Monday, February 10, 2014

Matrimony Monday: How Two Planners Plan a Wedding Part 1

Over a month since Mike proposed and we have been asked "have you started planning" more times than I can count. And then I give them the answer "Yes, we have it all planned" and normally that freaks people out enough that they stop asking questions.

In all seriousness though, Mike and I are both planners/organizers by nature. And we both do planning/coordinating/budgets at work and at home.  We have more spreadsheets than we can count, and schedules and routines galore...but how does that translate to planning a wedding?

In the next few posts I will detail how we have started to plan, and useful tips that we have used/found.
Keep in my mind we aren't professional wedding planners, but these are just the methods that we are using to plan. 

Starting with....

1. Think Big Picture
Mike and I had already talked about general themes/what we liked didn't like, and favourite colours before getting engaged. Quite a while back we both knew we wanted a casual relaxed vibe, and we wanted to be near the water surrounded by family and friends. No big 100K spectacle! Knowing this really helps getting focused on what to look for, and how to plan. To me the big picture can influence everything from the type of music played, to the flowers, to the food, so nailing that down early was super important!

Pinterest/magazines/google image search etc. can help with big picture planning, and helped me see what my overall pins were looking like. I quickly was able to identify favourite colours, textures and lighting, all tying into the big picture. I was also able to quickly show Mike ideas and get his opinion. 


2. Communicating with Stakeholders (hehe)
Having the big picture in mind right around/after the engagement was also important when communicating with stakeholder aka our parents. It was really easy to share our ideas when Mike and I had already had decided on our overall vision. It also lets us be open to ideas and not be focused on the small details (type of flowers etc.) at this time. Getting our parents on board early in the plan helps everyone stays focused, and happy! Thankfully our parents are pretty laid back, so that makes everything much less stressful! 

I'll wrap it up for now, the next post will have some more nitty gritty planning stuff (task identification, timelines, spreadsheets etc.), but the main things we have learned thus far is that sticking to a big picture plan/feel, and communicating that plan with everyone is the FIRST thing that should be done in wedding planning.

If you are planning something what is the first thing you do? Anyone else have too many wedding pins before they are engaged? 

1 comment:

  1. Congrats on the engagement, Kaylee! How have I not had you bookmarked all this time? Looking forward to following the wedding planning and more foodie posts :)

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