formal meeting, and you stand in front managing the process. Have everyone stand, present their progress, answer questions, and handle problems. A perfect wedding planning also includes that you will be there for your guests.

Without this level of control, you are almost assured of problems that could have been completely prevented. Following the above tips, you will have the best wedding planning.