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Are you engaged and planning a wedding as we head into the holiday season? In this wedding planning advice post, we're talking about tips for how to handle the holidays and plan your wedding at the same time. It's possible to do both in a stress-free and joyful way, we promise! The holidays are stressful enough on their own, but then you add wedding planning on top of it and it can feel like a lot.
The best tips on how to handle the holidays and be engaged at the same time include scheduling your appointments with vendors early, staying calm when dealing with other opinions from family and friends, making time to have the important conversations especially conversations about money, having some fun with it, and remembering to take a break.
Oh and be sure to grab your copy of our popular Bridal Fashion Budget Spreadsheet to help you get your through on time and on budget. And if you're going wedding dress shopping this holiday season, be sure to get your copy of our Customizable Wedding Dress Shopping Voting Signs - they are so fun and will make finding your dream dress fun for everyone else too!
Handling the holidays while planning a wedding can feel like an overwhelming task, but with the right approach, it’s completely manageable. Balancing holiday festivities and family commitments with wedding planning doesn’t have to be stressful if you focus on staying organized and setting priorities.
Create a clear schedule that accommodates both holiday events and wedding to-dos, ensuring you’re not spreading yourself too thin. If possible, delegate holiday tasks or ask for help with wedding-related responsibilities.
Make sure to budget wisely, as the holiday season often brings extra expenses. It’s important to stay on track financially for both your wedding and holiday celebrations. And most importantly, don’t forget to take time for yourself! Whether it’s through self-care routines or simply stepping back from the chaos, finding moments to relax will help you avoid holiday burnout and wedding-planning stress.
Enjoy both the festive spirit and your journey toward the big day, knowing that a bit of flexibility and advanced planning will ensure everything goes smoothly.
Photo Credit: Jofotto
You might be getting ready for the holidays and making plans to head home or celebrate the holidays with your family and friends. We're here to help you navigate the holidays and wedding planning too.
By holidays, we're talking about Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year's Eve. Once Halloween happens at the end of October, the holiday season is on! November officially starts the holiday season that goes through December right into the start of January.
Without further ado, let's share our tips for how to handle the holidays - and dare we say "enjoy the holidays" - and plan your wedding at the same time. (And maybe even be a little productive on the wedding planning front during the holidays too!) It's possible to be stress-free during the holidays, knock things off your wedding planning to do list and enjoy the time with your family and friends, and we're going to show you how.
Here's our best tips for how to handle the holidays while planning your wedding...
The holidays are a great time to have wedding planning meetings and appointments. You're off of work, you're with family and friends who might be helpful and decision makers and maybe you're in the place where you're getting married. However, it's also a great time for everyone else planning a wedding too, not just you. In short, wedding planning appointments and meetings during the holiday season will need to be scheduled early.
Maybe you want to go wedding dress shopping in your hometown or while you're off of work for the holidays. Maybe you need to meet with your wedding planner while you're home. Maybe you finally have time to go on a site tour for your wedding venue. But, so too will everyone else who is engaged.
Make your wedding planning appointments during the holiday season now, as early as possible. Reach out to your vendors as soon as possible to find out their availability and see if you can make appointments during the holiday season.
If it is help with the timeline you need, be sure to get our free Ultimate Bridal Fashion Timeline - this is best wedding dress timeline and guide out there. It tells you exactly what to order when do you don't miss out!
If you want to go wedding dress shopping or have a menu tasting with your caterer, make your appointments early so that you can get the times that you want and schedule the meetings that you need to have while you're available.
It's possible to be very productive on the wedding planning front and check lots of items off of your (large) wedding planning to-do list, but you'll need to be organized and plan those meetings ahead of time if you want to do it during the holidays.
Photo Credit: Jofotto
It's no secret that when it comes to the holidays, you'll have lots of opinions to deal with. Wedding planning or not, the holidays always come with lots of opinions. Sometimes opinions are helpful and sometimes (OK, much of the time), opinions from family and friends can be unhelpful.
You'll have to deal with opinions and "suggestions" from family and friends during the holidays whether you're getting married or not, but it can feel like those opinions at holiday time are louder or stronger when you're planning a wedding too.
When it comes to weddings, it can feel like all of your friends and family members seem to have an opinion about everything. What to wear, what to eat, where to sit, what music to play and more. It can all feel like too many opinions when it comes to wedding planning and the holidays, sort of like too many cooks in the kitchen.
Our best advice in dealing with opinions during your wedding is to listen and move on. You don't have to do anything about their opinion right away or event at all. You can decide later if you want to take the opinion or just chalk it up to some, well-meaning, but unhelpful advice.
Just remember, opinions are just opinions. They aren't fact and they aren't directives. You can hear opinions without taking the opinions to heart. At the end of the holidays, it's your wedding thus it's your choice. Period.
If you're home or around family members during the holidays, take the time to have the conversations that need to happen, even if those conversations might be uncomfortable.
Maybe you need to talk about money or budgeting for the wedding. Maybe you need to give your family an update on the planning progress. Maybe you need to run dates and timelines past your family. Maybe you need to pick times for wedding extras like bridal showers and bachelorette parties. Maybe you want the opinions from your family and friends on certain wedding planning decisions.
If it is help with the budget you need, be sure to get our signature Bridal Fashion Budget Spreadsheet - this is everything you need to plan our wedding outfits for the whole weekend, plus it includes a whole wedding budget planning spreadsheet.
Yes, you don't want talk about the wedding to dominate the conversation all day, everyday during the holidays, but you don't want to waste the opportunity of having wedding planning decision makers being together in one spot.
Getting together at the holidays is a great time when people are gathered, so it is a natural time to make progress, have necessary conversations and get questions answered.
If you're enjoying the holidays, you can also enjoy being engaged at the same time! It's not either or and they aren't mutually exclusive. You can have an amazing holiday time and have an amazing time being engaged! It doesn't all have to be stressful and overwhelming.
There are super fun t-shirts and matching holiday pajama sets that are specifically designed for engaged couples and one of the best things you can do for yourself is to lean into the fun! You can choose to stuff each other's stockings or get cute matching PJs for holiday cards. (Here are our favorite stocking stuffers for the bride!)
It's OK to have fun and enjoy! It doesn't all have to be stressfull!
As much as you might love planning your wedding, your friends and family might be sick of hearing about "the wedding." Consider taking a break - at least during the holidays - from talking about your wedding.
It can be an easy default to talk wedding planning, especially when family is gathered in one place. Plus, when you see friends and family that you haven't seen in a while, they will probably ask you about your wedding and will want to know the details.
No doubt your wedding will come up during the holidays, but it's on you to make the change in the conversation to talk about something out besides the wedding. Have the necessary wedding planning conversations (see tip above) that you need to have, but then move on, change the subject and talk about something other than your wedding.
Instead of talking about your wedding, consider talking about things you're thankful for or what you're looking forward to in the new year (besides your wedding, of course!).
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So, that's it! Those are our best tips for celebrating the holidays and enjoying your wedding planning at the same time. Are you ready to head into the holidays and plan your wedding at the same time?
Don't forget, we have so much helpful and practical wedding planning advice on our blog. Whether it's with our our tips or our wedding heirlooms, our main goal in life is to share our expertise and help you have a joyful and stress-free wedding planning experience. You can shop our wedding garters and bridal accessories anytime and you can find all of our wedding planning tips on the blog.
If you need more to get through the holidays, you might like these advice blog posts....
Happy holidays and happy planning!
