5 tips for planning a Wedding

Five Wedding planning tips 

1. Have a budget then throw it out of the windowOkay not literally but what I am trying to get at here is budgets when planning a wedding tend to go over. As much as I tried to keep everything to a minimum the little small things you decide to add towards the end do add up. I think we went over out budget by £700 which isn't a huge amount in the grand scheme of things but still was more than we originally set out to spend.

2. Give people dates as early as possible

Oh, so you decided to have a hen party over half term and you haven't told anyone till a month before? Yeh, that's not going to work. We live in a day and age where everyone has their weeks, months even years planned well in advance, so telling your friends and family a date with a short notice period just isn't a good idea. I know because this was exactly what I did, don't worry guys, I'm here to make the mistakes so you don't have to. A good way to work out the best date for you and your bridal party is using a scheduling tool like Doodle, you put forward as many suggested dates that work for you and then the highest liked date is the one to go for.

3. Accept that things will go wrong

If you followed me on instagram during the time leading up to my wedding you will now how much I moaned and whinged throughout the lead up to my wedding. Things got hella' stressful especially in the last weeks leading up, and so many things went wrong, I spent a lot of energy and cried a lot of tears over things that I needn't have. You have to ask yourself these questions when things start to go wrong: Can this situation be resolved and is this really as important as I think it is? If the answer is yes step away from the situation for a few days and work out how to fix it, but don't do this alone, ask your partner to help, do not take everything on yourself.

4. Do not leave the serious legal stuff to last minute

So believe or not getting married isn't just having a party and saying I Do, there are a whole bunch of legal implications of getting married. Firstly you have to give notice to what ever borough you live in, this isn't a free service either, it will set you back around £70 and above to do this.The process involves you booking a slot to be interviewed by a local registrar where you and your partner are questioned separately to ensure that the relationship is real and not fraudulent, feels scary but it's actually not as bad as it sounds.  In order to give notice you must have the correct form of identification to prove you are indeed who you say you are and that the soon to be marriage is actually the real deal. In typical Callie style I left it until last minute to book an appointment and when we arrived, as the registrar came to notify us we would be next, she asked we prepare our documents, passport, driving licence and a bill dated within three months. Well guess who didn't have the bloody bill. I started frantically searching my bag and asking if a print screen of my bank statement would be suffice, and I was swiftly told no. Full panic mode set in, there were limited appointments to reschedule and I didn't have enough leave to book anymore time off so I begged the lady to hang on ten more minutes where Dan and I decided to run to the other side of our local town hall to the council tax office to try and get a copy of our statement. Thank the stars above that a lovely lady behind the desk kindly printed us one off, and we managed to keep our appointment all be it ten minutes later than we were supposed to. Trust me it isn't a good idea to arrive to an interview sweaty and stressed, so do yourself a favour and get everything ready before you go.

5. Schedule some time away from wedding planning 

Wedding planning can really take its toll on you, it can become the most important thing in your life, which is crazy because it's just one bloody day. When this happens it's time to take a step back, have a break, have a Kit Kat, lol I joke, well kinda. Have a hot bath, read a book, eat a bar of chocolate in front of the telly with the soon to be hubs or wife. Just  R E L A X. It will all work out, and if it doesn't honestly you will get over it. Like everything in life sometimes things just don't go the way you want them to just know that you have someone who loves you, that wants to spend the rest of their lives with you and that my friends is a pretty good deal dontcha' think.

If you enjoyed  reading this you can read more of my wedding tips and behind the scenes posts here, if you have any questions please leave them below.