No matter what stage of the wedding planning process you may be at, you will undoubtedly be aware of the sheer size of the task which you are facing. Whether you have a team of friends and family helping you or not, the key point to note is how you plan, what you plan, and when you plan to do it. The option to hire somebody as a professional wedding planner may not be something financially viable for you. It could also be the case that you would rather do as much of it as possible yourself because it’s such a personal, meaningful event and you want to retain as much control as you can. The very first thing you need to do, assuming you have already found a future husband or wife obviously, is to carefully schedule and organise the event. There can be literally hundreds of tasks which you will need to plan ahead for but here are a few I would consider the most crucial to be on top of early.

Create a Dated Checklist

Whether you prefer to do things digitally or with a good old fashioned notebook and pen, the first step of the process should be drawing up your master checklist. Begin by brainstorming every single thing you can think of which will probably need to be resolved. Get together with your better half, family and friends and between yourselves you will probably develop a list containing the vast majority. Over time you will inevitably discover newer ones but by having created a checklist early it will prove to be much simpler to work around them. From your brainstorm you will need to write up this checklist but make sure it can easily be adapted in future as changes undoubtedly occur. Then you will be able to pencil in some approximate dates and with this you will have set up the basic framework from which to plan everything else.

Budget Wisely

This stage is often the hardest to get right and the most difficult to then stick to. You have got to balance being realistic and getting what you want. Now I’m not saying that you need to save to the point of losing out but you need to make priorities. Is there a location that you have already earmarked or do you have a particularly large family which you will need to cater for? Whatever it may be you will need to make some tough decisions but most importantly you need to stick tightly to your budget. Many couples have put themselves into serious financial difficulties by blowing their wedding budgets and then spending the next few years literally paying for it.

Consider The Food Early

One regular mistake made by people when planning for their wedding is not organising the food early enough. If you leave things too late you may find that you can’t get the best wedding catering in Sydney for the big day because the places you set your heart on have been totally booked up for months. People are often surprised how far in advance you need to get your catering reservations in and it certainly can’t hurt to do it early as once the booking has been made you will be able to tick one big job off your list and rest a little easier.