1. Determine what’s most important

• How determining your values creates a scale for what to prioritize and what not to when having to make budgetary decisions.
• Once your values are clear, many decisions are actually already decided just by simply following ones values or keeping ones values in mind.

2. Turn wedding planning into date nights

• Turn planning your wedding into a slow, social affair with no pressure between you and your spouse.
• Have something to laugh about. Decide things at a pace that may require several dates to finish. Do not try to decide everything in one go.

3. Take as much time as you need

There are no actual laws or rules for determining when you should have your wedding. You are the masters of the event. In general, you are the ones setting the deadlines for what is what and when. Therefore, keep this in mind so as to refrain from sending out invitations to your wedding before everything is already decided. And know what you could take as long as you want during that pre-invitational phase.

4. Find Wedding staff that you don’t have to train

• Throughout the process of planning your wedding, find people who just naturally sync with you.
• There are often highly skillful people that are just simply not a match with you. That doesn’t mean that they are unskilled or unqualified to perform the services that they are in the wedding industry, only that they are perhaps not the best match for you. In which case, hire people (like photographers) who have a portfolio that depicts they already, naturally, have a shared vision or style that you like and don’t need to train them or speak much about.
• Hiring the right person is about effectively communicating what you want, and then stepping out of their way.
• When you find someone you can just step out of the way of, your stress levels will drop significantly.

5. Limit the help you ask for from friends and family

• Every event should have a clear objective to accomplish with its attendees, either some kind of result extracted from them, or a call-to-action they enact.
• Choose the venue that is best suited to help you achieve whatever your goal is
• Write a blurb here referencing our article about “Everything You Need To Know To Plan A Successful Event” →

Decide on the activities that will occur at the event

• Are you going to be doing any team building exercises?
• Public speaking?
• Dancing?
• Eating?
• All of the above?

Consider geographically specific legalities and safety regulations

• Friends are not always true friends. Family is not always true family. Sometimes, the envy of a friend can lead to unnecessary social strains that stress everyone out.
• Asking too many favors can stress even true friendships and family bonds.
• Keeping everything professional keeps everything simple. Keeping everything simple, lowers stress levels.

6. Know the venues you choose

• Try to keep away from choosing venues you know little to nothing about or do not take the time to perform preliminary research on. By knowing a venue, even by visiting it in a low-budget way a year ahead of time will help you immensely at the psychological level pertaining to what to expect from the place, whom to speak, and how to navigate it intuitively and experientially.

7. Do not let toxic perfectionism stress you out

• While your wedding is certainly one of the most important days of your life and getting as close as possible to a perfect execution as you can is ideal…do not stress out if tiny details that are outside of pragmatic control are off, such as rain.

8. Take some time off before the wedding

• Taking some time off to be with your spouse or to just put a stop to any stressful planning will definitely help in lowering your overall stress levels. Your wedding day is both stressful and amazing; therefore, don’t allow yourself to have continual stress all the way up to the actual wedding day either.
• Perform whatever planning you need to, but then set aside a week or two of rest, quiet, and normality before the big day.

9. Don’t allow yourself to go broke throughout the process

• Make sure that you remain realistic and stay within your means throughout the process of planning your wedding. You neither want to stress out by putting yourself in a position of struggling to make ends meet before your big day, nor do you want to find yourself haunted by the thought that you won’t be able to pay for massive, uncontrollable debt after your wedding either

10. Don’t forget what your wedding is really supposed to be about

• Plan your wedding because you actually love your partner. If you do not, the looming thoughts of what life will be like being tethered permanently to someone you are not actually in love with will haunt and stress you.

Conclusion

• Summarize key points (tell them what you told them)
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