The majority of brides to be are guilty of exactly the same thing – they spend the early days of planning faffing about over minor details. They purchase personalised eye masks and slippers for the bridesmaids, invest in guest books, choose out name cards and placeholders or table decorations for the meal… the list goes on and on. But there’s generally one main reason that they focus their attention on these relatively trivial details – they are procrastinating.
The bigger purchases are a lot more daunting to deal with. Not only in regards to their cost but also in terms of their centrality to the whole event when it arrives. It’s much easier and much less pressure to choose what wines will be available with the meal than it is to commit to a dress, fork out for a cake, or settle on a venue. If this sounds familiar to you, don’t worry. We’re all guilty of it! But there are a few things that you can do to get the big purchases organised early on. Here are some to consider!
Covering the Costs
Big purchases tend to come hand in hand with expensive price tags. Nowadays, the average dress costs £1,500. The average cake comes in at £500. The average venue will take £4,300 to secure.
So, it’s not all too surprising that we put them off. However, at the end of the day, these are all things you’re going to need to secure and pay for, so it’s a good idea to get to grips with your financial options early.
If you’re not lucky enough to have your parents making a healthy contribution to your wedding (we’re so blessed!), you’ll need to figure a way to fund your wedding.
- Your first option is to make use of savings, and if you don’t have any, start putting something away!
- If you haven’t got time for that, you come to option two: a wedding loan. Wedding loans cover the costs for you now and you can pay them back at a later date in instalments. Perfect!
Settling on a Theme
A theme is going to be central to your big day. Once you’ve got this sorted it makes it so much easier to get an idea of how much your big day is going to cost. The sooner you settle on a theme, the easier it is going to be to plan every other aspect of your event.
Aesthetically, you want everything to be in line. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a mish-mash of styles. Generally speaking, the most important theme of your wedding (other than love, of course) is going to be the colour scheme.
This can help you to make all sorts of decisions, from what colour the bridesmaids dresses should be to the decorative icing on your cake, what flowers will form your bouquet and other floral decorations, and even what colour sashes should lie on the back of guests’ chairs.
Try to choose a colour that complements every aspect of the event, from the bride to the venue. This will ensure that everything appears flattering and melds perfectly together.
While big purchases may be daunting, they are something that you’re going to have to tackle and deal with at some point down the line. So you might as well get to grips with them sooner rather than later. This gives you more time to prepare!