We are officially in wedding planning mode and I couldn’t be more excited! We wanted to include our journey of wedding planning over here on the blog to share what we’ve been up to, share our own tips, and also help and inspire others. If, like us, you are trying to make your wedding as cost-conscious as possible and are looking at how you can do some of the things yourself, we hope to share some tips and ideas in these monthly posts.
“And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
1 Corinthians 13:13.
If you follow me on social media, you may have seen that David and I got engaged on the 18th August. It was such a beautiful proposal and I’m so thankful to God for bringing David into my life. We had some beautiful engagement photos taken a couple of weeks after, and you can see and read more about them here. We both knew that as soon as we got engaged, we wanted to start planning our wedding.
October mainly consisted of choosing, contacting and booking the Church, and also looking at venues for after our wedding and booking one. We also had to sort out the wedding banns, and start thinking about catering, getting some quotes in and an idea of prices, as well as looking at possible places to view and to try on wedding dresses. We also chose who we wanted to be our Best Woman and Bridesmaid, and started writing a guest list.
Bridesmaid and Best Woman invitations
We really wanted to send a special card to our Bridesmaid and Best Woman asking them to take on those roles. As well as pinning lots to our Pinterest wedding boards, we also decided we would like a colour theme for our wedding. As we both love lavender, and especially love the scent of lavender, we decided to choose that colour, and incorporated it on to the cards that we made.
Top Tip: I definitely recommend creating some wedding Pinterest boards! There are so many lovely ideas on there.
After looking at a couple of our favourite ideas on Pinterest, we had a few ideas of how we wanted these cards to look. David went on to Canva and we chose a font for the writing (which we subsequently used on our invitations). On the front of each card, we put the name of our Best Woman and Bridesmaid, and then inside we added the writing, asking the question, and adding a Bible verse at the bottom.
“Sweet friendships refresh the soul and awaken our hearts with joy, for good friends are like the anointing oil that yields the fragrant incense of God’s presence.”
Proverbs 27:9.
We found some lilac coloured card, cut it down to size and folded it around the white card, sticking it down to keep it in place. We went outside and cut some pieces of lavender, made a couple of holes in the lilac card, and fed the lavender through.
We knew we wanted to add a little gift with each of the cards, which we then wrapped in lavender coloured tissue paper and tied with string. We popped into town to see what paper we could find to wrap the gifts in, went into WHSmith, and the only tissue paper we found was the exact colour we were looking for! I’m so happy with how the cards turned out, and we had fun making them. It was so nice to be able to add this personal touch to these two invitations.
Booking the Church
After having a good long think about which Church we would like to get married at, we decided to choose one which was local to myself. It’s also the Church that my mum and dad got married in, which I felt was so special, as it holds lots of memories. It’s also in the town where I lived and grew up.
Top Tip: Plan ahead and do your research because if you’re not getting married in your own parish church, there are hoops to be jumped through and things can take time to organise.
The first steps to booking the Church mainly consisted of seeing if the Church was available for our chosen wedding date, booking the date and time for our wedding, giving the personal details they needed in order to book us in, and discussing what would be needed next. We also had to arrange (and pay for) our wedding banns to be read out in our own local parish churches. These will be read out in January next year, as well as at the church where we’ll be getting married. Early next year, we’ll be going to meet with the Vicar, discussing which pieces of music we would like, and when our rehearsal will be.
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Choosing the venue for after our wedding
I think this part of the wedding planning took us a bit longer to decide, as there were lots of potential places where we could have looked at having for after our Wedding. But at the same time there were quite a few factors to think about. We wanted somewhere close to where we are getting married, a hall big enough to fit all of our guests comfortably, a venue with a kitchen and somewhere that had good accessibility and parking, and finally, somewhere that was affordable.
We decided to contact a village hall which is situated in a small, quiet village, just up the road from where we are getting married. We both went along with my mum to have a look round and thankfully they had everything we were looking for. It’s very affordable, big enough for our guests, it has a little kitchen, it’s very accessible with accessible toilets, there’s plenty of parking, it’s down a quiet road, and it’s got some lovely views and walks, (perfect for lots of photos and for if our guests would like a look round the village.)
The guest list
Choosing who we wanted to invite to our wedding wasn’t easy. As much as we’d like to invite everyone, we also had to be conscious of the costs, especially in terms of the catering. That said, having our family and friends there is probably the most important part of the day, so we had to balance those two aspects of the planning. We both made individual lists to begin with, then combined these.
Top Tip: Google Drive is a great way to share documents and plan collaboratively. Everything is stored online and accessible from any of our devices, wherever we are with the internet.
One tricky aspect of the guest list was deciding whether we should invite single people with a ‘+1’. In the end, we decided against this as it increases the number of guests considerably and introduces quite a few unknowns.
October wedding planning summary
Straight away, we knew that we wanted to try and do as much ourselves as possible and also to be conscious of the costs. We’ve been getting lots of different ideas for some of the little things we would like to have at our wedding and venue after, so we’ve both been pinning lots to our Pinterest board. Currently, we are looking at how we can make some of these ourselves. We’re really enjoying getting stuck in ourselves, and it’s something we can share together.
This last month has definitely made me realise just how much goes into planning a wedding! But, we are definitely finding it all very exciting. We pray to God for guidance and for Him to direct us in all of our wedding planning and for His will.
Please let us know in the comments if you have any tips and advice? We would love to read them.
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2 thoughts on “Monthly Wedding Planning Update for October”
Some advice:
At various times over the next couple of months, you’ll be asked for a lot of decisions, and it can easily get out of hand and become stressful. Try to remember (and remind each other) of this: “If we’re married at the end of our wedding day, it’s been a success. It doesn’t matter if the decorations are squiffy and the wedding breakfast’s cold, if we’re married, the day has achieved what we asked of it”. When I was arranging our wedding and getting slightly freaked out by all the questions, my husband said that to me, and it took all the pressure off.
On the day: Try to stop occasionally, take a breath, and absorb what’s going on and what you are doing. Otherwise, trust me, everything will whirl by so fast you won’t know what’s hit you (apart from more loving and excited hugs than you knew your family and friends had in them!).
In the days afterwards: Write it up. If you never write another diary entry, write up your wedding day, and include all the twiddly bits that only matter to you, the little moment where someone said something _so_ characteristic you caught each other’s eye and smiled; the sight of someone dancing who never normally would, the things that went a bit wonky, and the things that went so very right you’d never have dared plan it that way. Even the things you wish you’d done. It’s all part of your day, and it’s part of the experience of your marriage – yours, and no-one else’s.
Finally – felicitations, and I wish you many years of happy marriage.
It all looks and sounds so wonderful — it seems like you’re doing well with organization and planning. I love the lavender colours and ideas!