You are getting married! To the love of your life! To your best friend! That is amazing! And so very, very exciting! But it can sometimes be stressful. The who, what, where and how of the wedding planning process can sometimes make things over-the-top stressful. But if you can stay organized and control the things you can control the little things that come out of no where will not seem so bad. 

• As soon as you start to plan your wedding have the "come to Jesus" talk with you fiancé. How much can you afford? NO really, how much? After that put a rough guest list together BEFORE you go look at venues. Only go tour venues that you can afford. Do not see the ones that have a 200 person minimum if you only have a 100 person guest list. Do yourself a favor- do your homework ahead of time and save yourself the time and stress! 
  
• Start a folder on your computer right away and put all of your wedding documents in that one folder. This will make staying organized a piece of cake. 
  
• One of the first things I always do with my clients is make a budget and a cost estimate with them. I itemize EVERY SINGLE cost that will come up for their wedding and list them in an excel spread sheet. There are 6 columns in the basic version. 
  

                       1. Item & short description
                       2. Full cost of item
                       3. Deposit Due
                       4. Amount Paid to Date
                       5. Balance Due
                       6. Date must be paid in full

             This way you always have a running actual cost on your wedding. If your wedding is  
             12 months away you can look at that total cost due and figure out how much you  
             need to put aside each week or month to comfortably be able to pay for the wedding. 

• Make  document on each member of your bridal party. Sizes they wear, addresses, phone numbers, etc. This will make staying organized and things like bridal party gifts super easy by keeping you from having to search around to get info. 
  

Staying organized and staying ahead of things will keep your stress DOWN!! Unfortunately there will always be things that will come up and throw a little curve ball at you but the more you can organize yourself the better off you will be. Event planners and wedding coordinators like myself do this all the time. This is how we stay ahead of things and are able to work on many events at a time without missing a detail.  I did not name my business DETAILED Engagements by accident!! 

Hope this helps! 

Talk soon, 
~Tiffany

All the singles ladies… in your bridal party.

To the bride: Remember way back when before the ring? Before the perfect forever partner? Before the we’s and us’s, when it was just I and me? Yeah, remember that time in your life. And now think about your single bridesmaids. Put yourself in their shoes. Stand back and look. No really- take a step back. And when you think you are far enough removed from the wedding take another step back. These are your friends, you family, your loved ones. Treat them like this. Treat them how you would want to be treated.

To the bridesmaid: There is nothing like a wedding to point out how single you are. Nothing like sitting at the head table in a bridesmaid gown all alone without a date when a slow song comes on. You awkwardly go to the bar. You dance with the children. You look for a drunk groomsman to dance with. But you are still single. Thanks for not giving you a plus one is what you want to say to the bride but you didn’t. It is “her” day and you didn’t want to ruin it. I get it. But you should be able to speak up. There is nothing like a wedding to giantly point out that you are single. At least if you had a date there you would feel better. Oh she told you that only people who are married get dates?  Or people who have been in long, committed relationships? Oh that makes it feel better said no one. Ever. Speak up. If something hurt your feelings speak up. Its ok. I get it. And so will the Bride and Groom.

And now back to you my lovely bride. I know you mean well. You really are trying to do best by everyone and I of all people completely understand that I really do!  I do not want you to think that I am knocking you at all. I just know, and have seen first hand how hard it may be to be on each side of things. I have been the single bridesmaid and I am always the one worried about the cost of the guest list. But think about what is more important. Your single bridesmaid having a great night or saving that $75? In the grand scheme of things I think you know what to do.