I’ve been engaged for less than 48 hours. I have 360 days until the wedding. I’m freaking out, already.
There are so many things to do! I’m gonna end up hyper-ventilating or something. My fiance (Praetor) and my sister are going to help me plan, but ugh. I just go around randomly bursting out “so much stuff!” and “so expensive!”
Deep breaths.
A year is plenty of time to planning a small wedding (~80 guests), right?
Yes, absolutely. Take a deep breath. Make a list. Start checking off stuff in order.
I’ll bet if you search there’s a wedding planning guide or three available on the internet.
Congratulations and good luck.
Thanks. We went out yesterday and got a few books on wedding planning. I start reading the checklists and get pretty anxious. I think I just have to remember that I don’t have to do everything all at once.
And in that first post, planning should be plan. Nerves are getting to me.
Yes. We did it (120 guests) in 3 months, and we also bought and moved into a house in that time. Don’t sweat it.
Oh, and congratulations!
Three months for all that. Wow. Was it really stressful?
Yes and no. There was certainly a lot of stuff to do. On the other hand, having a small amount of time meant that you didn’t agonise over the details because you COULDN’T agonise over the details, you just made a decision and there it was.
Also it helps that neither of us are “frou frou wedding” people, and we didn’t absolutely have to buy the house so there wasn’t really stress in terms of “oh no what will happen to us if we don’t get X done by Y” type of thing (except when we had to run round with the mortgage approval to get it officially confirmed by about 5:00 and it was about 4:00 and we weren’t actually sure if the person we needed was in this building or somewhere else … but that’s not really wedding-related anyway)
All you really need is to sign the bit of paper. All the rest is gravy. Nice gravy, mind you. I really enjoyed getting married. Being married aint half bad either 
Congratulations! Get yourself a decent wedding planning guide, write yourself a list of what needs to be done and then divide the jobs between people who are helping you. Just remember you don’t need to do everything at once, and you don’t have to do it all yourself.
Don’t forget the pics!
Well, it doesn’t have to be all that expensive if you don’t want it to be. A lot of the expensive stuff is optional, but people get it because they want that one special day to have everything perfect. But there are only two essential things:
(1) that you have a wedding ceremony where you tie the knot; and
(2) that you and the quests that you invite have a good time.
Everything else is optional.
Aspidistra: I think it’s the agonizing that’s getting to me. There are a million little details and I keep trying to decide about things I don’t have enough info to decide about yet.
ScareyFaerie: That’s a good idea. I’ll start delegating responsibilities today. My sister seemed really happy about helping, so hopefully she’ll be willing to assist with a lot of stuff.
Giles: Yeah, you’re right. It just seems basic things, like food, are so expensive. I know there are ways to save money though, like having a potluck reception. We’ve got a budget to stick to so we’ll have to be frugal about some things. (Like that $850 wedding dress I want. That’s just not going to happen.) I just need to keep in mind that there are cheaper ways to do things, and people don’t need a lot of money spent on them in order to have a good time.
I know the important thing here is filling out the license and get it signed. It’s just so easy to get caught up in all the little extra details.
Get the hall and the band/dj first. Those are the most important. Then take it from there.
Good luck and remember, there is always Vegas!
Seren, just remember that this is YOUR wedding, not someone else’s. Wedding planners are just chock full of stuff that, if you get down it, is really optional.
When I got married my fiance and I were both financially strapped, emotionally exhausted from a year of family turmoil (especially on my side) and we had a completely bare-bones wedding that we never regretted. Yes, we eloped, you can’t get much cheaper than that. That was our choice, of course - if you want more by all means have it.
Better to have a less expensive, less flashy wedding than something that will stress you out to the max and take years to pay off. Set a budget, decide your must-haves, and go from there.
A lot of my friends who’ve married recently and have done so on really tight budgets, have gone away together and tied the knot with a minimum of fuss and cost. The money that they saved by doing it that way has been spent on a big party for family and friends afterwards to celebrate.
It’s up to you what you want your wedding to be like, but if you set a budget then you have to stick to it as much as you can. Perhaps if you want the fancy extras (table decorations etc) you could ask friends/family if they can do home-made things for you? We did it for a friend’s wedding recently, got to the venue early and had a fab time blowing up balloons and tying them in groups to little boxes for the tables. Helium, you just can’t beat it!
I have mentioned my wedding in other threads so if I miss something here you may find it elsewhere.
When my wife and I got married we had been living together for years but had decided to have children and thought we should marry. We didn’t want to sponge off others as we were adults with jobs and we didn’t need wedding gifts as we owned everything we needed.
Our intention was to have the biggest wedding reception possible without any one person being seriously out of pocket. We decided that we wanted no wedding gifts but we wanted everyone that attended to pay their own way for the reception. We sent out no invitations, we just rang everyone we could think of and told them to bring whoever they liked and to invite anyone that they thought we would be happy to see.
We booked out a restaurant (Lebanese banquet style, but that doesn’t matter) and told them they would have a big night but we didn’t know how many would be coming.
The wedding took place during the day at the local courthouse with our families and our closest friends (as witnesses) in attendance.
We ended up with over 200 people there, including old school friends and former workmates we would have forgotten. Even 30 years later people still recall it as the best wedding they ever attended.
And the photographer. Many of them book a year in advance. We were engaged for 11 months and almost didn’t get the one we wanted. My friend waited until three months before the wedding and almost didn’t get one at all. Start scoping them out ASAP.
$850 for a wedding dress, eh? I’ve got one for free if you need it. I was pretty large when I got married (the first time) so it’s would fit someone that is about a size 16 - 18. Very simple. No veil to speak of. Email me if you want. And if you don’t want it, that goes for everyone else here too. I can upload pics but it would be after Thanksgiving. I got it at David’s Bridal. I’ll look for a pic.
Thanks for the stories and advice everyone. I’m feeling a lot calmer now. As long as I end up married to Praetor, I’ll be happy. So, focusing on the big picture and not worrying so much about the little details seems to be the way to go for now. And like you guys said, I need the hall, DJ, and photographer ASAP. I didn’t realize the photographer would need to be booked that soon, so thanks for pointing it out to me.
Thanks for the dress offer, ShelliBean. I’d kinda like to pick out my own though. My sister and I are pretty excited about going shopping for gowns.
If there’s a place near where you live that is geared towards “One stop shopping” you might consider using them. We got quite a lovely wedding off the ground in five months by going to the same place for dresses, photo, flowers and limo. We could have also done music there but decided not to. I think we could have done tuxes there as well, but I don’t remember why we didn’t.
Oh, that’s a good idea. Was it a chain store? What was the name of it? I haven’t looked into stores around here much yet. I only know of a couple wedding dress shops so far.
It wasn’t a chain, unfortunately. Well, maybe it was and I just didn’t know it. It’s called Flowerama. I got married in NY.
I have often seen little strip malls that have nothing but wedding related businesses in them. Maybe there’s something like that nearby. It really, really made things easy for us doing so much in the same place.