Key to a Succesfull Wedding = Planning Together

Let me start this entry with GREAT news! Fr. Jboy Gonzales, SJ just confirmed his availability to officiate our wedding ceremony. 🙂 We’ve been fans of his inspiring homilies and natural wit since his days of service at the UP Chapel and so we wanted him to be our priest. His confirmation caps the major preparations for the wedding! THANK YOU, Fr. Jboy. You really made our day.

Going back… perhaps you’ve read several tips and do’s and don’ts from several wedding magazines, if not from the latest W@W Wedding Primer. It’s 10 months before our day and midway through our preparations and I’ve learned the single key to a successful wedding: PLANNING TOGETHER.

I know some brides are swimming over magazine piles, searching the Internet on weeknights, braving flea markets on weekends while the men just give them the pennies. I beg to disagree that weddings are just a girl’s thang and I have a very wedding-eager fiancé to prove this. Keep in mind that your husband-to-be’s opinions and preferences are just as important as yours.

Decision making is a lot easier if you plan things together. Besides, we’ll probably be doing this for the rest of our married life so we might as well practice on this during the wedding preparations. In our case, here are the few first steps we took together:

1. Set the budget – TJ and I agreed on the budget early on and swore to never go overboard. We opened our joint account last year and that’s where we both put our savings. Yes, even saving up is a conjugal effort! It makes us both responsible not only for the wedding but our future.

2. Research – Looking for potential suppliers was a lot easier with two minds working. While TJ got info on the net and templates from friends, I frequented Filbar’s for back issues of wedding magazines and read group mailers. After putting things together, we discussed and picked out the best choices.

3. Set the calendar – TJ got me a Starbucks planner during the Holidays and I decided to make it our wedding planner where all events are plotted. This lets us keep track of our accomplishments. We’re both custodians of our wedding planner and notebook. Whoever feels like writing on them can do so as much as he/she likes.

4. Go on field trips – We go as a team in appointments with suppliers and in doing errands. It’s easier to create relationships with suppliers if they get a quick grasp of you as a couple. Our first impression of the suppliers also weighed a lot in making decisions. It’s funny how we know the final answer just by looking at each other!

Our wedding can be the single most tedious day of our lives but planning together makes it a lot easier and more fun. It serves as our weekly bonding activity and our weekend date. In less than 2 months we were able to book our major suppliers, which we’ll share with you on later posts.

I’m plain lucky to have an equally excited groom! So if your guys aren’t curious at all, kick them with some girl power and find a way to make them involved. It’s both your day anyway.