My Wedding Experience: Planning

Be sure to check out my post about saving up BEFORE you get engaged HERE.

Planning your wedding can easily become the main event in your life during the time leading up to the wedding.  I know for me it became a daily routine.  I was turning down hanging out with friends to be choosing what kind of flowers we should have.  I was condensing my work schedule to only very specific days and times to be crafting those other days.  It was a ton of work, but so much fun!

If you can afford it and don’t have much time, hire a wedding planner.  The amount of things they  can take off your never ending list of things to do, is wonderful!  I, however, chose to be a DIY bride.  Personal opinion, I truly think either is fine.  There is no right or wrong way to plan a wedding.  The question is, do you want a good amount of help or do you want a lot to do on your own plate?  So, what did I do as a DIY bride?  I’m so glad you asked!  Let me share what helped me out so much.

We live in a day where Pinterest is a girl’s best friend.  Let’s all go ahead and admit that before even finding a boyfriend, we have at least sat and gazed at the dreamy photos that fill the wedding section of Pinterest.  How can we not?  Magical aisles leading down to exuberant alters filled with beaming brides and grooms.  Flower ensembles that make you gush at their site.  And let’s not forget my favorite;  Those amazing lanterns they release at the end of Tangled, where wedding parties have literally released them at the end of the wedding!  There are so many things to make you gush and squeal on Pinterest, that it’s honestly overwhelming.  

Before engagement, it’s a perfect dreamy setting where your imagination can run rampant.  After engagement, you begin to realize you have to narrow down all these dreamy, wonderful ideas into things that actually fit in your budget.  So, when I logged on, I looked at my board I already had dealing with weddings (maybe I’m too much of a hopeless romantic, but I had a ton of pins already that fit my dream wedding) and started seeing what went together and what felt like it fit both my fiance and I.  I very quickly figured out that a farm was going to be the best setting for us.  I had dreamed for ages of getting married by a big, beautiful tree, outside right close to sunset.  And Pinterest helped expand that dream.

Next, we found our venue.  And let me just give them a small shout out, Summerfield Farms in Summerfield NC was completely worth the hour and fifteen minute drive because it was EVERYTHING we ever wanted.  You know how it is, when you have that specific idea that you just can’t see anything else?  Summerfield Farms was our dream.  They had that big, beautiful tree that made us both gasp in awe as we rode up to it.  We knew the moment we looked at it, THAT was where we were going to tie the knot.  It was everything.  And the reception area was this gorgeous barn with a stage and a fire pit outside!  Complemented by an attached tent for dinner.  We drove away ecstatic at the fact we had found our dream venue, the biggest part of planning was done and now we could look into the little details.

My next move I think was the most helpful one for me as a DIY girl.  If you choose to have a wedding planner, this may not be for you.  But I bought multiple wedding planning and wedding budget books off Amazon.   The beauty in Amazon is you can purchase gently used books for over half of what they originally cost.  So I got to work learning about budgeting and figuring out how much to spend on each area of a wedding.  I really thought I knew everything that was part of a wedding.  I’m at weddings most weekends doing brides hair.  It can’t be that hard, right?  It’s not that it’s hard, it’s the fact there are SO many details.  In fact, there are some that I just cut out from the beginning.  But still, there are certain aspects when throwing a wedding you have to stick to.  And the books I chose to help me, played a huge part in planning and helping to keep me on track.

And so the process continues over the months leading up to the wedding.  I was lucky enough to have a Maid of Honor who dived right in and helped me at any moment I needed her.  The week leading up to the wedding was a bit hectic.  I had everything planned.  All of the things I made for the wedding was finished.  I’d made my own bouquet, boutonnieres, flowers for decor, centerpieces, yard games (let’s just say making Giant Jenga and Corn Hole is very cost effective but VERY time consuming) and decor for our pie table and Polaroid table.   I thought everything was going to be super easy and we’d just finish up all the little details and everything would be great.  Then I get a message from one of my bridesmaids that she didn’t think she should be a bridesmaid anymore.  Naturally, I have a minor “freak out” moment on my Maid of Honor.  When it came to my own wedding, the hairstylist in me came out and I was all about even numbers.  So this took my count of 6 bridesmaids down to 5.  Fast forward a couple days, I have a friend who personally steps up and offers to stand in as my 6th bridesmaid simply because she is that awesome and understands my weird ways of wanting even numbers.  So everything was ready and we entered into wedding week fully ready, with everything finished.  Now, if only we had known that of all weekends in October, our weekend was going to be the weekend a hurricane decided to blow through.

I’ll be back next week to tell you all about the actual wedding day!
XoXo
Megan
**Megan S is an MYD Beauty Resident Stylist in our Raleigh, NC studio. She is available for hair cuts, hair color, hair extensions, hair styling lessons, as well as waxing by appointment. To schedule a session with Megan S (or any of our MYD Beauty Team experts) please contact us HERE and leave a note requesting her in your comments! Megan S, as is all our MYD Beauty Team, is available for travel to destinations outside our Raleigh, NC studio for special events and weddings worldwide.**