We love weddings! We attend lots of weddings and I absolutely love them! All of the beautiful details, the emotions, the happiness and tears, everything! We LOVE it! So when we started planning our wedding this year, I couldn’t wait to get started with all of the details and decor planning! I soon realized that planning your wedding day was more complicated than I realized! Maybe not complicated, but it took a lot more time and work than I thought it did! I figured I would share a little bit of what I am learning as we prepare for our trip down the aisle!

1. Hire professional vendors!

This was at the top of our list! Being a wedding DJ and photographer has changed the way we see things! When we first got engaged in 2011 (yes, 3 years ago), I took to Google searching for wedding caterers, photographers, DJs, planners, etc! After contacting a few wedding professionals, I realized that planning a wedding was going to cost more than I ever expected! Wedding photographers alone were well over $2000! We decided to put our wedding off for awhile and returned to the idea last year! By this time, we were working in the wedding industry and realized just why everything cost the way it does! There’s a lot that goes into working a wedding and professionals guarantee their work and their attendance! I have heard so many horror stories of people hiring a family friend and then having them back out 2 weeks before the wedding! That would be a nightmare, so be sure to hire professional wedding vendors! I made sure we had amazing vendors, even if I had to cut somewhere else!

2. Don’t stress! Wedding planning is stressful! There are so many details to plan, people to meet and things to do to prepare for your special day! We started planning our August wedding in January! Granted we knew who we wanted for our wedding, we gave ourselves 8 months to get everything paid and completed! If we had to do that part over, we would give ourselves longer to get everything paid! It quickly adds up!

3. Take time to relax. This kind of goes along with my last point, but it’s so true! Take at least one day every week to just relax, no wedding planning! It’s super important for your relationship and your sanity! You can thank me later for that one! 🙂

We only have a month and a few weeks (that causes anxiety just thinking about it) left of planning! I will be sure to come back and share more tips once I’ve been through all of it!

Happy wedding planning! Here’s one of our couples having a little fun during their music themed engagement session in Durham, North Carolina last summer!