Bride to Bride Tip #3: Do as Much in Advance as You Can

My fiance and I have been together for almost nine years and we've already been engaged for two and we are in no big rush to have our wedding... instead, we'd rather take our time, save our money, and plan our perfect event at our leisure.  Now, if you'd rather get married asap, the more power to you!  Weddings require so much planning, saving, and consideration that my opinion is it's best to take your time.

My third Bride to Bride tip is do as much in advance as you can.  Since we got engaged, the first thing we tried to accomplish was selecting and booking the perfect venue.  This was the most important and time consuming step since there are an incredible amount of beautiful places to choose from and when venue shopping there's a lot to consider!  Once we selected one (it took us around 4 months to find the perfect place for us), we then chose our color scheme and I began to grab little things as often as possible (like the guest book, unity candle set, cake topper, garter...).

We booked our venue in October 2011 and we aren't getting married until November 2013 - now that's an incredible amount of time and obviously everyone is different, but for us, the more time the better.  We are paying for the bulk of the wedding and we need the extra time to save our pennies and make all of our decisions.  Also, this gives us time to research DJs and photographers (who are so important), book a florist, and carefully plan all other details.

What I like about having a significant amount of time is that I don't feel stressed at all!  I know several brides who were engaged and married all within the same year and towards the end they were stressing about everything!  I didn't want to be like that... I have enough going on and I feel that planning your wedding should be a very enjoyable experience.