Your Cart is Empty
Whether you’ve always worked from home or you suddenly find yourself forced to do your job from your house, the reality is you are now trying to live your life, do your work AND plan your wedding all at the same time in the same place. It’s a tough one, I get it - believe me.
It can be done, and today I’m going to show you how with some practical and helpful tips that you might not have heard before, because, well, working from home and being engaged is probably all new to you. You’ve likely never worked from home before and you’ve likely never planned your wedding before. So, put the two of them together and that’s a recipe for disaster. But, not if you get it all under control from the start.
In today’s wedding planning advice post, I’m going to share my 4 best tips for working from home and planning your wedding. Planning a wedding is not easy, working a job is not easy, but when you have to do both of them together - at home - it is even harder. Stick with me today as I give you all those juicy wedding planning tips that no one else will think to tell you.
If you are working from home ,and engaged and planning your wedding at the same time, my best piece of advice is to make the time for both. Make the time to work and also make the time to plan your wedding. And, these should be different times of the day.
Don’t try to do all the things all at the same time. Don’t have 25 tabs on your laptop open and be jumping from your work Inbox to your Pinterest board and back again and then to your Instagram and over to your Excel file you are working on and back to emailing your wedding planning and then while you are on a conference call researching cake designers and finding a florist.
That's exhausting just typing all of that context switching back and forth between the work and the wedding. If I'm tired writing it, you'll be even more tired doing it! By 5pm, you'll be so exhausted and after a week you'll be so burnt out you don't want to work or plan your wedding.
When it is work time, do your work. When it is wedding planning time, do the planning.
Carve out time for both each day. Make the time in your calendar to work and then also make the time in your calendar to wedding planning. And, when you are working, close all the wedding planning things down. And, when you are wedding planning, take a break from the work and just do the wedding planning.
This leads nicely right into my next tip…
Photo credit: Jen Vazquez Photography
You need to set a timer on the wedding planning. Believe me, I know how easy it is to get to the end of Pinterest and back, and then spend “just 10 minutes” on Instagram only to find yourself not sure what’s going on 2 hours later.
Set a timer on your wedding planning. Like an actual timer that goes off and beeps out loud when it is done.
You have a job to do and maybe errands to run and phone calls to make and things to do. Do not waste all of your time wedding planning and neglect your life.
Make the time to plan, but also set a timer. And, when the timer goes off, end it. You can always come back or make more time later in the day or the week to revisit whatever you didn’t finish.
Scrolling through Pinterest forever and clicking from one hashtag to the next is NOT wedding planning. That’s mindless scrolling, which has a place. But, not when it is wedding planning time.
Make sure that you are actually doing what you are supposed to be doing, not endlessly roaming on Pinterest dreaming about all of the inspiration that you can’t afford or would be totally impossible at your wedding.
I know that many of you like to watch your wedding planning tips, so I made this post into a video for you. It is the same tips, just me talking to you. So, if you like to watch instead of read, this is for you.
If this video doesn't open, click here.
I know it is cliche to say, but it is so important that be a bad wedding advice giver if I didn't mention it. So, I’m going to say it anyway: You need to take a break when you are working from home and planning your wedding.
You need to take a break from the work and also take a break from the wedding planning. Take a break from all of it.
Go for a walk, go exercise, read a book, call a friend - just do something to get your mind off of work and off of the wedding, even if for a little bit, like 20-30 minutes. Take short breaks, long breaks, regular breaks, breaks every hour - whatever a break is to you, take it.
You might want to consider setting a wedding planning schedule for yourself. For example, maybe you only do wedding planning things for one hour per day from 2-3pm. Or, maybe you only do wedding planning once per week in the morning on Thursdays.
Whatever schedule works for you, do that. You might have to try new and different schedules or try something out to see if it works for you. Just make sure that you are not doing all the working all the time and doing all the wedding planning all the time with no breaks in between anything.
Photo credit: Jen Vazquez Photography
Along the lines of taking a break, you also need to be under control with the wedding planning. Don’t go crazy and overdo it. And, definitely don't drown yourself in the wedding as a means of procrastination on your life and your work responsibilities.
You have a job to do and tasks to complete, don't not do your work because you spent all your time wedding planning even though it is so tempting when you are working from home and no one is walking by your cubicle to see what's on your computer screen. Just because you are at home and no one can see what you are doing, doesn't mean that you shouldn't get your work done.
Do your work and don't waste your time wedding planning. If you are efficient in your work, you'll have plenty of time to wedding planning.
It can be really tempting to only talk about the wedding or spend your whole afternoon finding wedding dresses or bouquets Pinterest or planning your entire honeymoon. But, just don’t.
Don’t go crazy and spend all your time on the wedding. Spread it out, take breaks and don’t try to do it all at once. You have a life to live and a job to do. Your first priority should be your life and your job, the wedding planning comes after those things.
If you spend too much time planning your wedding and not doing your job, you’ll either burn out on the wedding, or you might put your job in jeopardy.
Weddings and the anticipating that comes with planning them is supposed to be joyous and fun, so enjoy it, but don’t go crazy with it!
Once you make a choice for your wedding, turn off the inspiration. If you choose your wedding cake design, for example, be done with the cake researching. Turn off the notifications, recycle the magazines, delete the Pinterest boards or the wedding cake pins. Just be done with the cake inspiration.
When you look over and over again at the inspiration after you've make your decisions, you will just cause the FOMO (fear of missing out) to settle in. Yes, it's all so beautiful, but you will cause yourself to second guess all of your decisions.
Once you make a choice or sign a contract, move on and find something else to focus on.
If you have any more garter questions, check out my garter 101 blog series or find all of my wedding planning advice here on my blog.
