Wedding planning is that slippery slope – you know the one where you can easily spend hours and hours on google/pinterest/wedding blogs just “looking”. Its only after hours, days, weeks, later that you start to feel like maybe your wedding planning approach deserves more than a “let’s just piece this together” process. 

 

As a newly engaged couple, we get it though – you’re excited and rightfully so! Wedding planning is meant to be fun!  But after a few “I’ll just sit down at my computer and head to Pinterest, The Knot, and Google and see what I find” attempts you start to feel a little worried that maybe just maybe this isn’t going to work. 

 

In today’s post we are sharing our top three tips for how to avoid the Wedding Planning Rabbit Hole. Not sure what the wedding planning rabbit hole is – its the slippery slope described above. 

• The one that leaves you feeling as if you’ve gotten no where despite spending hours and hours searching on the internet, in books, or in magazines. 
• The one that leaves you feeling as if you might forget something or be overlooking something. 
• The one that doesn’t help you move forward with your planning with confidence. 
• The one that doesn’t bring joy and excitement to your planning experience. 

 

Your wedding deserves more than a piece it together with a little of this and a sprinkle of that approach! You’ve landed in the right place to turn your planning approach around – or avoid this all together! 

 

Let’s dive into our expert advice on how to avoid the wedding planning rabbit hole.  

 

No. 1 | Know What Steps Should Be Taken When 

 

This one is incredibly important. The best way to avoid the googling and pinteresting for hours only to look up and realize nothing that you set out to do today is even remotely close to being complete is to know what steps to do when. 

 

For many this will come in the form of a checklist. We want to caution you against just any checklist on Pinterest – because believe us there are many! So here is what you should look for when researching the wedding planning checklist you will use: 

 

• It should be anticipatory instead of reactive 
• It should help your planning stay ahead of industry standards {especially in light of all that we’ve experienced over the past two years with the pandemic} 
• It should be progressive – meaning it lays out the stepping stones so that your decisions naturally lead from one to the next 
• It should have big decisions early and smaller micro ones later
• It should be well paced to help you avoid overwhelm and burnout

 

With our planning company and our digital self paced planning resource, we use a six phased approach to help our couples strategically plan their weddings. Using a combination of focused task lists instead of mile long checklists, how to guides, and expert guidance, we work closely with our couples and community to take the guesswork out of what steps should be taken when. 

 

Your checklist should do the same. It is one of the cornerstones of your event planning resources and one of the keys to preventing you from falling victim to hours spent on google! 

 

No. 2 | Use A Guide 

 

Our next tip is to identify a guide to help you walk your wedding planning journey.  The role of a guide is to help prevent you from having to google each time your checklist tells you what your next task is. A guide is a tool/resource/expert that will help you identify exactly what is needed to complete a task quickly, accurately and aligned with what you desire most for your wedding. 

 

The guide will equip you with the tools, the knowledge, and the confidence to complete a task efficiently and effectively. They help to streamline the work – so that wedding planning doesn’t start to feel like a “second full time job”. They also provide you with the confidence that each step in the process is accounted for and done so in a timely manner. 

 

So where exactly are you going to find a guide? Our top recommendations of highly reliable and trustworthy guides include: 

• A complete wedding planning book that guides you through the full planning process from start to finish. Bonus is if it’s set up in a step by step fashion and not by topic/themes. You need the order of how to plan items and not just lists.
• A wedding planner 
• A resource – like our Modern Wedding Planner – that gives you all the tools, guides, community, and access to a full 

 

No. 3 | The Grass Is Not Always Greener 

 

Finally, once you’ve identified the steps to take and when and have a guide – let go of the temptation to seek out “better resources”. We promise this will save you from so much confusion and frustration. 

 

If you’ve identified a really reliable guide, they will take care of making sure you have everything you need at the exact moment to plan your wedding. Our biggest advice here is to trust them and the roadmap they are laying out for you. 

 

And then remember to enjoy – the tasks are meant to help you get one step closer each time to your dream. Chip away at the tasks little by little and ask your guide questions when you get stuck! That’s the beauty of having an expert support system – you are never alone in the process. 

 

Planning a wedding? Overwhelmed by where you should start? Tired of hours spent googling only to feel as if you are piecing together your wedding planning approach? We have the perfect resource for you! 

 

Grab your Getting Started With Wedding Planning Guide Here – full of what steps to take first, our expert advice on how to complete them, and our roadmap of what tasks to focus on when – our gift to you!