Planning your wedding

Planning a Wedding is a major organisational task. Many choices need to be made concerning THREE basic components:

1. The Ceremony

2. The Reception, and

3. The Honeymoon

Fortunately most people have some ideas about the style of each, but little experience in planning and costing such an important event.

The cost of a wedding can be can vary greatly depending on a great number of factors. Some couples may pay as little as a couple of thousand dollars, others around $20,000 to $30,000, yet others over $100,000.

So there are three things to decide first:
1. how much money will be spent on your wedding (budget)
2. what are the really important aspects of the day (goals)
3. what you want to have after it is all over (outcomes)

1. The Finance

Your budget is important. For some people money is no object.

For others, money is limited. Whilst the wedding day is important, so too is their plans to buy a home, a car, have a little in reserve for a raining day (or when children are young and there is perhaps only one wage).

So work out what you can comfortably afford and aim to stick to it.

Some wedding traditions, or possible themes for weddings may help you shape your day.

Finding ways of saving money on some aspects of the day, may enable you to spend on other parts of the day that are the most important to you.

3. Your Outcome

How closely the day will match your expectations, will depend on several things

* the time frame within which you have to plan
* detailed planning
* the services you organise
* your team of paid and un-paid helpers
* constant follow-up and review of plans
* your attitude

Remember things will always go wrong. Even on the day.

Stay focused on the purpose of the day - marrying the one your love. At the end of the day that is one aspect you can almost guarantee will be an outcome.

The rest, whilst important, will be likely to be something you can live with or at least have a laugh about !!!

So let go of the hassles and enjoy everything you can when the big day finally arrives.