Wedding Checklist (10+1 Tips)

First things first: Organizing a wedding can feel pretty terrifying at times. From finding a venue to organizing the wedding decor, wedding planning can be a very complex process. While some often hire an expert to help manage their wedding plans, there are plenty of reasons why they might also choose to take on the majority of the responsibilities on their own, too. Perhaps you’re struggling with tight wedding planning resources or maybe you simply love all of the DIY opportunities—in any case, it's a lot of extra details, but it is feasible to plan the wedding of your dreams on your own.

The organization is core to keeping everything on plan when you’re faced with decisions, schedules, deadlines, and everyday life to deal with. The first step is making sure to give yourselves plenty of time for wedding planning. A longer timeline is your friend here—aim for around a year, if feasible. And don’t forget to include your significant other in this step, as well. Your wedding should represent both of you, together as a couple. So, where to start? We've got you covered. Just remember to keep one very major thing in mind: Try to have some fun! Spend some time together organizing the guest list or choosing the wedding flowers. This is your wedding after all. Don’t get too hung up on the small details and focus on what’s truly important: celebrating the love the two of you experience and getting married, all while encompassed by your friends and family.

Here are our several top tips for how to plan your wedding:

1. Make a Decision Regarding the Budget

When it comes to understanding how to plan a wedding—you’ll need to choose how much you can pay for your wedding. It might not be the most entertaining part of the process, but it’s a job that really needs to be developed first. The last thing you want is to fall in love with a venue, vendor, dress, etc. and realize it’s totally out of range. So sit down with your parents or other potential contributors to come up with a total budget, and then divide it up by vendor or service accordingly.

2.Find some inspiration

One of the most enjoyable parts of designing a wedding step by step is gathering influence. Think about how you want your wedding to look and feel. Are you going for a super-classic and formal vibe? Or perhaps an event that’s more informal and simple? The choice is yours, but it’s a good idea to start scanning Pinterest, Instagram, and wedding websites to start analyzing color schemes, décor ideas, and more. We recommend starting this process early on.

3.Venue

Once you’ve set a budget and decided on a theme, you can start to think about choosing a wedding venue that fits in with it all.

Your wedding venue will define your wedding date, location, and your maximum guest numbers, so make choosing your venue a priority.

Before you start the hunt for your venue, sit down together and talk about what you both want from your wedding and what kind of venue will match with the theme you’ve chosen.

If one of you is picturing a fairytale castle venue and the other is dreaming of a simple barn venue then you may need to compromise.

Think about other significant factors such as whether you want to have a wedding venue with accommodation, whether you want to use your own caterers, and what your evening guest number is expected to be. All these circumstances will play a part in deciding which wedding venue you choose.

4.Guest List

While you don’t have to have a final guest list until a bit later, when thinking about how to plan a wedding step by step, coming up with an estimated guest count early on is vital. There’s a great contrast between a 50-person wedding and a 400-person wedding, especially when it comes to your venue options. So before you start browsing wedding venues, get an idea of how many guests you’ll host. You'll also want to use this time to choose the people who will stand beside you on your big day—your wedding party. So go ahead and select your bridesmaids, groomsmen, groomsladies or bridesmen and ask them to take on this important role.

5. Select a Theme

Whether it’s specific wedding colors, seasonal or style inspiration, or an actual theme , sometimes it's helpful to choose a concept to design your wedding around. Once you have an aesthetic in mind, it's easier to make design decisions, and generally, everything looks more cohesive.

6. Flowers

Even if you're not planning anything other than a bouquet and some buttonholes, popular florists are worth booking in well in advance.

7. Invitations

You've got your guest list so it's time to actually invite them to your wedding. You may also want to send 'save the date' cards and while invites were traditionally sent out between six and 12 weeks before a wedding.

8. Favours

Those little gifts at each place setting also need organizing and there are lots of ways to make this tradition unique to your wedding. It may be that you need to spend a few evenings gathering them with friends, while drinking a bottle of wine, so allow some time for this too.

9. Decoration, details and design

The last few months are about working out the more precise details like decor and select items. Like a photo booth and those extra things that improve the wedding. Start to create a set list for your band or DJ, your first dance, your promises, the flow of the day, your stationery (to include orders of service, menus, place names), and any other fun elements you need to hire or create.

10. Hair and make-up

If you're not going to do your hair and make-up yourself then set up some experiments with expert stylists and artists. It may take more than one session (and more than one supplier) to find the perfect look, but beware of going too over the top.

11. Transportation

this could include the wedding car, a car to take the bride and groom from the ceremony to the reception and a bus or coach to take guests between one and the other. You may of course have more exciting ideas about transport that include boats, helicopters, camper vans and motorbikes; the more unusual, the earlier you'll need to arrange them.