How to Wedding Plan When You Work Full-Time
Planning a wedding is not (and we repeat, NOT) easy. Doing it successfully requires patience, due diligence, hustle, an end to procrastinative predispositions - not unlike doing well in your career. You have to be at the top of your game to tackle to-dos everyday, and you only have yourself to answer to when things go wrong, or you realize you f***ed up somewhere along the way. So, when you already have a FT job consuming your whole existence, it’s kind of hard to get engaged and think you’ll have any time to do anything else in your life.
But you’re Superwoman, Miss. soon-to-be Mrs., and you can obvi do this. It’s also not a forever thing, this too will pass; in a whirlwind, you’ll be wifed-up and back to biz as usj before you know it. So until then, do you best to be a boss in both of your jobs. And give some of these helpful hints a read - they can’t hurt, and actually might just be everything you need to hear to prioritize two of the most important things you’re tasked with RN.
I lucked out a ton, because right after getting engaged, I was put on the David’s Bridal team at my PR agency. Researching wedding trends, looking at pretty dresses, understanding the consumer group I was pitching for, it was all part of my job. So, I was able to multitask like crazy, and not concern myself with NSFW things on my computer. My bosses never questioned it! It def helps to be in a creative career space, where planning is at least tangentially related to your professional life, but it’s not a prerequisite. We’re sureeeeee there are CPAs or astrophysicists out there who are work and wedding planning wizards at the same time...
Give your work schedule a little workout.
Maybe you’ve been thinking about reworking your work schedule for a while now. Getting in earlier, so you can leave earlier, eliminating extracurriculars (work happy hours, lunchtime mani appointments, etc.) to build more time into the day, taking advantage of WFH flexibility every once in a while, if your company gives you the green light. And now that you’re engaged, you have a 🔥 lit under you to put the plan in motion. Instead of hitting snooze 7000 times in the morning, get your ass up, shower, and head straight to werk. Do what you have to when you’re there, tell your work besties you gotta pass on Chipotle for the foreseeable future 1) because queso isn’t a total wedding diet win and 2) you need to eat at your desk so you can stalk the s*** out of your wedding vendors, and let your bosses know that while you’d love to go out for a drink at the end of the week to celebrate the last few crazy weeks, you’re focusing on your career right now, and can’t fall of the wagon (not really, it's just that your date for Friday night will be with lots and lots of florists).
Cut off your coffee allowance.
Yes, we mean business 🤯. From the time you get engaged, to the time that wedding band is securely on your finger, you should cut yourself off from coffee (well, no, you can still have the caffeine, you just need to forget that Dunkin’ exists). Getting coffee before work, sneaking away to Starbucks in the morning or afternoon for that Grande latte, just stop. It steals time away from your day. And remember, you’re in beast mode (boss+bride), you don’t have time to waste. You have to be a rockstar in both roles. Our tip: make coffee in the morning, and bring a thermos (or a couple) with you to work. Keep the sweet nectar by you all day, deposit lots of $$$ into your planning budget, and don’t lose precious time that you can be working or making vendor appointments/sending emails by going to the Keurig to fill up again.
Need to get your energy levels up - we have a few tips for staying healthy when you’re wedding planning too.
Make friends with night owl vendors.
One of the biggest things that helped me and my husband when we were getting married, was finding vendors who weren’t miffed at the idea of meeting with us AFTER work. Our florist, our photographer, or stationer all said (from the beginning) that they were fine doing consults and planning meetings from 7:30PM onwards, so we never had to peace out of the office too early. When you’re in the very early stages of reaching out to wedding professionals, be transparent right from jump. Let them know that you, your fiancé, or both of you work long hours, and you’ll only be able to do appointments in the evening. If that works for them, they’ll give you 👍👍👍 and you can sigh a breath of relief - you know, knowing that you won’t be pissing your supervisors off by leaving early again. Also helps to know if your wedding dream team works well later in the day. You’ll want to have a crew that works with you, and know that you’re both showing up to your syncs on the same page.
Start banking that PTO for shoooo.
Now, we’re not trying to make you hack your entire work/wedding planning process - but this helps. If your company allows you to roll some personal time over to the next calendar year, then treat those days like gold. Save them up, start stacking! You might want to allocate a few of those days for looking at venues - especially if you have your eye on a few places (that aren’t exactly close by each other). You might need a day or two to travel to your future in-laws’ house to go over planning details with your parents. You might even want to plan your wedding dress shopping trip for a day during the week - when the bridal boutique isn’t swamped and you can relax without having tons of crazy brides and their bridesmaids all up in your space. Solo shopping trip with that PTO, why not?!?!! And then you might just need a day or two, or three for mental health days. Work is stressful. Wedding planning is stressful. Taking time to decompress is do or die. Really. Just make sure you save some of those days for the week of your wedding when you have a million things to tend to, and the honeymoon. Honeymooning is key.
Don’t be bossy, but be the boss.
You have a fiancé and you have bridesmaids, girl. Put them to work. You know they’re after that best bridesmaid ever title anyway. So, give them something to earn their stripes 😉 Use your weekend bottomless brunches (this is job in and of itself, bloodies don’t drink themselves…) to plan out tasks for the following week and who’s in charge of what. And then see if your team IRL uses the same intraoffice communication tools as you do at work. Slack, Google Hangouts, Skype. That way, you can chat them quickly about anything that’s on your mind or needs managing while you’re charging forward with line items on your day job agenda. Oh, and you also have a co-pilot on this magic carpet ride to the altar. He or she is your partner - so while you’re planning, consider them your co-founder. They’re responsible for getting stuff done, too; don’t feel bad about giving them assignments or getting your groom involved when you’re too overwhelmed to think. Of course, if you have a wedding planner, too, that helps. Helps A LOT. You could also bring in some doughnuts, and put a sign up that says “wedding planning help = doughnuts 4 lyfe.” Just sayinnnnn.
Bonus tip. This one's good.
And we always want to throw one more pointer in the mix, as a parting gift. The biggest time suck with wedding planning is definitely reaching out to vendors and making time to meet them / establish a good working relationship / and build trust. SO! If you want to winnow those worries down while you’re working 24/7, consider finding a venue with lots of built-in benefits or at leastttt a tip-top list of preferred vendors that you can just pluck for your own purposes. #somethingborrowed. Boom.