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There is no need to stress over learning how to plan a wedding, all you need are a few simple and effective techniques to get started. Planning a wedding can be extremely overwhelming, most brides are doing it for the first time and have no idea where to begin. My best advice to you is to plan your wedding planning activities ahead of time, make a detailed schedule of all of your wedding preparations shortly after the engagement. This way you can complete everything that needs to be done in a timely manner and there is little room for error. After doing extensive research and figuring out all that you have to do, schedule it in your agenda book or electronic organizer. You must remember to stay on top of all of the really important planning, if you have a calendar application on your mobile device you can easily create reminder alerts on the scheduled dates. Staying organized is the best way to keep the pre-wedding stress to a minimum.

Proper planning also involves having a budget to stick to. Unless you are made of money, there is no way you can splurge on the wedding of your dreams without a blink of an eye. Who does not want their own wedding to be everything they dreamed of, but keep in mind how difficult it will be to pay it off. Weddings are a major expense and without budgeting your money wisely, there's a good chance you will go overboard on the spending and regret it afterwards. The earlier you set a budget the better, this prevents you making any unnecessary expenses. Do your due diligence early on, ask friends who are married how much they spend on their wedding, go on wedding sites or forums to find out the average cost from other couples and get advice from the experts. You can even flip through wedding magazines for research, they can be a great source for money saving tips.

Here is a list of some of the most common areas you will be spending money on. How to plan a wedding depends on the type of wedding you plan on having, the list can either include more elements or be reduced.

• Wedding attire
• Wedding rings
• Wedding invitation
• Wedding website
• Renting ceremony venue
• Renting reception venue
• Catering
• Wedding cake
• Entertainment
• Photographer / Videographer
• Decorations
• Floral arrangements
• Makeup artist
• Hairstylist
• Wedding favors / Gifts for the wedding party
• Transportation
• Rehearsal dinner
• Honeymoon
• Tax and / or Tips on the above

The next important step for how to plan a wedding is choosing a theme. Once you narrow down a theme for the wedding, it becomes much easier to coordinate and plan specific details. The theme should be a good representation of both the bride and the groom, make a list of your favorite colors, shared hobbies, music you both enjoy, etc. Since the wedding date has already been set, the season also plays an important role on what type of theme you are able to pick. Traditions and culture can also have a huge influence on the wedding theme, if either the bride or groom's side of the family wants to emphasize their heritage. Based on your own interests and background, use wedding related magazines and websites as a source to give you even more specific ideas for possible themes. Since each couple is different and unique in their own way, it's important to come up with a theme that reflects your personality and style. Once you have settled on a theme, the selection process becomes a whole lot easier. Your theme can have an impact on the location you choose for the wedding, the type of food you select for the menu and even your wedding dress. Use theme colors and ideas to come up with the design for your wedding invitations, decorations for the ceremony and reception, floral arrangements and wedding favors. You will have a much clearer vision of what your wedding will look like and this in turn will make the scope of this massive project seem much smaller and easy to tackle.

Finding the right vendors should be one of your biggest priorities. Caterers, live bands, DJs, florists, makeup artists, hairstylists, photographers and videographers, each one of them play a vital role and are equally important for making your big day as pleasant and as magical as you imagine it to be. It is essential for you to choose your vendors wisely in order to avoid potential disasters. You must make sure the vendors you select from are both reputable and have a lot of experience with weddings in particular. However, simply picking vendors with the right expertise is not enough. Remember this is your big day so it's critical that you stick to your guns about specific details when you meet with vendors to discuss your wedding plans. It's very common for vendors to make suggestions that either either cost you more money than you planned on spending or that goes off in a completely different direction than what you had originally envisioned. If this should happen, you must remain adamant about your initial idea and stay within the budget you set for your wedding. Make a list of possible vendors in the area and then start negotiating, there is always a way to get what you want at a decent price. Do not be afraid to let them know that you are in talks with other vendors and you are still in the process of making a final decision. When you finally settle on which vendors to use, make sure the contract covers all bases before signing. It's also important for you to stay in contact with them prior to the wedding to make sure they have all the specific details figured out, do not expect them to come fully prepared as soon as the contract is signed.

The closer you get to the big day, the more nerve racking and stressful it will be for you to plan your wedding. The key is to focus on and really get the important details of the wedding out of the way before the invitations go out so you have the time and energy to put out any fires that might arise after. All of the important details have already been covered previously so now you must learn the final steps for how to plan a wedding as the big day draws near. You will need to deal with setting up a gift registry, handling RSVPs, responding to inquiries about the venue location, transportation, accommodations of the wedding guests and so on. In addition, during this time you will also need to finalize all of the preparations with the vendors, apply for a marriage license, write your vows, plan the rehearsal dinner, go in for dress treaties and worry about a bunch of other things. Everyone will come to you if they have a question and by this time you will unduly be dropped in a number of different directions.

Would not it be great if you were able to answer everyone's questions just once leaving you with enough time on your hands to deal with other more eminent problems that need your attention? The best way to effectively communicate with all of your wedding guests without having to repeat yourself over and over again is to have a wedding website to relay the information for you. A website is also a wonderful tool to help you manage RSVPs, direct people to your gift registry, give your guests precise directions for getting to the ceremony and much more. You can even build an FAQ page if you are asked a question that you think will be helpful to others. Simply tell everyone that all of the information they need is on the website, you only do the work once and the burden of attending to the needs of family and friends will be lifted off your shoulders. If any changes were to occur after all of the invitations go out, you can easily update your website and contact your guests about it all at once. It's the perfect solution for reducing the amount of stress that you will already be dealing with as you get closer to the big day.

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Source by Jane Stans