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A Wedding Without a Plan is Often a Disaster! - Part 1
The day you've been waiting for has finally arrived. Your partner has proposed marriage and you've emphatically
said 'YES'! Now what do you do? The answer to that simple question will make a tremendous difference in how the
real 'big day' plays out. Gone are the days when weddings were simple affairs that took place on family farms with
all the neighbors pitching in to help. Today the bride and the groom are the ones calling all the shots. Others
will try to get involved, but overall, it's the two people getting married who decide what's going to happen, when
and how.
With so much to coordinate, it's amazing that weddings go on at all. Considering that both the bride and the groom
are likely holding down full-time jobs, who has time to work out all the details? And there are so many. Well the
big secret is it's all in the plan. Having a well-thought out plan that starts with selecting the perfect wedding
date and ends with arriving at the most romantic honeymoon destination is the only way to keep nerves from fraying
and budgets from being blown.
Plenty of tools are available to help you plan your wedding. It's up to you to decide which tool will work best for
you and then you've got to make sure you use the tool you've selected. Wedding planning tools range in price so
before you go spending any money, take a step back and think for a moment about the b-word. A 'budget' is crucial
because it's what will keep you and your partner (and anyone else funding the festivities) from going into debt. As
unflattering as the word is, every wedding needs to begin with a budget. Wedding costs can rapidly spiral out of
control because let's face it, everybody wants their big day to be magical.
To determine a budget for the big day, start with figuring out who is going to be contributing towards the finances
and how much each can afford to contribute. Once you have a total dollar amount to work with, you can then begin to
allocate the budget to the different parts of the wedding.
The wedding plans all begin with the wedding date. Everybody wants to be a June bride, but with only four week-ends
in this month, not everybody can. The wedding date you select will have a significant impact on your budget. A
wedding during the busy summer months will cost far more than one that's held off-season. Not only will the wedding
date impact the price you'll pay for everything from the function hall to the photographer, it also impacts
availability.
Once the wedding budget and wedding date have been nailed down, it's time to get busy. Part II will provide a
timeline of tasks you need to accomplish in the days and months leading up to the big day!
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