Top 10 Wedding Planning Mistakes to Avoid

1. Picking your Wedding Date too Soon!

I know you are excited and this is the first question everyone asks you, “When are you getting married?” Until you have chosen your venue the best recommendation is to pick a SEASON! Do you want a Spring, Summer, Fall or Winter wedding? This allows you to fall in LOVE with a venue, be flexible to pick a date they are available within your season!

2. Creating your Guest List before your Budget?

I know here we go again with the dreaded BUDGET! Let’s back up…create your budget then a preliminary guest list! Research your venue, catering and rental needs! Once you know your costs evaluate the costs based on your initial guest list and then re-evaluate the list if it necessary. Remember, inviting guests to your wedding is like offering to take them out to a very expensive restaurant for dinner! Do you really need to invite that friend from junior high that you haven’t spoken to in 10 years?

3. Picking Colors & Flowers for your Wedding

Think again about the season you have chosen to get married. Make sure that your color and flower choice is appropriate for the season! It is unrealistic to choose fall colors if you want to get married in the spring! And vice versa! Unless you have an unlimited budget!

4. Picking your Bridal Attendants

Make sure that you are choosing close family and friends that you can count on! You want to surround yourself with people that will be FUN and SUPPORTIVE! If they live far away and won’t be able to come in until the day of your wedding it might not be a good fit! Don’t pick someone because a family member is demanding it! Make sure your group will be a good cohesive group!

5. Hire a “PRO” instead of a friend

I know this seems like a good way to save money! Even if the friend is a PRO, choose someone else! Why? What if you choose your friend to photograph your wedding and they miss critical shots that you wanted, or they don’t turn out as well as you expected. How are you going to approach this with YOUR friend? Now, if the friend isn’t a PRO you never know what you are going to end up with! You are spending a great deal of time and money planning your wedding, leave it to the Professionals!

6. Micromanaging Your Vendors

Now, you have made the right decision and hired wedding professionals! That is a great start!! Now, tell them what you want and expect from them and let them do their THING! I know losing that control is a scary idea, but remember you hired them because you liked their work, their style, their personality!! Now, TRUST them!

7. Your Fashion Budget

This should not solely be the cost of your wedding dress! Many budgets get thrown out of whack because brides forget about tax, alterations, under garments and shoes! So be realistic when creating your budget and when shopping remember, if your budget for fashion is $2,000 you can’t spend all $2,000 on the dress alone!

8. Planning TOO long of a Wedding

I hear this all the time…my family and friends love to party and I don’t want to limit them! Believe me 5 hours for your ceremony, cocktail hour and reception is plenty of time! Remember, you will have most likely had rehearsal dinner the night before, up early for hair and make-up! Your guests may have traveled to get to your wedding! It is really OK for the party to not go on and on! Especially if you are serving alcohol!

9. Outdoor Weddings are Beautiful…Just Prepare for the Worst!

Outdoor weddings are very popular! Private residence weddings are very popular! Just remember when planning either outdoor or private residence wedding you MUST have a PLAN B!! What about rain, wind or extreme heat? Do you need to bring in restrooms? Think it all through! Is there room to bring in a tent? What about power to bring lighting or air conditioning!

10. Thinking 10% of your Guests will Not Attend

This is the industry standard, but you can never guarantee it! So, if you invite 250 guests until you hear from them they are not coming…you need to plan on them attending! If your venue or your budget will not handle 250 then you need to adjust your guest list before your invitations are sent! The only way you can control your guest count is to control your guest list!

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One Reply to “Top 10 Wedding Planning Mistakes to Avoid”

  1. I appreciate the point that you made that it isn’t good for a wedding to go on for too long because many people probably traveled long distances to get there. My fiance and I are getting married soon, but we are really bad at planning so I think we might need some professional help. I think if we hired a wedding planner, we would be able to lower our stress of planning for that day.

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