How to Plan a Wedding in a Week, Days 1 and 2

Plan a wedding in a week?, you ask. Is it possible?

Yes, my friends, it sure is! How awesome would it be to take a week off work several months before your wedding and plan out your dream day? Then, you can rest easier (weddings are still busy, so I'm sure it's not entirely care-free) knowing that the main stuff is covered.

We did it, and we want to share with you how you can, too! For us, it ended up being a huge blessing and stress-reliever! We got engaged in early August 2010 when I was home in the States for a short break from doing volunteer medical missions work in Haiti. David, my then-amazing-fiance and now-amazing-husband, was preparing to spend 4 months in Costa Rica doing volunteer civil engineering work for a missions organization.

We stumbled upon this revolutionary way of wedding planning when we realized that I would be in the US for just 6 weeks before our Big Day and David for a mere 4 days. If we wanted to plan anything together, we had just 1 week in which to do it.

And let me tell you, a week can be an amazing time frame for planning your wedding!

Disclaimer: We believe that God created the universe and each and every person in it. We believe He has a plan for each one, for his/her good and His own glory. For years, I asked God to be my Match-Maker (and what a phenomenal job He did!). When we got engaged, we started each day of wedding planning asking God to be our Wedding Planner. We highly recommend this method, too! :)

Dream Date to Gather Ideas and Dream about Your Wedding

On Saturday and Sunday of your Week Off For Wedding Planning, start with a great date with your finance. Head out to a cafe, your favorite coffee shop, or (better yet) a cozy bookstore with fun seating.

Discuss the theme that you'd like your wedding to have. Are you thinking intimate garden wedding, blow out beach bash, or a black tie affair? Talk about the details of the wedding that you've always dreamed of. Discuss your budget and the elements of the wedding that are most important to you.

Start keeping a list! There are so many things to remember when planning a wedding, so be sure to record your ideas, dreams, priorities, and checklists all in one place so you can find things when you want and need them!

Once you have an idea of the theme of your special day, it can make it much easier to pick out the details. Knowing that you and sweetie are on the same page is critical so you can craft the wedding (in just a week!) that is just right for you as a couple!

Buy a Wedding Planner Book

In addition to my notebook, I also bought an awesome wedding planner book to keep us straight and make sure I wasn't missing any details! I went with Instant Wedding Planner: Get from 'Will You?' to 'I Do!' in Record Time because of our accelerated time frame. It lets you fill in your own dates while breaking your wedding into bite-sized chunks of things to do. Here's some great wedding planner books to get you started:

The weekend may also be a good time to check out wedding venues. Create a list of the places that you love and that would be a good fit for your theme (and your budget :). Usually, the earlier you are the more places are available.

We got engaged just 4 months before our wedding, so we knew that our options might be a bit more limited. Through some internet research, lots of phone calls, and a couple of field trips, we found just the right venue for our super-fun, super-fancy, 1930s Hollywood-glam style wedding (they had a cancellation for our day right before we called-- again, God is the BEST Wedding Planner! :).

Also consider having a range of dates for your wedding, as that gives you more options for availability. Be sure to ask about Fridays and Sundays, too, for you might get an open venue and a reduction in price!

We recommend that you consider the location of the ceremony and reception as you start to think about themes and colors. It's really fun to coordinate your wedding and its style with the venues you pick. First, it can reduce your decorating cost by working with what you already have. Second, your pictures will look awesome! We had our wedding the week before Christmas, so we saved a bunch on decorating by finding out what would already be at the church and the hotel. The church has vibrant red carpeting, and the hotel has a gorgeous gold mosaic on the wall. We opted for red, gold, and black as our color scheme to coordinate with our venues, and the results were stunning! The pictures turned out great with some many complimentary colors.