Planning Your Wedding in Ireland?

You Cannot Go Any Further Without The ‘Golden 10′

            Having a wedding around the corner can be an exciting feeling which can be best described as having butterflies in the stomach.

The ‘big day’ which was so much awaited till now, is finally going to come and your joy knows no bounds. No wonder, you would want to make it special.

Sometimes, hiring a wedding planner can be a difficult task. They usually charge high fees and may not meet your expectations. To add to that, planning your wedding also feels very exciting since you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor and your ideas on the ‘Day’.

On the other end of the matter, planning a wedding, even if it’s one’s own, is no easy thing. It takes a lot of time, hard work and ideation. And despite these, there are a few blind spots that you will almost miss. These will bring you some ‘oh God! How come I didn’t realize this’ kind of moments’.

This is where a self-help guide comes to the rescue and enables you to plan your wedding efficiently with minimal room for error. Your wedding planning should be an enjoyable process that becomes a part of your shared joyful memories and not a mentally (and currently physically) exhausting history.

Here is a detailed guide that can help you navigate the choppy wedding waters.

1. Work In Tandem:

A wedding that is not planned with the significant other taken into consideration, may lead to frustration and a bit of distrust. Always make plans together, share ideas, share information and most importantly, work out the budget plans together. This will ensure that the wedding is a fusion of what you like and what your partner likes. It will not be dominated by one set of ideas. Also, finance, which is a very sensitive territory will be taken care of properly. When you both know what the other one is doing and why they are doing so, you already have an idea of why things are being done the way they are being done. Always make sure that you are keeping your partner updated about every step completed, without being too intrusive and nosy. Your partner is going to appreciate your hard work and your tendency to not hinder your process.

2. Recruit Some Experience:

If possible, get help from friends and extended family members who are already married or have contributed to planning weddings. The experience and ‘expertise’ brought in by those people will be of immense help. For example, they can tell you which venue would be more suitable for you according to your current budget. They can tell you what kind of buffet you need to have for the guests and a lot more that you wouldn’t have anticipated.  Experience not only saves money but also saves time as it doesn’t let things hang in the middle at the 11^th hour! However, don’t forget that once you have taken some advice and roped-in help from a relative, you should also share that with your partner, as the final call will be yours.

4. Learn To Keep Your Cool:

Planning your wedding is no joke. It might be fun, but it’s also a lot of other things. It can be compared to being thrown into a pool without you having any prior experience to swim. You need someone to be there for you, but it’s you who will have to paddle your way from drowning. Sometimes, things may get out of hand, or won’t work the way you expected them to. This may cause frustration and irritation. Even worse, you may take that out on your partner. This may create friction and relationship issues. Therefore, it is better to understand that there will be moments when things won’t work, they will go wrong and results may deviate from what you wanted them to be. Keep your cool and it will help you sort out the knot. Even your experienced friends will tell you that keeping cool helps you a lot rather than seething with frustration over things gone wrong.

5. Always Keep A Buffer Budget:

Finances are the most important part of planning your wedding. This includes a truckload of expenses and tasks such as the venue, the buffet, the dresses, and the rings to name a few. A wedding need not be too lavish, but it cannot be accomplished even on a shoestring budget. The expenses are possibly going to get out of hand as the wedding planning progresses with time. Therefore, always have a buffer budget  so that you don’t find yourself left in a lurch. Last moment expenses can spring up from anywhere, therefore it is always better to keep backup cash so that things are taken care of.

6. Photography and Videos Should Be Spot On:

Always hire a photographer/video maker who is known for delivering quality at weddings.

They will ensure that not a single important wedding instance is left untouched or escapes the lens of the camera.  Some people, instead of hiring professionals, ask their friends to work with the camera. This idea does not work for the better most of the time. 

7. Share Your Burden Where You Cannot Heavy-Lift:

Despite managing on your own, you may come across problems that cannot be resolved by yourself. Here, you are going to need the help of professionals. This mostly includes venue decisions and photography. The idea of DIY for certain tasks may seem to be very attractive but will be a bad decision. Therefore, for parts that you cannot handle on your own, you should hire a wedding professional. They will ease up the load of your should and enable you to enjoy the rest of the process rather than getting you stuck in a rut.

These 7 points are crucial for any successful wedding that is being planned by the bride and the groom. A self-planned wedding is not just wishing to do things just for the heck of it, but rather to save money and enjoy the process. However, if something is pulling you down, the weight needs to be shared.

If you are going to have a destination wedding nearby places or if you can afford destination weddings in a foreign country you should not rather plan the whole thing on your own. This is so since the wedding won’t be like a foreign trip that you can plan on your own. For events like these, you will need at least some level of experience.

You can also inculcate your ideas if not plain sometimes by giving inputs of creativity, such as using fire lanterns, sparklers or fireworks to give it a complete.

Give it a try, but always remember that it’s fun and responsibility in equal parts.