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. Don't worry, we've got your back today talking all about how to enjoy the holiday season, and how to enjoy being engaged and planning your wedding at the same time. 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... Schedule Your Appointments Now 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 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 Dealing With Opinions 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. Have The Conversations 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. 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. Take A Break 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!). ******* 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. Happy holidays and happy planning!
