The UX of Wedding Planning

On Christmas Day, 2018, I got engaged! Unlike many women out there, I haven’t been planning my wedding since childhood, so, besides the obvious Pinterest board, I was on the hunt for tools and tips to plan everything ourselves. Sure, it’s our big day, and we want it to reflect our personal tastes, but I’m mostly interested in how to plan the experience for our guests, too. Wedding planning has taken up most of our focus! Here’s our thought process so far, one month deep into research and planning:

Look up a general timeline to see when we should book what, and what is the average amount of money spent

We’ve been dating since 2011, so we’ve had plenty of conversations about what our wedding day might look like…but we needed to look up just how much things may cost. We’ve attended weddings together and have a list of what we didn’t like, and what we’d do differently. It’s the biggest party we’ll ever plan together, and we’re looking to spend half of what the average couple spends on a wedding, around $15,000 versus $33,000.

Figure out the best way to communicate and keep curious family members up-to-date

We’ve scaled back our social media usage, and I tend to not even get on Facebook at all, so we needed a way to share wedding plans. Older family members may not even use social media, as well. After getting too nit-picky with not being able to totally customize my free wedding website template, a week after getting engaged, I whipped up a site where we could post photos and write blogs for major milestones—like booking our venue. I also plan to provide as many details as I can throughout the year to inform guests on what to expect.

Find a venue where the ceremony and reception can take place in the same building

The best perk of the venue we booked: the parking lot! Savannah is a super popular destination for all things weddings: bachelor/bachelorette parties, scenic outdoor wedding ceremonies, and honeymoons. We wanted to avoid the historic district and pick somewhere where our guests could easily locate the venue and not worry about parking, or have to travel to two different locations. There are plenty of bathrooms, and multiple spaces, indoors and outdoors, for guests to spread out. Booking the venue even included a security guard.

Sit together and talk about everything we’d like aesthetically, culinarily, musically, traditionally

We both love color, so instead of picking a small color palette, we went with all jewel tones. We both love Halloween, so we picked October 13th, complete with a full moon! We’re skipping choosing bridal parties so there’s no bridal shower, bridal tea/luncheon, bachelorette/bachelor parties, etc. All of the extraneous parties and get togethers are too much, besides, being a bridesmaid or groomsman is expensive! Our friends can wear whatever they’d like and get to skip the stress. Everybody loves fried chicken, and most of the attendees will be fellow Southerners, so picking the food for the buffet is one of the easiest choices. We absolutely must have live music—since the groom is a musician—it makes the experience so much more memorable for guests.

Come up with a guest list maximum of 100, with the assumption that we’ll get 80 RSVPs

The guest list is the trickiest part of the planning process, because the budget fluctuates depending on who actually attends. We’ve picked a vintage postcard design for our save-the-date cards, which will “age” as they make their journey to their recipients. From there, we hope to get early responses on our wedding website from guests that live across the country. If they are unable to make it, now they have a unique keepsake, and we can narrow down our guest list throughout the year.

Divide up the vendor list between the two of us and contact vendors

We wouldn’t be getting married if we couldn’t function as a team. To keep stress off of each other, we’ve divided up the vendor list, so it’s not entirely one person’s responsibility, and we have weekly chats to see where we are and if we’re following our timeline. If one of our favorite vendors is unavailable, or too expensive, we’ve got backup plans.

Utilize everything we currently own, the power of the Internet, and our network

My engagement ring is a practical, simple 1940s two-toned setting with a color-changing pink sapphire instead of the original diamond—the perfect combo of old and new design. My “wedding ring” will be a family heirloom: a diamond ring from the 1920s, but I’ll only wear it for special occasions. My fiancé’s grandmother has a huge collection of tablecloths, so we’ll use her linens for the reception. His sister’s wedding was last spring, so we can reuse her decor, too!

I have no interest in making an appointment at a bridal boutique to try on gowns I can’t afford…so I found an affordable website that allows brides-to-be to try on dresses at home! (Azazie) After already sampling 3 dresses to confirm the quality, I can stop calculating the hourly price of my dress, if I end up with a $200 dress made to my measurements, versus a dress with a comma in the price. There’s also a similar service for men’s tux rentals! (The Black Tux)

Savannah is a popular city for destination weddings, so we have a lot of options, with the benefit of being able to meet vendors in person, some of whom are our friends! We’re graciously being gifted free live ceremony music.

Scale back our ideas and create a plan to spend money slowly over the year

Originally, to go with our jewel-tone color palette, we wanted to rent vintage decor and china, but when priced out, it would have taken up too much of our budget. So now we’re visiting thrift stores to find mix-matched china and decor—with the benefit that we can keep our favorite pieces and sell the rest for a profit!

Also to save money, I’m taking on the floral design. We’ll be ordering flowers from an online wholesaler the week of the wedding, and I will create all the centerpieces, my bouquet, and any leftovers will be used as boutonnieres, corsages, or flowers for my hair. Luckily, since I love DIYs, this DIY will be relaxing to me, as I’m anticipating being incredibly anxious the week of the wedding!

Plan our honeymoon to take place weeks (or months!) after the wedding day to fully recharge

Instead of a traditional wedding registry, we’re signing up for a honeymoon registry via Honeyfund. Waiting until we’ve recovered from the imminent introvert hangover to celebrate us, is one of the first things we planned. Besides, we’ve already felt married for a long time now. The honeymoon is important to us, but we’ve waited years to go on a trip to Japan together—we can wait a couple months longer, if we need to. Ideally, we’d take two weeks off around Christmas to travel Japan, coming back home for New Years. Christmastime is the most romantic time to be in Japan, with Christmas Eve being the biggest date night of the year, so it fits for a honeymoon! The trickiest thing would be planning our trip around the Olympics, if we push our trip later into 2020!