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How to Plan a Wedding? A Guide to Make Your Big Day Successful
Discover this comprehensive guide on how to plan a wedding. We’ve compiled everything — vendor selection, making timelines, shopping, location, logistics, etc.
Spending your life with your partner may have been the easiest decision you’ve ever taken, but planning that perfect wedding requires a lot more work than that! Especially if you’re not consulting a professional wedding planner, it can be challenging to figure out how to plan a wedding. After all, there are many things to take care of such as venue, food, decor, flowers, makeup and jewelry, clothes, gifts, cake, etc. Each of these things requires extra consideration, research, and testing before finalizing.
To boot, even after you’ve spent a lot of money, you still have to give a lot of your time and effort to keep track of everything. In addition to creativity, planning a wedding can test your organizational skills, efficiency, financial acumen, and most importantly, patience! This is true because other than simply coming up with a wedding theme, ideas for the menu, dream location to get married, etc. the planning process would involve budgeting, vendor selection, scheduling timelines, making appointments, and managing logistics, which might take the fun out of the process.
Sounds overwhelming? Well, we’re here to ease your burden by providing the following step-by-step guide to planning a wedding. With the below-mentioned steps, you can eliminate swinging between tasks, while getting the work done effectively and pragmatically.
Before we jump into our wedding planning tips, let’s learn a bit about how hiring a professional wedding planner can be of help and whether it’s the best decision for you or not.
Should I Consult a Wedding Planner?
It would be a good idea for you to consult a wedding planner if:
1. You’re planning a large wedding with over 200 guests
2. You’re planning a destination wedding
3. You and your partner both have exceptionally demanding jobs and making time for wedding planning is out of the question
4. You’re not confident as you’ve never really contributed to wedding planning ever before
5. You and your partner need external help to come up with creative ideas
6. You don’t want to overburden yourself with the planning work and be stress-free before the big day
7. You’re not confident about handling crisis or unexpected issues around the wedding day
8. You need emotional and practical support to navigate problems
However, planning your own wedding would be a better alternative if the following is true for you:
1. You have a limited budget
2. You are exceptionally organized and like planning events
3. You want to have a micro or small wedding, which is less high-maintenance
4. You are very creative and wish to explore your own ideas rather than follow suit
5. You don’t feel comfortable handing over the responsibility to a third party and want to monitor everything that goes on at your wedding
6. Your family and friends are available and glad to volunteer with the planning work
7. You are flexible and open to spontaneous changes
8. You are quite familiar with the required vendors and can efficiently get the job done
Whether the former is true for you or the latter, you should definitely learn the basics of planning a wedding so you can monitor and track the process, ensuring your big day comes to fruition just like how you imagined. That said, let’s scroll away to the following guide.
How to Plan a Wedding?
1. Have a Clear Vision:
Nothing starts without a clear wedding vision — especially not your wedding planning process! You may feel motivated to check off all the mundane tasks from your list first, such as budgeting, vendor appointments, legal procedures, etc. However, the only way to make a process more efficient is to have a clear, specific vision first.
Hence, no matter how silly it feels, start jotting down your ideas for the wedding on a piece of paper. If you feel lost, answering the following questions will lead you in the right direction —
1. Do you want an indoor wedding or an outdoor wedding?
2. Do you want a large, small, or micro wedding?
3. Do you have a specific theme in mind?
4. Do you want a traditional ceremony or something casual and intimate?
5. What kind of decorations will enhance your wedding vibe?
6. What kind of wedding music are you looking for?
7. Will there be an open dance floor or wedding games?
8. What kind of gifts and wedding favors would align with your theme?
9. Which potential wedding dates or seasons do you feel would be suitable for your wedding?
10. What kind of wedding attire do you visualize yourself in?
Once you answer these questions, you’ll have a fair idea of how you want your wedding to be. Don’t shy away from jotting down any additional points that come to your mind when brainstorming. After all that is done, we move on to the next step —
2. Consider Your Budget:
Having a clear budget in mind would help you prioritize ideas that you will execute. Trim the fat expenses by separating non-negotiable expenses — such as food, venue, photographers, floral arrangements, etc. — with trivial ones that you don’t find very necessary — such as lavish centerpieces, caricaturists, pre-wedding parties, etc.
3. Create a Guest List:
The next step after deciding on a wedding budget is finalizing your guest list. To do this, you should consider the size of your wedding. Are you planning a big fat wedding in a large venue? In that case, you can consider a guest list of 500-1000 guests to fill up the footfall. If you’re planning a traditional, medium-sized wedding in a quintessential banquet or at the church, a guest list of 100 - 400 people would suffice.
For a small wedding in an intimate setting, keep a guest list of 30-100 people — limited to your family, relatives, friends, and neighbors. And, for micro weddings in which only close friends and family would be invited, the guest list would include less than 30 people.
4. Finalize a Date:
Now, this may not be as simple as picking a date a few months from now. There are several things to consider. To begin with, the season in which you are getting married will significantly influence the aesthetic, weather, wedding attire, venue, and even menu that you’re opting for. Outdoor weddings will particularly be affected by the time of the year in which you are getting married.
Moreover, the wedding date should also align with the leaves you and your partner would be taking from work, the availability of your desired venue, the availability of your desired musical band, etc. If you’re keen on planning a honeymoon during the best season to visit the respective city, the wedding ceremony needs to be aligned right before it without causing a nuisance.
5. Research for Venues:
Have you always dreamt of having a casual beach wedding? Or a modernistic wedding in an industrial loft? Perhaps, you’ve always liked the idea of having a warm, traditional wedding in a church. Or, one against the natural setting of a botanical garden and a lake.
Whether you’re lucky enough to afford your dream wedding or have an equally appealing backup idea, you can only bring it to fruition by researching suitable venues. If you’re opting for a local venue, you have the luxury of doing the legwork and exploring different options. However, if this is a destination wedding that you’re planning, make sure the venue is right for you by seeking out online reviews and customer testimonials.
6. Book a Venue:
Once you find a fitting venue for your needs, enquire with the venue manager and make the booking beforehand. Many popular wedding venues have long waiting lists for getting the dates. Hence, it is a good idea to book the venue at least 6-10 months prior so that you don’t have to postpone your wedding date.
7. Prepare a List of Vendors:
Vendors provide the bare essentials of a wedding — caterers, decorators, sound technicians, event designers, hair and makeup artists, stylists, musicians, cake artists, transportation, etc. Similar to the venue, wedding vendors too, are often booked out way in advance.
Hence, you need to plan way ahead if you wish to get vendors of your choice onboard. Depending on your requirements for the wedding, prepare a list of local vendors and jot down their contact information. Ensure you have at least 3-4 backups for each category, such as catering.
8. Map Out the Ceremony:
Once you’ve jotted down the contact details and specific features of all vendors that come to your mind, the next reasonable step would be to plan out the ceremony. The wedding ceremony looks different for everyone. So, map out how things would flow on your wedding day, including things like the officiating ceremony, religious rituals, dinner, dancing, reception, etc.
9. Decide on an Officiant:
While some people like appointing a clergyman to officiate their wedding, others like it better if a close family member or friend does it for them. So, before you proceed with planning the wedding further, decide on who you would want to officiate your wedding and make an appointment with the respective person in advance.
10. Decide on Auxiliary Events:
Would you like to cut to the chase and get married? Or have you always wished to have a proper ceremony coupled with auxiliary events such as a pre-wedding cocktail party, an engagement party, a bridal shower, a bachelorette party, a henna ceremony, a rehearsal dinner, a wedding after-party, etc?
These events would also require venues, catering, and perhaps a bit of decor, too, which should be included in your wedding budget. If your family members or friends wish to volunteer to plan any of these events, share your schedule, budget, and expectations with them so that everything goes as per your plan.
11. Prepare Invitations And Manage RSVP:
This is a two-fold task. To prepare invitations, you either need to have some basic design skills or the ability to hire a professional graphic designer to create your wedding invitation card. While the former would require you to put in some time and effort, as per your wedding theme, the latter requires constant communication and follow-up.
As for RSVP management, you need to create and circulate a form (preferably a Google form) among all your prospective guests. Plan out which guests are invited individually, with their family, or with a plus one, and make arrangements accordingly. Once they have RSVPed, make changes in your arrangements for catering, wedding gifts and favors, etc, if necessary.
12. Organize Your Wedding Plan:
Once you have finalized your vendors, guests, venue, events, etc. start putting them together to get a clearer picture of what your wedding day would look like. Use online tools and apps like Trello, spreadsheets, mood boards, presentation slides, etc. This way, you can communicate your ideas with your partner and relatives who will contribute to planning your wedding, and ensure everyone is on the same page. To boot, share access with your partner so they can muck in their ideas as well.
13. Create a Timeline:
Next, prepare a detailed timeline for all the ceremony programs, so that you can share the same with your guests. Share hardcopies of the finalized timeline with your partner, family members, friends, and everyone involved in the wedding.
14. Decide on a Wedding Theme:
For some couples, a wedding theme can be as simple as a color palette. For others, it may reflect in the decorations, wedding favors, and dress codes. Some pick seasonal themes like autumn or spring, whereas others go for contemporary themes like ‘20s classic, rustic, fairytale, bohemian, minimalistic, eco-friendly, etc.
Realistically, the smaller the size of the wedding, the more elaborate can the theme be, as a small number of people can be requested to adhere to it. However, implementing rigid and detailed themes in large weddings is very difficult. The size of the venue and your budget would influence this as well. So, as you brainstorm for your wedding theme, consider all these factors.
15. Decide on Music And Entertainment:
If you have a particular musical band in mind, ensure you book them way in advance so that they are available for your wedding. In addition, make music arrangements with sound technicians, DJs, etc. Decide on a wedding playlist for key highlights of your big day such as walking down the aisle, the bride and groom dance, the father-daughter dance, other special dances, romantic instrumentals for the reception, wedding games, etc.
16. Decide on the Menu:
A pre-requisite before this is to get the dietary restrictions of your guests RSVPed such as vegetarian, vegan, kosher, Jain, gluten-free, dairy-free, etc. It is polite to ensure you have food options for your guests across different dietary restrictions, so that nobody feels left out and hungry. After all, you’re the one who has invited them!
Only once you’ve taken this into consideration, start making a list of your favorite foods as well as seasonal delicacies that are loved by everyone. Ponder over the quantity and variety of food depending on your guest list and budget, and finalize the menu after filtering out the best options.
17. Consult the Venue Managers:
Once you have all your plans and ideas mapped out clearly, it’s time to start making appointments with respective spearheads. Venue managers are the best place to start. After you’ve made the booking, seek out the blueprint of the venue and share the event design with them.
Note where the stage, seating arrangements, toilets, kitchens, etc. are, and start planning where you’d like the food counters, centerpieces, round tables, decorations, etc. to be. Consult the venue managers on this and request for staff such as floor managers, waiters, etc. if that’s something they provide.
To boot, weeks before the wedding, ensure you do regular recces at the venue to make sure everything goes smoothly. Try to have a mental map of the venue and learn about its nooks and corners by heart.
18. Schedule Vendor Appointments:
After you’ve spoken with the venue manager, book appointments with the vendors next — preferably starting with the caterers. Next, reach out to the decorators, sound engineers, cake vendors, florists, photographers, videographers, hair and makeup artists, rentals for tuxedos and bridal dresses, lighting specialists, graphic designers for stationary and signage, logisticians, transportation services, etc.
19. Shop for Your Wedding Attire:
Before you head out for shopping, look for outfit inspirations online using platforms like Pinterest. Imagine what kind of wedding outfit you’d like to see yourself in and make notes about the color, silhouette, neckline, fit, footwear, etc. After this, do a brief research online on which stores sell or rent out the kind of attire you’re looking at, and start your search by visiting those stores first.
This way, you’ll make your shopping experience very efficient and prevent needless confusion. Do consider the venue, season, theme, and your body type before spending your money on the outfit.
20. Shop for Your Wedding Jewelry:
The obvious step after shopping for your wedding outfit is looking for the perfect jewelry to go with it. This includes necklaces, earrings, engagement rings, wedding bands, brooches, cufflinks, hair accessories, and other statement pieces. When investing in gems and diamonds consider factors like metal allergies, ethical factors, budget, cultural and religious beliefs, etc.
21. Book Photographers And Videographers:
All your wedding outfits, jewelry, and decorations would feel worthless more or less if your photos aren’t good. Hence, it is very crucial to book highly proficient photographers and videographers for the wedding. Ensure you refer to their work samples, portfolio, and social media pages before signing the deal. It would be even better if you could refer to the testimonials of previous customers.
22. Book Your Custom Wedding Cake:
Next, make bookings for your custom wedding cake. You can opt for classic tiered cakes, floral cakes, rustic buttercream cakes, or get your cakes personalized and sculpted based on the wedding theme. There’s a lot of creative scope when it comes to the decorative wedding cake. However, you’ll have to do some research to find the best custom bakers in the locality to achieve this.
Remember that while it is easy to suggest funky ideas, the more decorative the cake is, the more difficult it would be to transport it to the venue. Hence, consider your budget, the distance, and miscellaneous factors before selecting a wedding cake.
23. Arrange for Wedding Favors:
If your wedding has a specific theme, it would be a nice idea to pick out gifts for the guests of that adhere to it. For example, stylized and frosted cupcakes would make excellent wedding favors for fairytale-themed weddings whereas engraved wooden articles like coasters, cutlery, and photo frames would suit a rustic wedding ceremony held at a barn. Consider your budget and the preferences of your guests when deciding on favors.
24. Make Hair And Makeup Appointments:
Like all other vendors, hair and makeup artists must be booked in advance too, as there’s a high demand for them. After all, looking special on one’s wedding is a non-negotiable. Like everything else, ensure that you have a fair picture in your mind as to how you want your hair and makeup to look. You can look up aesthetic references on Instagram or Pinterest, create a personal mood board, and share the same with your MUA vendors.
You can ask them whether they can help you achieve the look you’re aiming for, and cross-check this on their social media pages to get a fair idea about their proficiency. Also, sleuth about how hygienic and high-quality their products, brushes, styling tools, etc. are. If you have any product allergies, medications, dermatological treatments, or skin conditions, discuss them with the beauticians and check if they can provide a personalized service to you.
25. Create a Wedding Registry:
If you happen to be accepting gifts at your wedding, create a curated list of items that you and your partner would need. This way, you can prevent duplication of gifts you receive and ease the confusion of your guests.
26. Create a Wedding Website:
If you’re inviting a large number of guests and communicating with every invitee seems difficult to manage, consider creating a wedding website to organize this for you. The website would have all the essential details about your wedding, such as the date, event schedule, RSVP tracker, and travel and accommodation information in case it’s a destination wedding.
27. Make Plans for Guest Accommodations:
This varies depending on your wedding venue. For example, if you’ve booked a banquet at a hotel, then book a couple of hotel rooms to accommodate your guests. However, if your wedding is planned at a countryside Airbnb or a heritage home, then you can allow your guests to crash there. Local church weddings without any outstation guests may not require you to make any accommodations at all.
28. Make a Wedding Emergency Kit:
You may have the perfect wedding dress, hair and makeup essentials, and other things in place before your wedding. However, mishaps can occur at any time and it’s always good to be extra prepared for such situations.
For this, curate a wedding emergency kit comprising raincheck essentials such as safety pins, deodorant, wet wipes, snacks and water, a phone charger, an extra pair of footwear, tissues, makeup touch-up supplies, bandages, anti-septic lotions, sanitary napkins, fashion tapes, sewing supplies, etc. Inform the wedding planner (if you’ve booked one) and bridesmaids about where you’ve kept this kit so that they can make these supplies available to you when you’re unable to reach them.
29. Learn About Legal Formalities:
Getting married is not just about the celebration — it calls for legal paperwork. You and your partner need to apply for a marriage license and obtain a marriage certificate after the day you get married. For this, you need to start researching which notarized documents would be necessary and curating them.
Marriage licenses have limited period validity (which only lasts for a couple of months). Hence, apply for the license with the wedding date in mind. If you’re planning a destination wedding, read up about the marriage license laws of that particular state so you can be prepared ahead.
30. Plan for Wedding Day Logistics:
You’ll only be able to plan your wedding day logistics once you have your wedding timeline in place and have finalized contracts with respective vendors.
To do this, make a spreadsheet with the event timings (such as officiating ceremony, dance, reception, etc.), what kind of supplies you’ll need for the specific event, the names and contact details of the respective vendors, and by what time they should ideally arrive with their supplies at the location. Share this spreadsheet with your vendors, friends, and relatives who will be involved in the wedding planning journey.
It would be great if you could fetch the mode of transport your vendors are opting for, as well as determine the possible traffic conditions, weather conditions, etc. of the day. This way, you can map out a realistic timeline for when your vendors must leave for the wedding.
Further, you need to alott tasks of attending vendors to your wedding coordinator, bridesmaids, relatives, etc. as you’ll be unlikely to manage things on your actual wedding day.
31. Write Your Vows:
Among all the other drudgeries of wedding planning, this part has the most sentimental value, which would put everything else in perspective. Writing your own vows would require you to really reflect inward and recall some heartwarming moments from your relationship with your partner.
Save this task for the end, when you finally get a chance to take a breather from all the craziness around planning the event. Keep your vows as genuine and authentic as possible. After you’re done jotting down your feelings, get help from online content enhancement tools such as Grammarly and Hemingway to optimize it.
32. Get a Wedding Insurance:
For a secure and happy wedding ceremony, we highly encourage you to get the event insured for liabilities that may occur. To boot, it is also a good idea to get your wedding jewelry insured.
33. Build a Self-care Routine:
Wedding planning is a lengthy process that can take a lot out of you. Hence, once you’ve taken care of most things, it is very important to take a break and prioritize self-care. Try to eat only healthy, energizing foods weeks before your wedding, such as vegetables, fresh juices, lean protein, whole grains, nuts, and seeds.
Take great care of your skin and don’t experiment with new products a few weeks before your wedding. If you wish, you can splurge on cosmetic treatments or beauty appointments to keep your complexion radiant. The best skincare advice among all these? Get plenty of sleep! Ensure you don’t exhaust yourself too much before your big day.
If you can, it is a good idea to get a relaxing massage or spa, days before your wedding, to feel fresh and rejuvenated. Self-care is important to remind yourself that all the stress and efforts taken for the wedding are pointed at one thing — your happiness. Hence, of all things, “you” should never go at the bottom of the priority list.
34. Communicate with Your Partner:
Don’t overtake all the decision-making and wedding-related work by yourself. Allow your partner to be an equal contributor to the wedding planning process and validate their ideas as well. Keep them in the loop as to how far you’ve planned the wedding. If at any stage you feel overwhelmed, talk your stressors out with your partner. After all, the best way to unwind and relieve stress is to spend quality time with your partner in the middle of all the craziness.
35. Plan Your Wedding After-party
As the popular belief goes, the bride and the groom might enjoy the least on their wedding day. This is not exactly a bad thing as in addition to the joy of officiating your relationship, it is a great pleasure to be a good host to guests who are a part of your big day. The feeling is one-of-a-kind.
However, while exhilarating, getting married can also be an exhausting process. Hence, it is only likely that you’ll wish to let off some steam after it’s all done. For this, it is a good idea to plan an after-party, inviting only close friends and family, where you can let loose and celebrate the new milestone in your life. You can eat, drink, dance, and make merry more freely than you’ll be able to do on your actual wedding day.
If this is something you want to have, make arrangements for the after-party beforehand, such as food, booze, music, etc. The best part about this is that everything doesn’t have to go perfectly in your after-party, unlike the wedding. So, you’re freer to do what you want.
36. Take Time to Rejuvenate:
The end of your big day can feel bittersweet. However, the sweet part is that you are finally free from all the wedding-planning chaos and can spend quality time with your spouse. To do this right, stay indoors the next day. Take a break from makeup, frills, and fuss, and get changed into your comfortable PJs. You can also take this time out to daydream about your perfect honeymoon with your partner.
37. Make Post-wedding Plans:
You can start this by relishing all the gifts from your wedding registry and sending personalized messages to your guests to thank them. Enquire with the photographers and videographers you had hired about when you can get the final images and footages. Complete the payments with the wedding vendors, if at all they had been pending.
If you’re planning a honeymoon very soon, ensure you have your documents, passport, visa, travel bags, ID proofs, etc. in place. Plan out your honeymoon itinerary and all thing around this.
Lastly, now that you’ve entered a new phase in your life, ensure you ease into your married life and make the best of it. We understand that planning a wedding can be an overwhelming process — it is by and large the biggest party you’ll ever throw and among the most important days of your life. However, the process can be made much easier once you list out your priorities and streamline the steps. If things get too demanding to handle, always take help from your partner, family members, and trusted friends. You can even consult a wedding coordinator to help you ease out the process. Your dream wedding awaits, hereafter!
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