It may seem that life is on a standstill from this pandemic, but our stories in this beautiful world are still continuing. This is just another challenge in that journey. And what do challenges teach us? They teach us how to become stronger. We may be quarantined at home, but that doesn’t mean we can’t work on our careers, our self-care and our relationships. This also means you don’t need to stop planning for your wedding!
If you’re getting married and trying to figure out how to use your extra time in planning your wedding from your couch, we’ve created a list of 10 wedding projects you can complete during quarantine. Many of these projects are completed closer to the wedding date but typically cause the most stress. So why not work on them now to alleviate that stress down the road? In doing so, you can focus on the fun aspects closer to your big day such as your bridal shower and pampering. Trust us, it will pay dividends!
1. Create Your Vision Board
If you’re recently engaged, it doesn’t hurt to begin your vision board. You may not have your decor or floral vendor booked or you simply may not even have your venue booked. But we’re sure you’ve been dreaming about your big day for quite some time and the style, aesthetics and colours are likely not going to change. So, this would be a great time to translate that vision into something tangible.
The first step we tell our clients to take is to not jump straight into pictures. Instead, we walk them through a questionnaire asking a range of questions from describing their favourite restaurant, their relationship and the overall look and feel of their wedding. Thinking of words before jumping into pictures will help you drill down into who you both are as people and how you can represent that best on your big day. A few examples of word answers include adventurous, nature, inclusive, intimate, elegant, minimalistic and warmth.
Once you’ve put together a few words that best describe you and your partner, you can finally begin gathering inspiration images. We recommend looking beyond weddings! Of course you’ve saved images of wedding venues, decor and other ideas from Pinterest and Instagram. However, getting inspiration from travel, clothing, interior design and even the smell of your favourite perfume will help you recreate those images you’ve already saved in your own way.
The final step to creating your wedding vision board would be putting together all of your images. We tell our clients that they can only select 10 images from their gallery that best represent their wedding. Why? Because less is more! You want a design concept, not a design mess. It’s also important to understand that your vision board is not about incorporating every little detail. This comes later in your planning journey. The vision board is about the overall style and design in which your vendors can look at and understand what you’re aiming for immediately. Once our clients have put together their final images, we take their concept and create a storyboard that includes aspects such as your colour palette, linens, furniture rentals, beauty, lighting and much more. If you feel that you’re struggling to put your wedding vision together, contact us and we’ll be more than happy to put together your vision.
2. Create Your Entrance Lists
Right now is the perfect time to work on your ceremony processional. If you know your bridal party, start listing the order. Do you want the groomsmen to enter separately from the bridesmaids? Do you want them to enter together as couples? We also recommend understanding the height difference of your bridal party. You probably want the shortest to walk in first, followed by the tallest to ensure your pictures look good. If you have an uneven number of bridesmaids and groomsmen, that’s totally okay too! Uneven bridal parties are actually becoming very popular. Understand if you’d want two bridesmaids with one groomsmen or the other way around. If you’re not getting married in a religious venue like a Church or Gurudwara, a helpful tip would be to maintain enough space for the aisleway. In this case, we recommend keeping a width of 5 feet. Don’t forget about your reception! Who do you want included in the entrances before your wedding grand entrance? Determine the order for this as well.
3. Select Your Entrance Songs
With wedding entrances, also comes wedding music. Taking the time now to determine your music selection for both the processional, signing of the marriage license, recessional and your reception entrances is going to leave you feeling prepared for when your wedding day rolls around. Typically the chorus of a song is enjoyed most. As a helpful tip, it’s not only important to write down the song name and the artists involved, but also the time in which you want the song to begin. For example, if you want your grand entrance to be loud and entertaining, you will likely want your entrance song to begin at a point where the beat drops.
4. Choose Your First Dance Song & Practice It
Now that you are likely in quarantine with your fiancé, you can come together and decide on your first dance song. It could be as easy as selecting a song for your DJ or band to play or you may want to hire a violinist to play it instrumentally. Think about the environment in which you’ll be in as well. For example, do you want dry ice or sparklers during this time? If so, do you have vendors who would be able to execute this for you? If you don’t, ask your venue’s A/V & lighting team to understand if they provide these types of wedding entertainment services. Once you’ve decided on the song, it doesn’t hurt to practice it! Trust us when we say that many brides and grooms build up nerves for this part of their wedding as there’ll be many eyes on them. Take it a step further and book virtual dance lessons with a local choreographer if you want to incorporate a little something more.
5. Start On Your Reception Playlist
You’ve obviously hired your DJ or band based on the sole fact that you know they will provide some killer entertainment in which you and your guests will enjoy. Creating a reception playlist doesn’t mean you are telling your entertainment vendor what to play when throughout the full evening. It’s simply creating a list of a few songs you know you want to enjoy. Is there a song that you and your partner love to dance to when you hit the town? Is there a song that you and your girlfriends fell in love with during your bachelorette party? If so, note them down! At the same time, it’s equally as important to note down the genre of music or songs you definitely don’t want played.
6. Create Your Photo Shoot List
A wedding photo shoot list is absolutely crucial for your big day. As much as weddings are social and candid, it is an event at the end of the day which means time is involved. You don’t want your wedding running late and a detailed photo shoot list will help with this. Creating a wedding photo shoot list with names of your family members and bridal party is a great way to keep on time and stay organized. Most importantly, it prevents the photographer from having to organize the line and chase after your family for their photos. If you don’t have a planner or coordinator, we highly recommend you appoint someone within the bridal party or family who knows your guests to manage the photo shoot. By no means do we want to rush the photo shoot, we just want to ensure it’s organized, that nobody important is missed and that we’re all still running on time to enjoy a great day!
7. Draft Your Thank You Speech
The thank you speech is often one of the very last projects completed by brides and grooms. Since you have a bit more time on your hands, why not work on a draft now? You can always edit and complete it afterwards, but we would definitely recommend you get started on it now. Oftentimes when it’s completed last-minute, you may tend to forget to incorporate everything you wanted. You don’t want to look back on your wedding day and be reminded of forgetting to thank some people or not getting to say everything you wanted to your partner in front of your guests. Take the time now to develop the outline and add to it as you go.
8. Work on Your Transportation List
If you are renting transportation such as limos for your wedding day, it’s important to create a list of the people who will be traveling in each of those vehicles. We know, there is a list for everything! But trust us when we say lists will help you stay that much more organized and stress-free on the day-of. Be sure to share the transportation lists to those traveling in the wedding limos so they know how their travel plans look like for the day.
9. Work on Your Invitation Wording
Invitation wording can cause a lot of back and forth. Start with a draft of what you know you want to include in the wording. Will you be including your grandparents’ names and your parents’ names? Having a draft prepared will reduce the revisions between you and your stationer. We provide our clients with templates of invitation wording based on different family dynamics and religious aspects of the wedding as well as real examples of invitations. You can also find a lot of information on this online. Most importantly, your stationer is your resource if you have any questions.
10. Create a Wedding Website
If your wedding has been postponed and you need an instant way of updating your guests about your changes or if you’re a couple who has always wanted to create a wedding website but never got around to it, then we highly recommend you use this time to create one! There are many tools online that can help you get started. For example, The Knot, Wedding Wire and Zola are a few great resources where you can create your wedding website. If you feel overwhelmed about making one or feel that you don’t have the skillset to do so, contact us as we provide wedding website resources. We always recommend that our clients create a wedding website as it acts as a resource for many things: informing your guests on wedding details such as directions to your venue, receiving RSVPs from your guests and later uploading all of your wedding pictures for your guests to view. Trust us, you don’t want hundreds of messages from various guests asking where and how they can access the pictures from your wedding!
We hope we’ve provided you with a few suggestions on how you can keep busy during this time but also stay productive with planning your wedding in quarantine. In the meantime, please stay safe and healthy. There is light at the end of the tunnel. We will come out of this stronger than before and we will be celebrating louder than ever before!
