Planning Your Dream Wedding

I love helping couples turn their wedding vision into a reality! I believe in marriage and love and I also believe that how you start your engagement and marriage can have a huge effect on your relationship! So planning your wedding is SO important! Organization is a huge key to planning your dream wedding and as a Seattle Wedding Planner and Seattle Wedding Coordinator, I know all the tips and tricks to help you along the way! I will say, planning your own wedding is totally do-able if you do your research and get started with some help from a professional planner, like me! I have put together some tips for How to Plan a Wedding from Start to Finish! I will go over all the steps you’ll need to really bring your wedding together seamlessly! And I may even include a freebie at the end 😉

Set Your Wedding Vision and Budget

I know, I know, setting a wedding budget doesn’t sound very fun. But I promise you, your whole wedding planning process will go SO much smoother if you set up a budget and define your priorities! My most important budget advice is to decide what is the highest priority for you and your love! There are so many different vendors at all price points so deciding what you want to spend your money on will really help you plan your wedding! You’ll also want to decide on your wedding vision. Do you want simple and rustic, extravagant, lots of florals, unique activities? My advice is to start searching on Pinterest, get some ideas and then narrow it down to 1 theme! You will also want to start thinking about how many guests you’d like to have at your wedding. The guest count will impact most, if not all, of your decisions so you’ll want to have a good idea of how many guests will be there.

Create a Wedding Planning Timeline

This is SO important to stay organized! I would suggest starting to plan your wedding a year in advance or more. Obviously, you’ll need to set a wedding date first or at least have a season and year you want to have your wedding. For instance, you know you want to have your wedding when the weather is nice so you could pick Summer 2026, which is just over a year out from now. Then you’ll outline your wedding planning by assigning each task to a timeframe. Write out what you’d like to accomplish and when you’d like to accomplish it. As a Seattle Wedding Planner, I have lots of experience planning weddings and I have created a Wedding Planning Guide just for couples like YOU! My Wedding Planning Guide is a great resource for this as I outline the Wedding Planning Process by dates so you know exactly how to plan a wedding from start to finish!

Book Your Venue and Vendors

I would definitely start with hiring a Wedding Planner if you feel that is the route for you! Planning a wedding takes a lot of time, communication and mental energy so if you have a busy schedule, hiring a professional wedding planner could definitely benefit you. If you’re not sure about hiring a planner, check out my ‘How to decide if you want to hire a wedding planner’ blog post! The next big thing to book is your Venue! Venues often book out a year or more in advance so finding a Wedding Venue that fits your vision and budget is one of the very first things you’ll want to do! I wouldn’t go crazy though. I’d research venues in the area that you’d like to get married and find no more than 10 to reach out to and tour! Decision overwhelm is a huge thing when planning your wedding so don’t make it harder than it needs to be by contacting 50 of each vendor! You’ll also want to look into Photographers, Caterers, Florists, etc. But I would not suggest reaching out to every vendor type at the same time. Pick 1 thing to book at a time so you don’t get overwhelmed!

Choose Your Wedding Party Attire

This is the fun part!! You get to shop for YOUR wedding dress! And decide what everyone else will wear too! The first step is to choose who will be in your wedding party. Think about close friends and family members who you want standing next to you on the most important day of your life! And then ask them to be a part of your wedding! You’ll also want to think about your wedding vision and how your wedding party’s attire will tie into that.

Design and Decor Planning

This will be easier if you already have a vision of what you want for your wedding! If you decided you wanted something simple and rustic then you can choose decor that has those elements. Your centerpieces could be wood rounds with a simple vase of babies breath flowers. You could have wheat stocks down your ceremony aisle. This is where Pinterest comes in to help your vendors see your vision and execute it. You’ll want to work with your Planner, Florist and Decorator or Decor Rental company on these details!

Plan the Ceremony and Reception Details

Decide what is most important to include in your actual wedding ceremony. As a Seattle Wedding Planner, I’ve seen lots of weddings! Some couples choose short and sweet, while others choose longer more traditional ceremonies. Think about your religious beliefs as well and if you’d like to incorporate those. Think about your family and friends and if you’d like to incorporate them in some way. Your wedding officiant will be able to help you decide on these details. Next up is to plan your reception timeline. I have some great tips and resources for this in my Wedding Planning Guide and on my ‘Wedding Timeline Tips’ blog post. Most importantly, decide what you and your love want to focus on and do that!

Send Invitations and Collect RSVPs

If you’d like to send out save-the-dates you will want to make sure that task is towards the beginning of your wedding planning timeline. A save-the-date is not an invitation. It simply announces your engagement and has a wedding date so your friends and family can be sure not to plan anything on or around that date. You’ll then want to send out invitations will all the wedding details along with RSVPs closer to your wedding date. There are many ways to collect addresses for invitations and RSVPs. Some popular options are wedding websites like Zola or The Knot, Google Forms or simply making a social media post and asking people to send their addresses. I would suggest picking 1 way to collect addresses and RSVPs so you don’t get overwhelmed.

Finalize Logistics and Wedding Day Coordination

Remember that Wedding Day Timeline for your reception that I mentioned earlier? Now is the time to finalize that and send it out to all your vendors, wedding party and important family members. Making sure everyone is in the loop about the timeline of the day will help your wedding run so much smoother! This is the time to think about hiring a Wedding Day Coordinator as well if you haven’t hired a Wedding Planner. As a Seattle Wedding Coordinator, I have lots of experience jumping into weddings that bride’s and couple’s have planned themselves. I promise, having someone else to handle the logistics and problems that might arise on your wedding day is WORTH IT! Wedding Planners and Coordinators are experts in problem solving and organization, specifically for weddings! They will also be able to direct you on last minute details and walkthroughs/final meetings with vendors.

Enjoy Your Wedding Day!

Plan your last minute checklist and emergency kit, pack all the things you need for your wedding and let someone else handle the details of the day! You and your love deserve to enjoy your wedding day and focus on each other and family and friends! This should be a day of celebration for you! Not a day of stress, answering a million questions or directing vendors. Please please please, hire a wedding planner or coordinator or delegate a friend or family member to handle those responsibilities!

Take it from a Wedding Planner, Coordinator and Photographer that’s been in the wedding industry for almost 10 years, these tips on how to plan a wedding from start to finish will make or break your wedding and in some cases, your relationship! Wedding Planning is very stressful and some couples who plan themselves have a really hard time with it and end up not looking forward to their wedding at all. That is definitely NOT what I want for YOU! Your wedding is the culmination of 2 people finding their match, their person. The person that sees them at their best and their worst and still loves them. The person that will do anything for them. And that is what you should celebrate leading up to AND on your wedding day! This is the whole reason I’ve created this resource for how to plan a wedding from start to finish and why I created a very detailed Wedding Planning Guide. It walks you through every step of planning and how you can stay organized to make sure everything runs smoothly. This guide is meant to give you easy direction and tips so that planning your wedding is fun and stress-free!

And since you’ve made it this far, I’d also like to include a free Wedding Planning Checklist to help you get started in the Wedding Planning Process!

Of course, if you’d rather hire a wedding planner or coordinator, I’d love to chat!! I also provide my complete 60+ Wedding Planning Guide for FREE to all my Planning and Coordinating clients!