Here comes the bride!!!
Well actually, here is the wife!
I am sooo relieved that wedding planning is finally over!! Although I loved building my Pinterest board with ideas at 3 in the morning, I’m happy to be done. From creating the guest list, to deciding on real or faux flowers, to selecting the music, the food, and the cake, I literally was going crazy.
It was definitely a journey for us to plan our big day and at times I was ready to throw in the towel and just go to the Justice of the Peace. But with a lot of support and help from our parents and my bridal party we survived. As much as I love my husband, I tell him all the time, I will never ever ever ever ever ever plan a wedding with you again.
The funny thing is that during this process several of my friends were planning their weddings as well and dealt with a lot of the things that I went through. So to all of my future Brides out there, here is a list of the s*** that they don’t tell you about planning a wedding.
1. You will go over budget
I tried, I mean I REALLY tried not to go over, but the more that I planned the more things I saw that we needed or wanted. I had a vision for our wedding and unfortunately every time that I went on Pinterest or Etsy I found more stuff to buy. Although we had our Google spreadsheet to keep track of our expenses, they still seemed to pile up. Here are three tips to prevent from going into unnecessary debt.
Save early! If you know that you plan to have a big wedding, start saving as soon as you get engaged, or even before that.
Create a budget that is less than what you have saved. For example, if you have $15K saved, create a budget for $10K. So in the event that you do go over, you’ll already have money available.
I wouldn’t suggest mixing your personal savings with your wedding savings so open an additional savings account strictly for wedding expenses.
2. You will lose a friend
Several of my wiser sister friends told me this, but I didn’t think that it could happen to me. Girllllaaaa, I was so wrong lol ! One of my high school girlfriends was IN my wedding, then dropped out about a month before my big day. Crazy right! What's even crazier is that she still has not apologized nor sent me a congratulatory message of my nuptials. But, the universe has a crazy way of removing people from your life at the perfect time. I'm at a point in my life where I'm actually okay with distancing myself from friends and family that don’t have my best interest at heart. I have my husband, I have my parents, and I have my Regal Lady Squad, what more can a girl ask for.
3. You and your wedding planners will not see eye to eye
My wedding planners were AWFUL!!!! What seemed to start off so well ended so horrible. Coincidentally, one of my sorors experienced the same drama with her planners hundreds of miles away. What event coordinators need to understand is “They are not the bride”. End of story, especially since they’re not paying for the wedding. Things in my contract were not fulfilled, they weren’t able to produce the decorations for our theme, and can you believe that they had the nerve to give me attitude when I brought my concerns to their attention. I can honestly say that I wasn’t even a bridezilla, but when I’m paying you to do a job, and you’re not doing it, then it becomes a problem. Luckily I was saved by two black owned event planning businesses, Eye 4 Design and Oracle Event Planning. These ladies work tirelessly around the clock to bring my vision to life and I am forever grateful to have them on my team.
4. People who RSVP’d won’t show up...and those who didn't will
DON’T….GET….ME….STARTED. My guest list closed about 3 to 4 weeks before the wedding and my final numbers were due one week before the wedding. I did this to give people an ample amount of time to change their mind, without putting me in a bad situation. However, people literally waited until the week of my wedding to tell me they were not coming, AFTER I paid the nonrefundable payment for their food! Also, the day of I had a wedding crasher........no...really!! So as you are submitting your final headcount to your caterer be sure to knock off an extra 5 to 10 people just to be on the safe side of saving your money and make sure that you have someone on guest list duty!
5. Everything will not go as planned
Things may not go according to the schedule. The best man’s speech may run longer, your transportation may get stuck in traffic, or you may have a meltdown right before you walk down the aisle. Just do your best to go with the flow. I can admit that I am a control freak. I like things done my way especially when I’ve planned and prepped for perfection. However, some things will not go as planned the day of your wedding, it's inevitable. For our wedding, we started a little late, my train knocked over one of the vases as I walked down the aisle, and I didn't even get to eat all of my food. (Super blown about that because I had lobster and stuffed shrimp) However, on the day of your wedding just do your best to relax and try not to stress about things that you can't control. Focus on becoming a wife and meeting your groom on the other end of the aisle.
All in all, the most important thing is not the wedding but the marriage! The wedding is just one day. The marriage is forever. Don’t put in more work for your wedding than your marriage. No matter what, this is your special day and you deserve to be happy. For any of my brides, let me know if you can relate to my wedding planning experience! To my wives, feel free to leave some advice for the brides out there.
