Every bride knows that wedding planning is tough, long and sometimes expensive. Especially now since COVID has hit, planning a wedding in the middle of a pandemic is life altering! However, there are a few things brides ALWAYS forget when they’re planning their special day.

1. They forget to put themselves first. While you’re pursuing Pinterest boards, and asking friends and family for recommendations, remember, this day is about you and your fiance. What the two of you want, is more imporant than what anyone else says. If you want cheeseburgers at your reception, don’t let grandma guilt you into a fancy fish meal. If you want your bridesmaids in pink, don’t let your sister and her thoughts about it let you change your mind.
2. You announce your engagement too soon. Call grandma. Facetime Uncle Bob and Aunt Sandy. Send a picture to your college bestie. Tell your inner circle of friends first before posting to social media. I know when I got engaged, my husband posted photos that very night, and I wanted to wait for a few days before announcing. Make sure you take a few hours to enjoy being engaged before telling the world.
3. You fall victim to crash dieting. Changing your diet and workout habits leading up to the wedding is not necessarily a good idea. Instead of abstaining from eating or working out like crazy, try just adding a walk in to your daily routine and shift to healthier habits instead of just stopping all together.
4. There’s a large gap between the ceremony and reception. Anything longer than an hour can have your guests anxious or bored. This is typically when family photos are taken if there is no first look before the ceremony, but if it’s too long you’ll lose people.
5. You don’t feed your vendors. This is huge! Your wedding vendors are there spending time and money to make sure that your day is absolutely perfect. Forgetting to feed them, or not including enough meals for them is heart wrenching, as many have been working for hours.
6. You forget Thank You notes. There is a timeline that is socially acceptable to send thank you notes. You don’t have a year after your wedding to send them. For gifts received at your shower or your engagement party, send a thankyou two to three weeks after it. For gifts that arrive before the wedding, send a thank you as soon as you can or before the wedding. For gifts received at the wedding, send within three months of your day. If you receive gifts after the wedding, send one to two weeks after.
7. You forget about the power of paper. In an age that is digitally focused, find time to print out actual wedding invites. Some of the people you’re inviting might not access emails every day or even understand technology the way you do. A physical invite is treasured so much more!
8. You don’t do your floral research. The peonies you might have been dreaming about having at your wedding will not be blooming in the middle of August. Out-of-season flowers cost a lot more than in-season flowers.
9. You overschedule your photographer. Walking into your wedding day is huge and of course, you don’t want any important images missed. But micromanaging your photographer is hindering instead of helping. They are the professionals, so let them do their job! Being too controlling on what you want to be photographed is more pressure on your photographer and it makes it 10% more likely they’ll miss a shot if you’re stressing them out.
10. You forget to have fun. If something goes wrong, don’t hang on to it! Something ALWAYS goes wrong on a wedding day, and clinging to the little thing that happened will only make you frustrated and upset the whole entire day. Instead, let it go, relax and have fun!