New B2B - your planning tips welcomed!

Hello! Welcome to Hitched!

My advice would be:

1. To start dress shopping as soon as possible as you'll need to get an idea as to the sort of dress you'd like, plus it can take months for the dress to arrive in the shop after ordering (mine took 5 months).

2. Not to rush into making any decisions, take your time over choosing things to avoid changing your mind further down the planning line!

3. Try not to get too stressed. I did get stressed at times and to be honest, looking back it wasn't always as bad as it seems at the time.

Good luck with your plans!

Thank you December1984! Much appreciated.

I got married in Sept.This is a very quick summary of what worked for me.look for your dress as early as possible so you then decide what you like don't like etc.Try to buy it near your home for fittings etc.Get your bridesmaids and husband to be to help you with all your research.Talk to other brides they are the best. Use a spreadsheet with colours dates etc so you know what you have paid for and when the next payment is due etc...also keeps track of your budget. don't pay a fortune for your cake to be made we got ours in M&S for £100 and it was delicious. We did not have favours as they are a pain to decide what you are going to do and they end up in the bin. Good luck

Hi, welcome aboard!

First thing I would suggest, before you even start looking properly for a venue is get an idea of budget - your budget will make a fair amount of decisions for you - venue, how many people you can invite to each part of the day etc. Prepare to be surprised by how much things cost and how fast it mounts up! I didn't have a clue where to start so I started off by googling the types of venue we thought we might like and even if I knew from the website that it wasn't a contender I looked up how much their wedding packages were so that I had some sort of starting point when setting a budget. There's no point setting out a really detailed budget planner if you've vastly underestimated how much everything is going to be. The other thing about budgeting is to have a list - a really detailed list of what you'll need (mine went right down to shoes for the flowergirl and even thing I missed some stuff out!) with an estimate of how much you've got in the budget for it.

So that's the dour, boring budget-y bit out of the way - onto the fun stuff! I've done almost everything over the internet as I just didn't have the time or the inclination to wander around wedding shops and that might work for you since you're planning from afar. Keep scrapbooks (either real paper ones or digital ones on your computer) with pictures of stuff that you like - if you're not sure about a colour scheme ask on here, there are a couple of posters who are amazing at coming up with mood boards and some of the HIBS wills be able to flash you some pics from weddings they've done before. You can happily while away a few hours looking at stationery, flowers, readings etc all from the comfort of your own desk. Keep an open mind - you might find that stuff you think just wouldn't be you is perfect when you see it in the flesh (Stazzle started a thread a couple of days ago posting pics of what dress girls thought they'd love and what they actually ended up with and the differences are amazing!)

Sorry, that's turned into a bit of an epic but this place is a fantastic resource with so many people from all walks of life and all over the country - there's usually someone can help with any query! Have fun with it!

Really helpful advice, thanks ladies!

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