Today, I’m taking a break from talking running and switching gears to talk wedding for a bit. Specifically, what to do if you are recently engaged. If you hate talking weddings, then you might want to just come back tomorrow 🙂
SO happy!
Congrats! You are engaged and are SO excited to plan your wedding. I totally understand, as a recently engaged gal myself. The second you get engaged you will get TONS of questions: when is the wedding, where is the wedding, have you thought about [fill in the blank]? It can be a bit overwhelming…so check out my tips for keeping sane during the early engagement process:
- Take a deep breath and just enjoy being engaged. After K proposed, we had a weekend out of town planned, a wedding the following weekend and then I had a week long work trip. We simply didn’t have any time to think about wedding details during that busy time, so we declared that we’d just enjoy being engaged until I returned home from my work trip. That was the best decision ever. Of course, during that time, I thought about the wedding and thought about details — but we also just enjoyed spending time together as an engaged couple. Don’t let anyone rush you into making decisions as soon as you get engaged. Take some time and revel in the moment. Trust me, the rest will come soon enough.
- Learn to filter out the noise. You will get SO much advice as soon as you tell folks you are engaged. It’s great because everyone has an opinion and will offer it to you. It’s awful because everyone has an opinion and will offer it to you. From my experience, everyone means well…but none of them are you or your fiance. So listen politely, nod and smile and figure out what really matters to you and your future mate and go from there. I am so grateful for all the fantastic tips and advice I’ve received…but I’ve also had my fair share of nod and smile conversations with folks who are sweet, but have no idea what our vision is for our wedding.
- Solidify your budget. This is so important and goes along with getting your guest list together. You need to know how many people you plan on having and you need to know how much you have to spend. Figure out if anyone else will be contributing to your wedding (will your parents be helping at all?) and go from there.
What do you wish you’d known when you first got engaged?Â
Congratulations again!! I have nothing to offer on this front soI’ll just smile and nod 😉
Mar @ Mar on the Run! recently posted…Marathon Training: Week 1
LOL — thanks girl! 🙂
Congratulations again, I’m looking forward to your wedding plan posts 🙂
If I could go back 21 years and give myself some advice it would be this … I wish we had put our foot down to guests that we didn’t know who were invited by our families out of “we were invited to their kids wedding” obligation and fill the guest list with people we wanted to be around.
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Ah — that is really smart advice. We are fortunate to not have too much of that with our list 🙂
I can’t wait to hear more about your engagement and enjoy the planning via blog. It’s interesting to be on the outside looking in. =)
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Congratulations! I have been married for 21 years and was completely clueless when we were planning our wedding. I didn’t even make plans to have my hair or nails done…woke up the morning of the wedding and had no idea what to do. One of my bridesmaids braided it for me. One thing I would have done differently was to include photos into my wedding decorations…I actually have a whole pin board dedicated to that. I know that sounds funny, but I have worked with people who need help with that, hence the pin board. I am not planning on getting married again!! But a lot of the ideas would also be great for anniversary parties, etc.
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