Do a quick google search on wedding tips and in seconds you’ll have thousands upon thousands of articles on the ideal timeline, perfect dress and enough do’s & don’ts to make your head spin.
So when I reached out to my most Type A friends to get their best organizing wedding tips I expected lots of perfect to do lists and planners to explain how their weddings seemed so effortless. But when given the opportunity to give their best pieces of advice, I was completely stunned on what my uber organized friends really wanted to share!
The absolutely surprising wedding tips from the most Type A Brides
1 | Negotiate Negotiate Negotiate! My super business minded friend Alisha spent her time ‘pinning’ articles on ideas of how to negotiate rates. One tip she swears by is, if possible, not telling your vendors that the event you’re throwing is a wedding until AFTER locking down prices. My sales star friend Linsey was surprised at how much she was able to save on her fabulous downtown Chicago wedding even though it was during prime Christmas season by simply asking for a better rate.
2 | My favorite wedding tip quote came from my most party planning friend Katy, who had a beautiful wedding outside of Chicago last summer. “Brides shouldn’t feel pressure to DIY s**t.” She chose to skip all the DIY and actually skipped flowers as well! When she told me this last week, I had to look through my photos of her wedding because I definitely didn’t notice it during her wedding! I would say that was absolutely money well saved considering her guests didn’t even realize it!
3 | Delegate! It’s easy to want to take things on yourself, but you’ll go crazy if you don’t delegate. My friend Emily pointed out a great point …. so many people WANT to have a “job” since it makes them feel more involved. Put them to work! She delegated jobs that are easy to overlook such as tipping the vendors, breaking down her photo booth, and putting the gifts away.
4 | One of the most ‘controversial tips’ came from my good friend Michelle, the closest thing to a real life Elle Woods as I’ve ever met (attorney, blonde, and totally organized). She suggests saving money by skipping the wedding planner. Realistically us Type A brides will not only be as organized and efficient as a wedding planner, but we’ll also WANT to handle a lot of the work that a wedding planner is paid to do. Instead she suggested hiring someone to run day of logistics.
5 | Assuming that you don’t have a wedding planner, Emily suggests spending some time to create a “run of show” for the day (or even the whole weekend) to send to your family/bridal party members. Yes, you may get some slack for being THAT type A bride, but everyone will know exactly where they should be and what they need to be doing. Added bonus? You won’t have to worry about telling people what to do the day of your wedding. I did this myself for my wedding and my dad followed it to a tee, literally crossing off things as the day progressed (and people wonder where I got my type A nature from 🙂 ).
6 | My good friend Melanie suggested focusing on picking out all your vendors first, before you dive in to some of the more ‘fun’ wedding things. She was burnt out on making wedding decisions by the time she came to choosing one of her vendors so she picked the first one they found. Looking back she said she might have been able to find someone better. Personally I definitely echo this! I got knee deep in to making our wedding invitations (yes, it sounded like a good idea before I started!) which consumed all my time that I didn’t spend enough time selecting our vendors.
7 | My oh so Excel savvy friend Carol said she wished she would have created their seating chart with colored thumbtacks on cork board or post its instead of creating it in Excel. She suggests using colors for each “guest group” so you can see if the right people are seated at the same table (think college friends, high school friends and work friends all in different colors). I can’t even remember how Joe & I did ours, but it definitely wasn’t something as smart as this!
8 | A great reminder from Melanie is to be prepared to let go of control a few days leading up to the wedding. Things will happen that you can’t control & you’re going to just have to be OK with it! I’d also suggest not planning on getting a lot of ‘wedding stuff’ done during those days leading up so that you have time for the unexpected without being overly stressed.
9 | My longtime friend Beth suggested “no matter what kind of ceremony you have, don’t be afraid to do something different“. She had an awesome ceremony (and reception!) during Christmas season and on one of their “readings” was actually an excerpt from the Christmas Story “The gift of Magi”. Such a creative idea!
10 | And finally, my suggestion. We had a destination wedding, so we had to bring everything with us in suitcases (think wedding dress, programs, gift bags, etc). Yes we could have shipped it down, but we opted to bring it with us in luggage. I packed our luggage 2 weeks before our wedding. I know that sounds crazy, but it gave me a deadline to have everything that I needed to bring to the wedding done two weeks before our big day. It really helped alleviate some of the week of wedding stress because all the ‘stuff’ was literally packed up and ready to go!
I love this! And I love the picture of you and Mr. Hopkins as well!
Thanks for your tips!!!
Love this – and great picture of you and Joe! Trying to plan, and do it as cheaply as possible, I tried to skimp out on the hair trial run and price-tag with it. That’s an expense I wish I would have paid for – saved so much anxiety and hoping the stylist could recreate pinterest photos the day of!
Great tips! I love that you didn’t even notice the absence of flowers at your friend’s wedding. Clearly that was an awesome decision on her part. 🙂
LOVE THIS ARTICLE! I am a total Type-A bride. I couldn’t fathom leaving the planning to someone else, so I hired a day-of coordinator. I plan on handing her a binder before the wedding filled w/ the day-of timeline, vendor contacts, and my pièce de résistance – a full schematic of how I want every decoration & piece placed within the venue. There’s a separate diagram for each area – ceremony, cocktail area, welcome table, escort table, reception, etc. My goal is to anticipate every question she may have so I might actually have a relaxing wedding day. Wish me luck <3
I can vouch for the let everything go a few days before the wedding. I did everything from a week long timeline of family arrival and appointments to writing down the major locations guests would see on the property and a list of what decor I wanted at each location for the ladies decorating. Once the Wednesday before my wedding hit though, it was like all my stress and anxiety lifted and I answered “I don’t care anymore” to everything! It was so nice to let go of 8 months of stress planning and actually enjoy my wedding weekend!
These are brilliant!! Love the ‘I don’t care anymore’! Can totally relate!