I thought it would be super fun and potentially helpful to provide an as-I-go list of wedding planning and tips that have helped me through the wedding planning process.

I love planning parties and I think of a wedding as just a large gathering of all of your favorite people, so I decided to forego a wedding planner and do it all myself! Due to COVID-19, we’re planning for a summer wedding in 2022 so that everyone has enough time to get the vaccination, so I’ll be starting with a year-long planning process. 

Timeline – To kick it off, here’s what I chose to have completed a year in advance…

Set a Date: This is obviously the most important piece of the puzzle because you can’t really space anything out until you have a date. Our wedding date will be June 11, 2022. There’s nothing really special to us about this date, but ever since I watched Bride Wars, I’ve wanted a June wedding. To get our date, we took into account my menstrual cycle (maybe TMI but it’s important!), birthdays and holidays. 

Determine Your Wedding Day Style and Colors: We chose navy blue and white, basically due to spring time and knowing these colors would look phenomenal with our venue.

Set Up a Budget and Estimate Guest Count: I’m not going to share our budget, but we’re hoping to keep our guest count under 100 people. 

Book Reception Venue: We booked our venue in February of 2021 simply because we knew our wedding date would go fast! And we can’t wait to have it at Firefly Gardens! 

Create a Wedding Website: We’re still working on our wedding website because we haven’t taken engagement photos yet but we made sure we had our wedding party and little details uploaded a year in advance. 

Discover Dress Style: This is a section of wedding planning that I shared a couple of weeks ago, but this was super stressful for me because I change my mind all of the time!

Choose Wedding Party: I did this in March 2021 because I wanted everyone to lock in my date since it is prime wedding season. I actually had someone tell me “no” to being a bridesmaid which was super awkward, so by asking so far in advance, I’ve been able to sort of move past it!

Meet with Photographers and Book Photographer: In the air of COVID-19, we couldn’t really meet with photographers, but that’s what Zoom is for! 

Have an Engagement Party: This was so much fun and we actually had ours on March 13! We loved having an intimate, garden gathering in Edmond. This is the way you’re kicking off your wedding celebrations in the most carefree, fun way possible!

Now onto the Tips: 

Interviewing Photographers: My advice to you would be to have a list of questions that you ask to each photographer. This makes comparing them so much easier and really sets your expectations as well. One thing that’s super important, is that once you decide who your photographer is, send a quick email to who you’ve spoken with that says: “we appreciate your time, but we have chosen someone else. Thank you!”

Research, Research, Research: Being a bride in 2022 means that everything is way more expensive than usual, due to 2020 destroying the industry for vendors. Finding reasonable options whether it’s budget, wedding size or planning in general, know what you want and how much you’re willing to pay or wait for in order to get it!