So you've found the one your heart cannot live without and the question was popped down on one knee as a ring appeared? There were tears and then a big YES. Congrats on your engagement! A wedding is one of the biggest events that you can have in life and wedding planning can be quite the undertaking. As you begin your planning, check in with our wedding dos and don'ts to help make the whole process go a bit smoother. As a home furniture store in NJ located in an area that has up and coming neighborhoods, we often help engaged couples find the perfect furniture for their new home, especially discount furniture and affordable furniture.
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Before you start venue shopping and booking any vendors, you have to remember the most important part of planning - budgeting. Most people know they will need to save up a certain amount of money but some will take out loans or pay for a wedding with credit cards to speed up the date they have their wedding. The truth is, you may not get back the amount of money you put into your wedding and it's not something worth going broke over.
New Jersey and New York are to two of the most expensive places to have a wedding and live. According to a wedding study done in 2017 by the Knot, the average wedding costs $33,391 with the most expensive place to get married being Manhattan, New York ($76,944 average spend). If you already have a house with your significant other, it will be easier to determine how much money you can set aside each month after your living expenses are paid. If you don't already live together and rent instead of buy, you may want part of your monthly savings to go toward buying a house. Unless you throw a really elaborate wedding and spend $250+ per person, you should make some money back.
Common Wedding Expenses to Budget for
Common Life Expenses to Budget for
Be mindful of your budget and stick to it. When needing to cut back, reduce how much you spend on flowers and favors (many people are doing donations to charities now in place of favors to save money and spend it on a good cause). And while Venetian hour is nice, a lot of the desserts from it go to waste. Skip the Venetian hour and cut back on desserts - most people will be too full anyway come dessert time. If you are willing to have your wedding in the off seasons, sometimes you'll be able to get discounts from venues and vendors. If a discount is not being offered up front and you need the prices to be lowered slightly to make your wedding more affordable, be sure to ask what your discount options are.
Enjoy the planning process.
Or at least try to. Your wedding flashes by in the blink of an eye and for most people the planning process is between a year and a half to eight months. Even though planning can get stressful at times, try to enjoy it. Look at the positives and take it all in.
Set time aside for non-wedding planning activities.
It's easy to get so caught up with the wedding planning that you forget about the special things you used to do for yourself prior such as go to yoga, dinner with friends, and have wine nights with your significant other. Be sure to take breaks from the process, relax, get a massage just do something nice for yourself.
Weekend getaway ideas:
Wait until the last minute to get things done.
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Sometimes unexpected things come up last minute so as to not get stressed out, get as much done as possible such as:
