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Wedding Week – Planning and Prep

July 8, 2013

Beaver Wedding

Jeremy and I will be celebrating our 1 year anniversary this weekend, and in honor of this momentous occasion, I wanted to kick-off Laundry in Louboutin’s Wedding Week!  I wanted to have a place to share some of my thoughts on the planning process, tips I learned along the way and things I would have done differently…  hopefully this will be helpful to any Bride’s to Be out there 🙂 So let’s get started!  Today’s theme is Planning and Prep but stay tuned this week for advice on Decor, Food, Entertainment, DIY, and more!

Wedding WeekA

I am obsessed with organization, lists, note taking, etc. so when it came to planning time, I went straight to Office Max and picked up some “binder essentials.”  For anyone planning their own wedding (as I did), this is critical.  Go get a large binder, some tabs and get started.  Here were my tab topics:

  • Guest List
  • Contracts
  • Timeline
  • Venue
  • Friday Activities (our wedding was a weekend long event, so we planned out different excursions, etc.)
  • Saturday Activities
  • Ceremony
  • Cocktail Reception
  • Dinner Reception
  • Decor
  • Music
  • Photo/Video
  • Attire
  • Invitations

Wedding WeekC

Wedding WeekD

At the beginning of the planning process, I recommend sitting down with your fiance and each writing down your Top 3 areas where you would like to focus your budget on.  J and I had both agreed on Food/Wine, but I had chosen Photography and Flowers, and he choose Venue and Music. We worked out a budget that reflected our priorities and off we went!  Some grooms are more interested in planning than others, but I think you’ll learn that many people will have input when it comes to planning your wedding, and it is really important that you look back and are happy with your day… and for us that meant it reflecting the two of us as a couple.

Binder

We decided to go with the “theme” of a A Really Fabulous Dinner Party.  Now you don’t have to have an actual theme – ie. Disney Princess or Nautical, but I think it really is helpful to have something to help “streamline” your vision.  We wanted to have people feel like we were having them over for a great dinner party – long tables that sat 30 people, a live band, great wine and yummy food. From there we got to planning!  Here were some of my favorite lists/guides:

  • Pintrest: There is no denying this is the holy grail for planning.  Need ideas for great ways to incorporate your favorite flower? His favorite color? Memorabilia from your dates?  This is the place!
  • Martha Stewart Weddings: Considering I am obsessed with all things Martha, this is not a surprise.  Her magazines are gorgeous, but this site has some genius ideas and gorgeous real wedding inspiration!
  • The Knot: This content-rich site was a little overwhelming at times.  But they had a good planning checklist (I recommend downloading the app on your phone).
  • Registry 360: Not sure if this is the best tool of it’s kind out there, but it was great to have all of our registries located in one place.  Plus people can track deals and shop online.  We had everything from a Sears grill, to Etsy artwork.

Wedding WeekB

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4 Comments

  • Reply Wedding Week – Top 10 Tips | Laundry in Louboutins July 15, 2013 at 7:40 am

    […] Planning and Prep […]

  • Reply Claire September 3, 2013 at 5:19 am

    Where did you find the custom cover on your binder, it is TOO cute? Can you do a tutorial?

    • Reply Laundry in Louboutins September 3, 2013 at 10:40 am

      I’m so glad you love it! I actually cheated a bit and just copy and pasted an image of my invite into Publisher, enlarged it and added a frame around it 🙂 We used Minted.com for our invites and they have some great designs!

  • Reply lcthomasson September 3, 2013 at 5:20 am

    I love the cover of this binder! Where did you find that? Can you do a tutorial?

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