Wedding planning is what you make of it. It can be fun with no stress or it can be very stressful especially if you don’t have the right people in your corner. Before I go any further, I’ll like to ask for forgiveness for my three months of inaction on the blog. I was busy planning my wedding which finally took place on Saturday November 4th, 2017 in Georgia. Planning my wedding was actually fun with no stress thanks to the wonderful and incredible people God placed in my life. My wedding planner aka my sister-in-law Ijeoma of MUIPR Events is God’s reassurance to me that he loves me and will never leave nor forsake me. Ijeoma was my Olivia Pope. There was no problem we encountered during the wedding planning that she couldn’t handle. Even last minute problems that arose on wedding day, she literally told me “I’ll handle it just get dressed and focus on getting married today.”
Today being exactly one week since I got married, I took a moment to think about everything that happened during my wedding planning and realized that I learned quite a few lessons. Below are 5 things I learned that I want to share with you all. I hope my lessons and experiences will help someone who is either planning a wedding or will plan a wedding in the future.
- Use a wedding planner. Hire one if you’re not lucky like me to have your sister-in-law plan your wedding free of charge. A wedding planner takes a lot if not everything off your plate. She/he will contact the vendors, make all the plans and secure all the contracts and even negotiates a better deal for you. Also, use a wedding planner that is willing to go the extra miles for you and will put your wedding first above every other thing. Ijeoma of MUIPR Events will literally take care of all your wedding to-dos and you will only have to do the bare minimum like write a check or pay an online invoice. She’s your wedding planner when/if you ever need one.
- Choosing a maid of honor (MOH) and bridesmaids that hold you close to their hearts is paramount to having a stress free wedding planning. They will go above and beyond to make sure they take things off your plate and reduce your stress level to almost zero. Also choose girls you can rely on and that will always be there to remind you that it’s your wedding day so enjoy it and don’t worry about anything else. I had one of my girls that always came to remind me to smile whenever my face switched to the resting bitch face.
- If you do have stress, be prepared to find out that your stress may/will come from things/places/people you would never expect to cause you stress. This will challenge your stress management skill. But hang tight, stand strong and feel free to talk about it with people who will calm you and help you figure things out. Don’t wait last minute to talk about what’s causing you stress. I waited on wedding day to open up to my wedding planner which could have been disastrous but God, always looking out for me used my planner once again to meet me at the point of my need.
- Trust your girls especially your MOH to handle certain things with the rest of your girls. I didn’t even have to think hard or stress myself about hairstyle, nail color and makeup look I want for my girls. I know some girls plan their entire wedding even before finding Mr. Right lol I’m not one of those girls. Most things for my wedding I decided on after getting engaged. I put my MOH in charge of figuring out the best hairstyle for the girls. And asked my other bestie who was also my MUA to come up with the shoe color and makeup look for all my girls. At least, I came up with my hairstyle and makeup look 🙂
- Create a WhatsApp group chat with your entire wedding party. I created different group chats for specific reasons but my favorite was and still is my wedding party group chat. We discussed the wedding day activities and other things unrelated to the wedding but which helped everyone to get acquainted with each other especially since most have never met each other before. Even though, our wedding day has come and gone the group chat still lives on. We miss each other so much we are already planning a reunion 🙂
