Stressed About Wedding Planning? Use Common Business Techniques for Maximum Success and Minimum Stress!  

When you’re attending a wedding, it’s a whirlwind of champagne and dancing and romance. But when you’re planning a wedding, it’s a hurricane of budget nightmares and family drama and guests who can’t seem to RSVP on time. In short, wedding planning can feel like a full-time job. But you don’t need to sacrifice your career in order to pull off a successful wedding. In fact, if you apply some classic management principles you already practice in the office to your wedding planning strategy, you can make the whole process easier, and maybe even simultaneously get better at your job (practice makes perfect!).

Recruit Wisely
A good manager can be judged by the success of her team, so it’s no wonder that recruiting is such an important skill. Likewise, when you’re planning a wedding, your vendors and wedding party make all the difference in your stress levels. So choose wisely! Work with vendors who have solid reputations, strong recommendations from past clients, and who you feel understand your wants and needs. Also, when it comes to choosing a bridal party, be realistic about how much you actually expect each person to do before and during your wedding, and make sure they understand their responsibilities.

Wedding Planner Wisdom: Take the time to step back and assess your “co-workers” before getting started to ensure everybody’s on the same page and working towards the goal of a beautiful, memorable wedding.

Learn to Delegate
Managers don’t do everything themselves, and neither should you when you’re planning your wedding. Even if you have a very specific vision for every aspect of your wedding (and a carefully curated Pinterest board to match), you shouldn’t do everything yourself. So:

• If you have crafty friends, invite them over to help with DIY projects and custom made your own wedding gown online through  jojobride(you can always bribe them with wine).
• If your mom insisted on inviting an extra fifty people to the wedding, task her with deciding where they fit into the seating chart.

Wedding Planner Wisdom: Think of yourself as the project manager, not the wedding planning intern. 

Play to Strengths
A good manager assigns team roles to individuals based on their past successes. You should do the same thing when friends and family offer to help with various aspects of your wedding. The assistance can be a blessing (and a serious budget-saver)…but if not planned well, it can also be a curse. So match responsibilities to personalities and abilities. Don’t ask your shyest friend to warm up the dance floor or schedule your girlfriend who is always half an hour late to be first in line to get makeup and hair done.

Wedding Planner Wisdom: If you ask people to do things that they are already good at, you’ll all be happier and way less stressed.

Embrace Technology
Nobody runs a team without a suite of software, gadgets, and apps to help them stay organized. And technology can make your life easier throughout the wedding planning process, too. So use tools like VenMo to manage expenses and make payments, Weddington Way to dress your bridal party even when they live across the country, Zola to build a custom registry, and Joy to create your wedding website, manage your guest list, and collect guest photos.

Wedding Planner Wisdom: To trim your wedding to-do list, use the time-saving godsend of the web.

Always Negotiate
If you’re a working woman, you should already know the importance of negotiating your salary. Carry those lessons into your wedding planning as well. Don’t be afraid to speak frankly about prices, and ask for discounts — especially if you’re planning an off-season wedding — or to have a few extra services thrown in. Good wedding vendors want to make you happy (i.e. so you’ll refer other clients their way). After all, the worst they can do is say no.

Treat your wedding just as you would any other work challenge, and you might just find out that you get more done in less time with less stress than you ever imagined. Just act like a boss (the organized, people-smart kind) right from the beginning, and later on, you won’t have to boss people around.  And in the end, remember that on your wedding day, it’s okay to let things be a little bit all about you!  So take a deep breath, speak your mind, and then go enjoy your day.