Whether you’ve been dreaming about planning your wedding since you were a little girl playing ‘bride dress-up’ (like I did) or you’ve been completely dreading it, the goal of my first series of blog posts is to help you plan and actually enjoy your time of being engaged.

My hope is that I can use my last decade of wedding experience to help other couples during their wedding planning process. So, if you are saying to yourself, “I have no idea what I’m doing,” or, “I really just need some inspiration to get me started,” then keep reading! Use these tips and tricks as your foundation for understanding some of the major fundamentals of wedding planning. From cultivating your overall vision to being intentional with your soon-to-be spouse, it will allow you to plan with more joy & less stress. The result… a wedding day that is beautifully & uniquely your own. 

TIP #1 – CELEBRATE BEING ENGAGED!!!

  • You have literally just said YES to the one you love! It’s time to celebrate! Take time to enjoy this exciting moment in your life with all your loved ones! Schedule a fun dinner or little engagement party for your family and friends to hear your proposal story. Trust me, you’ll never get tired of sharing that one!

When Tevin, my husband, proposed to me, he knew how much I valued my family and friends. With my sister and parents to help keep it a secret, he proposed on a day a bunch of my family and friends would be there. So our engagement celebration was pretty instantaneous and absolutely perfect!

  • Write down how your proposal unfolded. Certain details that you think you’ll remember start to slip away over time. Writting your proposal story down on paper keeps all those details freshly in your mind so that when you want to look back on them in the future, you won’t forget a single aspect that made it one of the best days of your life. You can even write down the emotions you both were feeling. Describe everything that will help freeze that moment in time.
  • Say fiancé every chance you get! It’s super romantic and a big reminder of the step you both just took in your lifelong relationship with one another. Besides, you only get to call each other that for a short amount of time. Also, did you know that fiancé with one ‘e’ is masculine and fiancée with two ‘ee’ is feminine. Betchya didn’t know that!
  • SCHEDULE AN ENGAGEMENT PHOTO SESSION!!! *pssst… I can help with that! 😉 Your engagement photo session is an exciting part of being engaged. This is were you get to creatively capture the love you both share to be used for posting on your social media and/or getting prints to hang in your future home. These sessions are so much fun for the couples and their photographer. (If you’re looking for a photographer, I know a very enthusiastic one right here!) And yes this link is supposed to take you right back to my website teehee!

I have photographed countless engagement sessions on gorgeous days in beautiful locations but when I finally got to be the one in the photos instead of being the one to take them, it was cold, windy, and not a glimpse of golden hour light peaked through the dark clouds. I wanted nothing more than to pout about the situation but as soon as I was there with my man in my arms and one of my besties as the photographer, all of that negativity dissipated. I looked into Tevin’s eyes and soaked in the memories we were making.

  • Don’t start planning everything just yet. At first, start slow and concentrate on the new joy and love you both feel for one another! Many brides go from 0-60 in less than an hour after getting engaged (Me, I’m raising my hand. I did that lol). Don’t be overly eager to figure it all out right away and end up missing the precious moment you’re in or even stealing that moment from your soon-to-be spouse. Whether you want a year or 6 month engagement, there is always time.

I had spent so much time on Pinterest, dreaming of what my wedding day would look like that when I finally got engaged I almost skipped right over just being happy about that fact. Tevin was brave enough to stop me in my tracks and ask that we just enjoy the now for a while. I remember wanting to inform him how quickly anything wedding-related books up but then realized I was stealing his joy. After all, I wasn’t the only one who just got engaged and wasn’t the only one who had a say in the process. Looking back now I can see how moving too quickly can make it go by too quickly. Being engaged is a time to savor.

Upcoming post – “Dreaming Big or Small”

  1. Alexis says:

    I definitely feel like my engagement period was such a rush, but every now and then, I took a moment to soak it all up. I also tried to spend some quality time with family that I wouldn’t be living with anymore, and that created a lot of fond memories!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *