Wedding Planning HACKS to make your Engagement Season fun!

So your beginning your wedding planning and man it seems over whelming! You have a bajillion vendors to book and people to invite (unless you elope lol) and a ton of other things that no one teaches you until you put a ring on it.

This is how I felt ( I know even for someone in the wedding industry).

We chose to do a shorter engagement time and it seemed even more stressful with a quick timeline. However, no matter how long your engagement season is, it’s a blessing! It’s a time to have fun and really get to know your future spouse.

So first, don’t just carve out time to make a list of vendors and guests at home in PJs, go out on a DATE! I know it’s more comfortable and you’ll have other times to do so, but make your initial wedding planning into a date night. Go out, grab a glass of wine and apps and bring your laptop. Talk about what you truly want for the wedding TOGETHER.

My hubby was actually more involved than I thought. He’s more of a planner so I basically picked out the styles of what I wanted and he coordinated invoices, lists and meetings for us. Play to each others strengths! There is a reason why we are different ;)

We went out on a wedding planning date and actually got A LOT done.

The wedding guest list was a big project. If your like us, we have a ton of family and friends which was the most important aspect of our day so we wrote down everyone we wanted to invite. (other people came to mind later so its not set in stone the first time making the list)

We also discussed what else was important as far as vendors. Photography (duh), Flowers, MUSIC/DJ, Dress/Tux, FOOD 🤤, and location.

The date was not just us planning, but getting to know each other more of our likes and dislikes in this area. It will gave us an understanding of what the other persons priorities were and it really gave us an advantage in our engagement season.

Food & Cake Tasting!

Honestly this was my favorite part of planning a wedding! lol

I highly recommend that you spread out these tastings and schedule them on date nights. WHY? Well, for starters they are free meals…WHAAAAAA?! Free you said? YEP!

I know we are spending every penny on this wedding and looking for any shortcuts SO save your food tasting for date nights AND go to multiple. We thought we were going to go with asian cuisine, then maybe mexican, but after a few tastings we actually went with greek/mediterranean!!

With cake tasting, we schedule our sessions on weekends where we normally grab coffee and do something fun. So when we went cake tasting, we grabbed a coffee and brought it to the tasting. This is also free ;)

It’s a super fun process that you can do together as a day date, as well as get a little sugar rush!

Now for the Brides

When you schedule an engagement session (which I highly recommend doing) you should ALSO schedule your make-up trial! This is a hack that some of you may or may not know yet but I’m telling you it’s a game changer!

Not only will you be able to get your make-up done for the wedding BUT you will also see how it will look on edited photos that your photographer takes. It’s important to have the same photographer that shoots your engagement session and your wedding because that creates trust and it’s also like a trial for them as well.

Ditch Any Unnecessary Extras

Remember, this is your day – so don’t feel like you need to follow tradition for every element of your wedding!

Consider ditching any unnecessary extras that you genuinely won’t miss on the big day. If you don’t care so much about guest favors, stationery details or a plated dessert, don’t be afraid to scrap it altogether. You can then invest this money into other areas of your wedding that have a higher priority, or into your HONEYMOON FUND! Honestly, the honeymoon is where you definitely don’t want to worry about budget and spoil each other so if anything set some priority they for funds.

Remember from the beginning, sit down with your partner first to really get clear on your wedding vision and top priorities for the day, before deciding which elements you might be able to go without.

And finally, remember your in this together, you’re on the same team, and it’s going to be the best moments of your lives :)