"3 Things I'd Change About My Wedding Planning Experience"
For right now here are the three things I would change if I could plan my wedding again!
Photo: Heidi Lockhart Somes
Hello fellow wedding fanatics, planners, and lovers of love! My name is Lauren Spann and I am a Dallas fashion blogger at Southern Elle Style, who is also blogging about the journey to walking down the aisle. I got engaged December 13, 2015 and am getting married in less than 20 days! This engagement period has literally flown by. I just can’t believe it!
I was reminiscing over all of 2016 and was contemplating what I would do differently if I could plan my wedding again. Since my wedding hasn’t actually happened yet, this all could change after the fact, but for right now here are the top three things I would change if I could plan my wedding again!
1) Don’t rush the planning.
I had a 10-month long engagement, but I’m not talking about engagement length...you do what you want there (I do think that 10 months is a sweet spot, though!). Anyway, I’m a planner. Pretty sure I came out of the womb with a calendar in hand. I love making lists and checking them off, and if it’s not on the list, I add it, for the sheer delight of checking it off! Looking back, I wish I would have been more detail-oriented and thought about how to make the day ours, instead of just playing the “how fast can I get this accomplished” game. For example, we did our table numbers this summer, to get them out of the way. Great idea, right? However, if I had it to do over again, I would have made a seating chart and table names that were more fitting with our wine theme.
2) Hire a month-of wedding coordinator.
I seriously thought I was the master of wedding planning, because I got so many big things out of the way very quickly. Turns out that I’m good at the big things, but I just get annoyed and stressed at the little things! I didn’t need to shell out the dough for a full-on wedding planner in the beginning–I’m way too much of a control freak to do that. However, I’ll admit that a month of wedding planner would have been nice. I definitely turned up my nose to them at first, but if you work multiple jobs or even just one super time-consuming one and don’t have any help, this is a good thing to put on your NEED list.
3) Get married on a Saturday.
I know different wedding dates are starting to surface–Thursdays are even becoming increasingly popular! I’m getting married on a Friday. Friday weddings have never bothered me–it’s the Sunday weddings that leave me napping during the week! With the venue I wanted, it just seemed right and that was our favorite available date; however, even though we told people about our wedding details more than nine months in advance, important people still are unable to come. Whether it’s something huge coming up at work that cancels plans or just the simple reason school being in session, it’s harder for people to get away on a Friday. Ultimately, there will be people who in the end are not able to make it, but I would have preferred not having that occur due to the day chosen. Unless of course that’s your tactic for trimming down the guest list. Ha!
My fiancé and I will get married on October 28 at The Castle at Rockwall, near Dallas, Texas. Of course these are things that I would consider changing, but the one thing I wouldn’t change, is marrying Nick! Those three things, and any other small things that arise are all null and void, because the whole reason we are celebrating is because we are getting married. If literally everything goes wrong that day, but we still are married, I’ll be ecstatic. My final words of advice: Always remember the reason that you’re getting married!
Thanks for reading along! If you want to follow my wedding journey, honeymoon travels, and beyond, you can follow along on my blog Southern Elle Style.
