Holiday season is widely believed, as the song goes, to be the most wonderful time of the year …but did you know it also has a tendency to be one of the most romantic? It’s true! The weeks leading up to the winter holidays are ripe with proposals, engagements, and plenty of photos of the happy couple flooding your social media.
However, as any recent bride knows, engagement excitement can quickly turn into wedding planning panic. Between choosing a venue, deciding on a date, and picking out a dress, wedding planning can be both incredibly exciting and tremendously time consuming. Therefore, as a little engagement gift for the new “fiancées” in our bunch, we’ve partnered with the amazing MK Andersen of the popular Chicago Wedding Planning Group: Your Day By MK. We recently caught up with MK to get a small sampling of some of her best tips and tricks for simplifying the wedding planning process AND managing to plan the wedding of your dreams on a limited budget.
SavviHer: First things first – what is the very first thing to do as a newly engaged couple?
MK: Two major parts of wedding planning should be done first – have a frank conversation about your budget and make a draft guest list. The number of people you have at your wedding will determine so many elements like catering costs, venue size, rental costs, staffing, and more. And while no budget is better than another, if family members have mentioned they’ll help, instead of skirting around it, have a mature and open conversation about who will be contributing what to the event so when you discuss with vendors, you know what you’re working with.
SavviHer: What are some of the biggest ways to save?
MK: Focus on your top priorities. Each of you should write your top 3 priorities and spend your money there. Then it will be easier to decide what you do not need to worry about. Concrete options are going with an “off-season” wedding date – in Chicago, this would be the winter months, in other cities this could be the very middle of summer. Lastly, cut your guest list – if the cost per head averages to $150/head – cutting a table of 10 will save you roughly $1,500.
SavviHer: What wedding tips/trends do you like or have seen done well?
MK: One of my couples had a photo booth and had the images sent to their email address. A couple weeks later, guests got prints of the photos that doubled as the thank you card! It was such a nice surprise to get them in the mail, and it likely made thank you cards easier for the couple because almost every guest got in that photo booth at one point.
SavviHer: In your opinion, what expense doesn’t seem to be a good value for the couple?
MK: I recommend ordering less than one favor per person. Unless you want to put a favor at each place setting – at the end of the evening, there are bound to be people who do not want to take something home or can’t feasibly fit it in their purse or pocket.
SavviHer: What are some of your favorite helpful apps/planning tools/websites/blogs/books/resources?
MK: Find wedding planners where you’re getting married and read their blogs. While it is helpful to read general blogs from resources like The Knot and Zola, oftentimes those big names are not specific enough about the realities of weddings in your location. Wedding photographers are also resourceful since they are at your wedding all day. Reading local blogs will give you a better idea of what to look for. Also, chat with others who have recently gotten married in your location. They’ll be able to speak to the emotions and process from the perspective of the ones getting married.
SavviHer: Do you have a signature piece of advice or other consideration for your couples?
MK: I always tell my couples for the little details, “people won’t know what you don’t do.” For example, if you don’t want to have monogrammed cocktail napkins, guests won’t realize you didn’t do it. They will likely not know it was an option. So if you’re stressing about adding bathroom baskets or flip flops for the dance floor, unless you mention that you’re thinking about it – they won’t know to expect it.
Finally, I also recommend having a contingency fund. Just like you would have an emergency fund for life, have one for your wedding. You might realize last-minute you need to add people to the guest list, or your outdoor reception needs a tent because it will rain. You might want to tip some people extra because they went above and beyond to help you. If you don’t end up using it – hooray, but better to be safe than go into debt.
We would like to thank MK for sharing her story and for her time in helping create this post! For more on Your Day By MK, check out their website, follow along on Instagram or send MK a note at: info@yourdaybymk.com
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