Sticking to Your Guns: The Art of Prioritising When Planning Your Wedding

Rachel has writ­ten today’s guest arti­cle for you, and it’s bril­liant. Fol­low her advice and you’ll be well on the way to sav­ing both money and stress as you plan your big day together.

Stick­ing to your guns: The art of pri­ori­tis­ing when plan­ning your wedding.

Every cou­ple plan­ning a wed­ding (unless they hap­pen to be extremely rich with lit­tle or no fam­ily) will have to make com­pro­mises. This is a fact. But don’t panic! Here is a sim­ple guide to work­ing out your pri­or­i­ties early and then stick­ing to them with a steely deter­mi­na­tion in the face of dream venues, pushy mother-in-laws and dwin­dling funds.

Step one: You’re engaged!

Cel­e­brate, drink cham­pagne, enjoy the moment, dream big and tell your other half every half-baked idea you’ve ever had involv­ing cas­tles and danc­ing uni­corns. Maybe he’ll tell you about how he fan­cies sky-diving into the venue or get­ting mar­ried at the Emirates.

Smile kindly and nod, don’t fall out — none of these things are ever going to hap­pen. For me and my other half our dream sce­nar­ios included get­ting mar­ried in a crumbly palazzo in Rome, on the beach in Corn­wall or under a dinosaur in a nat­ural his­tory museum.

All would have been amaz­ing but all would have come with their own headaches. So day­dream for a while (and for god’s sake don’t tell your par­ents any­thing that you’re not actu­ally plan­ning to do — the dinosaur brain­wave did not go down well with my mom and dad).

Step two: Sit down, make your­selves a tea (or a stiff drink) and get a pen and paper.

Work out what really mat­ters to you. What actu­ally really mat­ters, not the color of your shoes or whether the men will have top hats.

Write down the 5 things that will really make your wed­ding day.

It doesn’t mat­ter what those things are. For us it was good food; a relaxed atmos­phere; a blank can­vas recep­tion venue; plen­ti­ful, free drinks; and keep­ing costs low for us and our friends.

Yours might be the venue, the dress, the music — any­thing… What­ever these things are, stick with them. Every­thing else is up for nego­ti­a­tion but not these five things!

Click the image to see Beth and Matt’s Exeter wed­ding — photo credit Lucy Turn­bull Photography

Step three: Keep this list about your per­son and each time you feel the pres­sure to devi­ate from your plans (and that’s going to hap­pen A LOT) let it remind you.

If you’re just about to sign up for a beau­ti­ful coun­try house venue but are lim­ited to a spe­cific dull and generic caterer maybe think again if, like us, you des­per­ately wanted to design your own menu.

Don’t let any­one pres­surise you into over-spending on a beau­ti­ful princess dress when what you really want to spend the money on is a band and a cute short dress and heels that you can dance all night in.

So there you have it. Sim­ple really. Although your fan­tasy wed­ding plans will inevitably go out the win­dow, if you stick to your guns on the things that really mat­ter your wed­ding will be bet­ter than either of you could have imagined.

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Thank you to Rachel from www.paperarrowpress.co.uk for writ­ing this guest arti­cle for Eng­lish Wed­ding Blog. Paper Arrow Press offers super cool and afford­able sta­tionery for wed­dings and other spe­cial events. Paper Arrow Press is run by Rachel Rus­sell, the tal­ented graphic designer behind Hel­loW­il­son — and I have some of her post­cards dis­played on my man­tel­piece at Eng­lish Wed­ding Blog HQ! She comes highly recommended.

http://www.paperarrowpress.co.uk/

http://www.hellowilson.co.uk/