10 expert tips for planning your wedding to perfection

Who doesn’t love the glitz and glamour of an Indian wedding? The shine, the grandeur and the splendour – the whole wedding scene looks extra-ordinarily showy that turns the entire venue into a dreamy fairyland. But all those shine and glitter do not come easy. A lot of planning goes behind the scene for months in advance to get that desired output and make things look exceptional. From the venue, location and theme to décor, food and dress – an Indian wedding is a grand display of a combination of exotic ideas. While it is seemingly easy for event planners to arrange everything step by step, the same tasks become challenging if you are planning your wedding all by yourself. There are many aspects to a successful wedding that may seem overwhelming at times, but with this article in hand, you can make each part of it correctly fall in place. The article provides you with ten tried and tested expert tips that are proven to plan a wedding to perfection. So, follow these hacks mentioned below to plan for the biggest day in your life.

Proven tips to plan a fabulous Indian WeddingPrepare a timeline

Every task seems daunting at the beginning. But things look much simplified when they are divided into smaller tasks. For an event like a wedding, it is important to understand the time required to perform each of these tasks. That’s why preparing a timeline for the event is so crucial. So, instead of being overwhelmed by the enormity of the overall task to be performed, divide the whole event into multiple smaller tasks like booking a venue, hiring a caterer, hiring a photographer, etc. Then set an approximate timeline against each of these items. These are roughly the time you may need to complete these tasks. Don’t create overlapping schedules. Accommodate your daily routine into the timeline so that you don’t miss out on your regular gym or club sessions or you don’t end up hampering your work. Once you prepare this timeline, the rest of your wedding planning would be accomplished smoothly without any hassle.

Estimate the size of the guest list

Estimate the average size of your guest list by noting down the names of your planned invitees. If you are not sure about how many people you are going to invite, you won’t be able to choose a venue, nor would you be able to chalk out a budget for the entire wedding. So, prepare your guest list to see a clearer picture and plan accordingly.

Choose your venue wisely

One of the most important factors in a wedding after the budget is the venue. Therefore, a lot of thought should be invested in choosing the right venue for the event that perfectly matches both your desires and needs. Several factors need to be considered before choosing your dream wedding venue like the size of the wedding (number of guests to be invited), the location of the wedding, wedding dates, the budget, the theme of the wedding, etc. All these factors collectively decide what kind of venue you need for your wedding – a banquet hall, a farmhouse, an outstation resort or a luxury villa. If you are from Delhi NCR, you can find hundreds of banquet halls in Punjabi Bagh come with beautiful outdoor lawns of different sizes. So, depending on your theme and other preferences, you can select the venue that fits your budget.

Know your venue well

Let’s say you have considered all the factors mentioned above for choosing the venue and have booked the one you thought would be perfect either by sending someone with the check or by paying online after looking at the photographs of the venue from its website. And you decided on the theme without even physically visiting the place. Let us warn you that this could be a sure-shot recipe for disaster. No matter how many pictures you look at or how lengthy descriptions you read about the venue on the internet, physically visiting the place is very very important to get a first-hand understanding of the ground reality. So, once you have narrowed down your venue search, schedule physical visits to all the shortlisted venues. Check with your own eyes whether what they are promising is true or not. However, you would never know about the quality of services they actually provide until the day of your wedding or reception. For that read as many Google reviews as possible about your shortlisted venues.

Plan your own wedding

Barring a few exceptions, you would, most probably, marry only once in your life. So, plan your wedding as per your own wishes, tastes and preferences. And the word, you, here means you two as a couple. Of course, your parents or grandparents might have had a few dreams and plans about your wedding day since you have been a child. There is no problem with that. Respect their wishes too. But make sure at the same time that there aren’t many such wishes to consider while you plan for your wedding. You know the old proverb. Too many ideas can ultimately spoil your wedding. Listen to the ideas of your parents and relatives, but add only those to your wedding that don’t disrupt your own plans. Balancing is the art you need to learn and practice here.

Find your must-haves as a couple and drop less-important things off the list

Decide your wedding must-haves as a couple. It could be a well-choreographed couple's dance session at your reception or a particular food that you both like. Note these important things down and add them to the reminder list on your phone so that you don’t forget to incorporate them into your wedding. At the same time, keep a watch on the less-important things and strike them off your final to-do list as the day of your wedding comes near.

Check out on your vendors’ capabilities and verify their credibility

The caterer, the florist or the wedding photographer you have decided to hand over your wedding contract to might have been referred by someone very close to you or might be a big name in your local area, but it is important to check out whether he is capable of delivering what you exactly want. A good way to verify that is to check out his Instagram and Facebook profiles. Looking at his posts you would have a good idea about the quality of work he delivers to his clients, his capabilities and his shortcomings. Having a robust social media presence also indicates that the vendor cares about upgrading his skills and his equipment.

Read the contracts. Beware of hidden charges

Things look rosy only when you do your homework right. Don’t let an unheeded fine print spoil your wedding day. For the vendors, it’s just another wedding, but for you, it might be the only event in your family in a while and might be the last in years to come. So, always read the fine print before signing any contract with any of the vendors. It would be better not to sign them upfront. Tell them to leave the contract papers with you overnight. Go through them carefully with a cool head at night and sign them the next day.

Do some reconnaissance on your caterer

Food and fun are two of the most important reasons why your guests attend your wedding. The impact of food on successful wedding planning should never be underestimated. So, the caterer you have chosen might have an impressive portfolio or have superb customer testimonials showcased on his social media handles, but it would still be better to do a reconnaissance on him by visiting a live event he is catering for. You can either take permission from your caterer to enter someone else’s wedding and taste different food items prepared by his chefs or you can sneak into the party without notice and taste a few items. The idea is to check whether your chosen caterer delivers what he promises.

Accept that not everything would go according to plan

Accept this reality. The quicker this fact dons upon you the better. No matter how much you plan a particular thing about your wedding, things can go horribly wrong anytime even when you didn’t anticipate them at all. The reason being there are so many different groups of people involved in the whole process. Therefore, it is impossible to make them all work according to your plan with pinpoint precision. There is nothing called a perfectly executed wedding. Trust us, there never was. So, keep your cool, meditate and prepare yourself to stay calm on D-day even if something goes not as per your plans.

Conclusion

Your wedding is the biggest event in your life. Irrespective of the nature of the contract you sign with your vendors, you have to plan each and every part of it to rule out any shocking wedding day disaster. This article provides useful tips for wedding planning in an Indian context so that you can plan and execute things systematically for a hassle-free wedding. Not every product or service comes with a warning. This article aims to guide you through the steps, increase your awareness about the particulars and make you knowledgeable of the nooks and crannies of wedding planning. Therefore, go through this article to improve your understanding of the wedding planning process. However, don’t lose sight of the bigger perspective. Planning is necessary for an event like a wedding but enjoying the process is essential. So, don’t take the stress. Focus on the goal, but enjoy your journey at the same time.