~Planning Your Wedding~ PART 1

Six Months Ahead

• Set the date~ Decide the month and the day you want to marry.
• Schedule the place where you want to get married~ The two of you decide where you want the wedding ceremony to be. An elegant indoor wedding or a backyard garden wedding? Just make sure you have a back up plan if it should rain and your special day is planned for outdoors.
• Determine a budget and decide who will pay for what~There are many suggestions for dividing up expenses. You can both decide together how you want to do it or let traditional wedding etiquette be your guide.
• Pick the colors you want your wedding to be~ You can search current bridal magazines & online wedding sites to determine the wedding colors that are in this year or you can let your heart be your guide and pick whatever colors you want to use in your wedding attire, wedding decor, and floral design.
• Start creating your guest list~compose your list according to which events you will be inviting guests to. Make a list for wedding, wedding breakfast or rehearsal dinner, and wedding reception. If you are inviting some of your guests to more than one event, create a system so you invite them to the events you want them to come to. Keep this list! You can use it to send out wedding thank yous and you may want to use some of these addresses for your future Christmas card list.
• Find a Wedding Consultant~this step is optional. Some brides like to strike out on their own. Others don't want the worry or stress of doing everything themselves.

Ideally six months works well for planning a wedding. If by chance, you have less than that to plan, don't panic just adapt this list to fit your time-frame. My husband gave me three weeks to plan and pull off the wedding and we did it! So there is hope if you don't have a full six months!