12 Tips to Planning the Wedding of Your Dreams

According to Jennifer Lopez's character in the movie The Wedding Planner, "Those who can't wed, plan." Well, that's not entirely true, because the planning never stops once the guy gets down on one knee and proposes. Actually, for some prospective brides they have been dreaming of walking down the aisle since they were in pigtails and played with Barbie dolls. They pretended they were Cinderella and Prince Charming was one of their knights in shining armor. They kept their romantic desires a secret in an effort not to scare the living daylights out of potential suitors, but the idea of the dress and the ceremony were never far away.

When the engagement becomes a reality, the wedding preparations almost become a full time job in itself. Long hours are put in and the stress is sometimes too much to bear. Battles are waged and numerous bridezillas are slayed in the process. Here are twelve steps for both genders, and one post-wedding tidbit, to ensure your wedding day goes off without too many hitches. (Let's be serious. A wedding is only perfect in the eye of the beholder.) Read at your own risk, or if the stress of seating charts get to be too much of a hassle.

Make sure the engagement ring fits your finger. Nothing is more embarrassing than having an expensive diamond ring fall off repeatedly, or get lost because it does not fit. The Tacori jewelry website advises guys to avoid this problem by secretly consult their girlfriends by casually taking them to the jewelry store. This move may seem risky, but they played their cards right the girls won't be the wiser. The men could subtly see what type of ring they'd prefer. If they give you a sign of approval, save some money and buy the ring as soon as possible. If the first choice gets sold, have a backup choice available and their ring size. Surprise them with the ultimate proposal, and then let them take over the wedding preparations.

Revel in the engagement. Take some time with your new fiancé or fiancée to celebrate the next step in your relationship. You're on your own time table. No one else's. It's best to reasonably prepared for your wedding by giving yourself enough time to plan something nice, but also to avoid some of the stress of planning a "shotgun wedding." Not in the terms most think of when they think of that phrase, but the kind that requires a lot of tension and slapdash activity to make the wedding happen.

Pick a suitable date. Well, that's obvious of course. You cannot get married without choosing a date that's agreeable for all, and that does not coincide with any other family events. No one should steal a bride's thunder period. So choose the date wisely. Ignore advice from websites such as hitched.co.uk about choosing a date based on the right month. For January, the website suggests it's best to be "married when the year is new, He'll be loving, kind and true. When February birds do mate. You wed nor dread your fate." As it lists through the months in poetry format, it labels certain months as less than ideal and favors a few months more than others, such as December. Ho, ho. Santa is walking the bride down the aisle.

Don't believe every single wedding myth, because most of them have no relevance to the wedding you are planning to have. Make sure the guests are given the heads up on the invalidity of these myths before any chaos occurs. According to the knot.com, you don't have to bar guests from wearing their favorite little black dress, because that dress works in occasions like this. It's tasteful and does not necessarily take attention away from the bride. Well, it might be less than ideal for a hot summer wedding, but the little black dress works wonders for an evening wedding.

Two myths that need to be easily dispelled are that the couple will be paying for hotel accommodations, and that you can bring a date even if the invitation does not state it directly. If you have traveled hundreds of miles to get to the festivities, remember to bring your checkbook or credit card. The soon-to-be-weds are not responsible for paying for your room and pre-wedding activities. If you want to bring a date, make sure it's OK with the couple before doing the inviting. No one likes a party crasher in any shape or form.

Find bridesmaids and groomsmen you can trust not to corrupt the festivities too much with the Bachelor and Bachelorette parties. The most important thing in this arena would be to find a maid of honor and best man who does not want to sleep with the bride and the groom before the wedding. That's such a wedding cliché that should only be played on soap operas. Of course, the added soap twist would be that somebody is related to somebody else, but turn out not to be later on. Let's not digress into that murky territory. Just make sure the wedding party only does dishonorable stuff on their own time, and not at the expense of your wedding.

Learn the beauty of imperfection in planning. Chaos is an important part of the event. Buildings burn, weather changes. If the stress gets to be too much, take the Myrna Ruskin and Associates "Pre-Nuptial Stress Test." It's a strong recommendation to see where the couple's stress levels are before they continue on a potentially destructive path that could lead to divorce court in the future. If your score exceeds 81, it's time to put the bridal magazines down and take time away from nagging the groom into oblivion. No one likes a bridezilla, especially a henpecked groom. Too much bossing around could be the surefire way to make him, and the guests, head for the hills leaving you in a mess of flowers and potential wedding cakes.

Research the detail of both of you like and dislike. Discuss with the groom on what to agree on. Be reasonable in those negotiations, because let's face it a conversation about place settings that lasts more than ten minutes is boring. Pick up some bridal magazines and highlight what interests you before you show the groom. Give him a better visual than just listening to a conversation he does not really want, or need , to be part of. Hire a wedding planner if the details get to be too much, but don't let them dominate your big day because all you'll be left with are their hefty bills.

Try sticking to a reasonable wedding budget, but allow some room for flexibility. According to a 2006 survey by American Express, over seventy five percent of couples go over budget. The best way to do that would be to say "no" to the frivolous purchases that are flaunted in front of you by others. Carley Roney, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Knot.com, said that "No matter how beautiful the dress or how sought-after the venue is, creating a budget from the get-go is essential to a stress-free wedding planning experience and newlywed beginning." Sadly, most brides and grooms never intend to go over their budget. The survey states that at least "31 percent of brides and grooms who set a budget but then added more as they went along, 40 percent admitted to adding a significant amount or more than double their original budget." One solution to help with finances was when the knot.com and American Express worked together to create a credit card that helped couples better pay for their wedding expenses. Roney also suggested using the online interactive budgeter like on the knot.com to better keep on track of your wedding finances.

Make sure relationships survives big day. If the either best men and the maid of honor lose the wedding rings, it's not that big of a deal. Some might not agree with that though. According to Yolanda Nash's piece on Ezine Articles, if the wedding rings are tried on by others the marriage is doomed with possibility of unfaithfulness. Even if the bride takes off her ring, the groom must be the one to return it to preserve good luck in the marriage. Of course, the sure fire to make sure the relationship survives the wedding is not overanalyze the details.

Fashion is important. Bride's maids dresses are meant to be ugly. It's the couple's day to choose how their bridal party dresses. If there are any issues with that, take it up with the couple, or back out before it is too late to simply attend as just a guest. No use ticking off the couple, because when it's time for that person to get married they will make an excuse not to attend, or give a bad gift.

A good wedding present goes a long way. Make sure you try to put some thought in giving the couple a proper wedding present that is not on their registry list, because the odds are that someone else beat you to it. Honestly, does a newlywed couple really need two blenders and three toasters? Three words: Returns Department Time!

Have fun on the big day. The newlyweds are supposed to getting down on the dance floor and partaking in the wedding festivities. The reception is for them after all. The wedding pictures are forever, and should not permanently show the couple in any form of distress. Save that newlywed tension for the honeymoon, or at least until the reception is over.

Here's one more unofficial piece of advice for brides and grooms to remember that needs to be repeated like a mantra for them to relax. Get ready and repeat this word for word. Listen as brides all over the world yell "It's only a day" like shaking an inescapable nightmare. Say it three more times and you'll start to believe it. One day should not influence the lives of two people in such a humongous way, but it does. It would a lie if explained otherwise. Remember that this day only lasts twenty four hours and it's done with. The wedding day does not last as long as an entire season of 24.

When it's over, there will be more days that will follow. Maybe even years will pass with the two of you growing older together as husband and wife. Maybe not. Divorce has been known to happen if a marriage hit's the skids and cannot recover from it. There are numerous reasons that some marriages don't go the distance, and not every couple's divorce follows that textbook. According to an article on divorcemag.com, 23% of respondents in a 2006 poll conducted by them blamed infidelity as the primary factor in the dissolution of their marriages. In second and third place was communication problems at 22% and general incompatibility at 18%. Don't fret though. To avoid divorce all that has to be done is not commit adultery, talk to your spouse, and accept defeat if it's not working. No use beating a dead horse if everything else has been exhausted.

Finally, there's no use to be controlled by fear of the wedding, or the marriage, being complete failure. Life is meant to be lived without restrictions, and love is no exception. When a marriage is put on too many restrictions, it is doomed to fail. Incorporate some flexibility from the wedding into the marriage and see where that takes you. The rest is up to you and your spouse.

Sources

http://www.loveandcherish.net/pdf/American_Express_Wedding_Survey.pdf
http://www.divorcemag.com/articles/Divorce_News/divorce_causes_567.shtml
http://www.theknot.com/ch_article.html?Object=A60530171320&keywordID=180&keywordType=2&parentID=527
http://ezinearticles.com/?Wedding-Myths-and-Superstitions&id=581079
http://www.hitched.co.uk/planning/trads/trads2.aspx
http://www.usabride.com/wedplan/a_stresstest.html
http://www.tacori.com/mm5/tips_for_guys.php
http://imdb.com/title/tt0209475/quotes