Planning a wedding may sound fun, but searching for venues, picking dates, choosing food, and planning all those small details can be a stressful experience. But there are a few things you can do to make planning your wedding easier, while ensuring your big day is special:

Get personal

You may assume that personalising things like invites and guest books will be time-consuming and expensive, but this isn’t the case. Basic Invite is the place to go if you’d like to create a personal invite for your guests.

Often, wedding guest books can tend to all look similar, especially if you’ve been to a number of weddings. But you can create your own wedding guest book, complete with your names, anniversary, wedding date, and photo.

Be organised

There are plenty of helpful websites like Trello and Pinterest which can make it much easier to plan your wedding.

For brides who prefer writing notes, grab a three-ring binder. Keep all of your tear sheets or photos from magazines, emails from vendors, and to-do lists together in one place, so you can easily take it with you to meetings.

It’s also a good idea to set up an email address for your RSVP. That way, you’ll have them all together and can see at a glance who will be there. There are even wedding planner apps that can help you keep all of your info together and in your hand.

Negotiate

Wedding vendors want your business, and they know you can easily take it elsewhere. Ideally, these vendors should be your trusted, go-to experts while you’re planning your wedding.

When you’re working with them, you should ideally be able to negotiate so you can ensure your wedding is unique and you get what you really want. Maybe you want to do a bridal portrait session instead of engagement photos. Or perhaps you’d rather serve a late-night snack instead of a cocktail hour.

The bottom line is your vendors should be open to negotiation, and available for an honest conversation. They’ll let you know what will work based on your budget.

Choose a kids policy

When it comes to kids, you have four choices. You can let people know that you’re having an ‘adults only’ wedding, you can include kids from immediate family, you can welcome all kids, or hire a babysitter or childcare service. If you’re hoping to avoid drama and hurt feelings, it’s a good idea to avoid excluding some kids while allowing other parents to bring theirs (exceptions can be made for kids in the bridal party).

These days, many people are choosing to have a dedicated area for older kids with video games and kid-friendly snacks. You may also decide to provide daycare in a hotel room, at your reception, or at a friend or family member’s home.