Always the Wedding Planner, Never the Bride (Until now!!)

I have planned countless weddings but I will say there's a lot of little things I've learned being on the bride side. Here are a few of the little things I've picked up so far on how to plan a wedding that is customized, unique and personalized that are not hard at all but rather make the journey through engagement more fun and meaningful...

1. Start a Spotify Playlist immediately. We wasted no time in starting that Spotify playlist and it's been awesome so far and a lot of fun. Although I will say I made fun of Alex for accidentally adding the entire Clint Black album to the playlist... But anyway, I am not going to lie when I say we've already picked quite a few of our specialty songs by having that playlist made. And when one of our favorite songs comes on we can easily add to the list. I think that this not only makes it fun during the planning process to slowly add those songs you and your fiance love but will also make it way less stressful the month or two before the wedding because you can check mark off those specialty songs off your list. 

2. Keep your eyes open. And no not just so you don't run into walls but I mean when out shopping. I might be a bit of an exception because the items I have been buying for our wedding we will also be renting out and using for our clients but some of the items will just be used for decor in our house. But if you see something out and you love it and can find a purpose for it besides at the wedding, why not buy it and get it's money's worth while also using to add some personalization to your wedding decor? [Disclaimer: I might be that person who needs a uHaul to get everything to the wedding that I buy... oh crap.]

3. Draw inspiration from your life, what you do, etc. I think this is the most fun part about planning so far is trying to incorporate little bits of our lives into the decor, stationary, paper goods, etc. Whether it's my love of dinosaurs, Alex's day job as an engineer or night job as a drummer... it has been fun trying to use those little facts about us and finding unique ways to incorporate into the wedding (custom stamps of our pets? Yup, that happened.)

4. Think about the flow of the wedding in the sense of what is most important to you. By thinking about the style/vibe/flow of your wedding you can be better equipped to pick the right vendors to accomplish your vision. For us, we want to party and dance and get that started as soon as possible. So having a sit down meal would be just plain pointless and would probably give both Alex and I anxiety sitting there waiting to get on our feet to get down to Africa... And this is why we want to get a lot of things done at the cocktail hour. For example, we are doing our dances at the end of cocktail hour then leading the pack into the reception rather than doing after the entrance... that way once we are at the reception it is eat, eat, eat, drink a lil and then dance all night. 

5. Craft projects rock. Unless you don't like arts & crafts I guess... but I know for us we want to make some unique things that we have brainstormed and come up with the help decorate our wedding and style things. The adventure is all in the journey and the little things that come together on the way there make our wedding not just one day but a story that leads up to it and when it all comes together it will be that much more special to see our work come together. 

And on that note... happy planning y'all!!!! xoxo, N