Today, I’ll tell you a story. In the end, you’ll know what the two secrets of happily planning for BEAUTIFUL wedding are. Cross my heart, just follow me and I promise that in the end things will be not only clearer but I think you’ll also feel at ease.
Just let me clear one more thing – by using the word BEAUTIFUL in this post, I refer exclusively to mesmerising images, to inspiring ideas, great photography – to put it like this – PINTEREST MATERIAL.
- The first secret of having a truly BEAUTIFUL wedding (exclusively aesthetically speaking) is – surprise-surprise – A BIG BUDGET.
Money isn’t going to bring you happiness, but for sure it can buy a lot of pretty things that can create a BEAUTIFUL wedding. Everything you see on the internet, gorgeous dresses, impressive flower arrangements, to-die-for 10 tiers cake, professional live bands and equipment, lights, great cars, great logistics – plus top notch services such as photography, videography and planning – all come with a price tag. And it’s not, not ever, no matter what they tell ya, a “budget friendly” one.
So, the main reason why your wedding does not look like the ones you go through on Facebook or Pinterest is not that you’ve hired the wrong florists, photographers, band or planner, but simply because you are not THAT rich and cannot afford ALL those things. I might act like Captain Obvious in here, but this is something people rarely admit. And that is ok. Most people aren’t that rich. Really, most of us aren’t. It’s not a tragedy and it (REALLY) doesn’t make you less #happy or #worthy or #loved or #blessed.
- 2. And this is how we slowly get to the second secret of having a BEAUTIFUL wedding. And that is HAVING PRIORITIES AND LEARNING HOW TO LET GO OF THE REST. Wait, what?! What is that?! Well, let me tell you precisely what that is.
It’s grabbing a pen and a piece of paper, writing down roughly the amount of money you are willing to spend for your wedding and not waiting to find out how much stuff costs, or thinking about building a budget on your way down to the isle. It will never happen. If you’re willing to let stuff just happen, that means that you can afford to let stuff just happen. That’s great! Congratulations! Just make sure you really find yourselves in this scenario. Otherwise, somewhere in the middle you’ll just realise that everything is too expensive, that every vendor hates you and wants to rip you off, that canceling contracts means losing retainers. So start with thinking about money now, so you’ll do that less in the end.
After you managed to put down an amount, please think about what is REALLY important to you at this event. I know, I know, all the online cliches will point you in one direction – EVERYTHING IS IMPORTANT. You NEED to have a live band. You NEED to have great photography. You NEED platinum and diamonds wedding bands/rings. You NEED a big puffy and expensive dress. The grooms suit NEEDS to be tailor-made. You NEED original and themed favours. You NEED customised letterpress folio wooden invitations. You NEED a big, fat candy bar. You NEED great entertaining surprises for your guests. You NEED fireworks at midnight. You NEED flower-chandeliers, at least 6 of them.
That is just one big fat lie. You only NEED you, your husband/wife-to-be and your few truly loved ones to show at the town hall/church at a given time. The rest, ALL the rest are choices you get to make. And in those choices you must recognise your priorities and attend to them first.
Once you’ve set your priorities straight, then you can go there and put down as much money as needed for things to be top-notch in that area. The dress of your dreams. The best photographer in the www (whole wide world). The most amazing live band. The dreamiest floral arrangements that will be a blast on Facebook and Pinterest. WHATEVER your heart desires is eligible to be a wedding priority. But learn how to have those, and get rid of the rest.
And let go of the rest. Don’t go spending less money on lesser quality. Don’t settle. You deserve the best, but only because your budget is limited you need to make some choices. Cut them off and be merciless in doing that. You’re way better of without them, than with the cheap replicas of your dreams.
Please, please stop believing all those lies about cheap and beautiful things, about do-it-yourselves fairytales, about knowing how to negotiate to get the wedding of your dreams at a very low price. None of that is actually true. And you’ll get to know the real price of getting shitty services at the point of no return. And that is, indeed, a pity. And that happens more often that you’d think.
And this, dear brides and grooms, is how to have BEAUTIFUL weddings. Go for top quality and if you can’t afford that on all the aspects, learn to let go of the ones that are not that important to you. No matter what the Facebook, Pinterest, your sister, your mother, your work colleague or the girl-next-door-who-has-just-organised-her-sister’s-wedding is saying to you.
I wish you all happy planning, wisdom for best choice-making and the happiest life together as a couple.
Photo of the day is from a styled shoot (that means, getting together as vendors and having a great shoot to inspire you and also show you what we can do when we’re not having any constrains), took by Ioan Stoica:
