Hey everyone! Remember when I mentioned earlier that May is a really crazy, busy, slammed month? I wasn't lying. It's jam-packed with lots of work, lots of fun, and lots of life in between. In the last 10 days we've had three different house guests, a pre-school graduation, I've worked an event and a wedding, organized and co-styled a photo shoot (more to come on that!), toured three venues with a client, had three additional client meetings, continued planning, organizing, and promoting a vendor event (more on that below), and then all the personal life stuff (ya know - two kids, groceries, laundry, cooking, remodeling our house some more, lordy!).
So, in short - send coffee, I need it!
But, this week is a bit calmer and it's a welcome change! So this week's post will discuss the need for organization for your wedding and why there's no way in the whole wide world that you should be "running your own timeline" on your wedding day. Let me say that again, you cannot be the coordinator and the guest of honor for your own wedding. If you are a DIY person, I absolutely celebrate your desire to make your wedding your own with lots of personalized, hand-crafted details. However, you need to pass the baton off to someone who can execute the plan, and the plan needs to be created in a clear, concise, more than vision-in-your-head kind of way. You need a well-constructed wedding day timeline.
While this might sounds really simple, constructing your timeline requires some finesse that comes with practice. You need to see the contracts of each of the vendors that has been hired to make sure that they arrive at the correct time and that you maximize your time with them to benefit your event the most. And this has to be done concurrently with all the vendors working the event. There is a little village of worker bees who show up on your wedding day or the day before and get to work. Giving them a clear outline of your expectations and the flow of the day is the best way to make everyone's job go smoothly and minimize questions and confusion.
Personally, I like to give each group of people participating in the wedding their own timeline. So, bride and groom's families each get a timeline, bride and bridesmaids get a timeline, groom and groomsmen get a timeline, additional important folks get one, and then there's a master timeline. Generally, I laminate them too. :) This gives everyone a clear idea of the day and totally relieves the stress of knowing where to be, so that the bride and groom don't accidentally run into each other if they've chosen to see each the first time at the altar.
So, if you're wedding planning on your own, don't skip the timeline creation portion of the deal. It will benefit you so much to have the plan in place and clearly outlined so that there are no panicked moments on your big day about when the caterer is supposed to arrive and you can just relax and enjoy the day! And by all means, give that beautiful timeline to someone else. It doesn't need to be your job to keep track of everyone, even with a wonderful, clear cut plan. And if timeline creation and execution sounds like a job that you do not want to do or to pass off to a family member or friend, give me a call! We can collaborate to get all the details you're imagining down on paper so that all the work gets done without any stress or hassle. Doesn't that sound nice?
One more thing! Come meet me at the Bachelorette Bash on June 2nd, from 2:00 to 4:00 pm, at Water into Wine in Farragut. There are going to be so many great vendors there excied to meet you and help you plan the wedding you've always wanted. I hope to see you there!
Happy planning,
