Budget

I think whether you're stressed on the day of depends on you. Don't let things get to you, especially the small ones.

I think this completely depends on what your idea of “stress free” is. If you mean vendors handling every detail of your wedding so you don’t have to deal with any of it, then yes that is going to come with a nice price tag. If that is the experience you were looking for, I would highly suggest hiring an experienced (and high rated) wedding planner.

I'm in the same boat. We're at the point where we need to decide if we want to DIY everything for a reasonable budget or if we want to extend what we thought we would spend on engagement day so we can have piece of mind. Most venues that are not the VFW OR Elks, etc, have a day of coordinator. I don't mind doing the planning before hand but finding a venue in our budget is the hard part.

View Quoted Comment Yes I thought it would be easier than this but we’re going to discuss what’s need to be done

View Quoted Comment I think I may just do that

OMG I understand! These venues are expensive. Of course the most beautiful venues are the most expensive.

It really just depends what things you're willing to do yourself and what you're willing to pay for and how much work and stress you can handle BEFORE THE DAY. But here are some things we did to save on budget and day of stress.

- made all the playlists for the entire day myself, so not paying a single person on that; not even a DJ. Downside: I have spent about a year perfecting them, but I have a lot of personal do not plays so this made me feel a lot better.

- decided no florals except for bouquets and boutonnieres, made them all myself. this works for us because our venues are visually stunning, one outdoor and the other has a lot of beautiful features and lights.

- I still opted for a day of coordinator to not deal with the setup and takedown of everything that day, but I am literally planning it all and giving them instructions.

- use website coupon codes! even if you have to use a different email address. that has saved us hundreds!

- anything ordered we are finding a purpose for after the wedding, so if you can do the same it definitely makes spending the money on the items (ie. entrance table at the ceremony and small table for sand ceremony will be used elsewhere, as well as the few linens we had to purchase)

Hope some of these ideas help!