You’ve said “yes” but now you are feeling stressed!

Planning your perfect wedding has always been a dream. But now that it is here, where do you start?  There are so many appointments to schedule, things to do and decisions to make before the big day, it can get a bit overwhelming. But for a planner girl, scheduling, checklists and planning all the things is a language easy to understand. That’s why we’ve asked Laken Edwards of @planwithlaken for some helpful tips to kick start your wedding planning journey.

Laken is recently engaged (a total planner girl) and living in New York City with her fiancé and adorable cat, Charley.  For her day job, she works in product development at a life insurance company. Outside of work, you can find her at at PlanwithLaken on Instagram and YouTube where she shares content that helps you achieve your goals through planning and organization.

Since getting engaged last October, Laken and her fiancé have toured eight wedding venues out of state, asked twelve amazing people to be a part of their wedding party, and set a date!

Here, Laken shares her top three tips to help you get started with wedding planning:

 You do NOT need all of the wedding planners. I repeat. YOU DO NOT NEED ALL OF THE WEDDING PLANNERS. As a planner girl, it is tempting to buy every paper wedding product that exists. I mean, you’re only going to be doing this once, right? I am completely guilty of getting every paper version of a wedding planner I could get my hands on. Do you know how many of them I’ve actually written in? NONE. Zero. I’ve been using a Google Doc. So before you go out and buy every wedding planner, binder, and notebook, sit down and really think about how you’ll use the products and try to choose one that will really benefit your wedding planning style.

 Create a timeline and stick to it! It is so tempting to start pinning every gorgeous wedding picture you see. I love these centerpieces! This bridesmaids dress is gorgeous! There are so many decisions to be made. Creating a timeline helps you focus on each decision in the appropriate timeframe. For example, over the next few months my priorities are:

Research photographers
Research videographers
Go dress shopping
Set up the website
Finalize guest list
Order save the dates

This may seem like a lot, but when I sit down to work on wedding planning (put this all in your planner), I don’t get distracted with cakes or flowers.  An extra bonus tip – I also color coordinated my timeline to note which items needed other people’s inputs – mainly my fiancé or family.  For example, he doesn’t care about the save the dates; but will definitely be helping when we go do catering tastings. I have also assigned a color for things that need to be done in person. Since we are planning our wedding from a different city, this is incredibly helpful.

 Ask for help! This advice applies to a lot of things, but let’s focus on wedding planning for now. As a type-A planner girl with perfectionist tendencies, this can be difficult. I want to handle every piece of information, every communication, and every detail. Luckily, technology forced me to give up control of something early on, which has allowed me to realize that IT WILL ALL BE OK.

To make a long story short, I recently had to hand over the responsibility of setting up venue tours to my mother, when I realized I would be out of the country without access to email. I gave her the password to our wedding email, the list of venues we wanted to tour, and she did the rest. (THANK YOU MOM!) Of course, she did a great job.  We toured all eight venues in just two days, and everything went smoothly. So, be open to asking your parents, fiancé and bridal party to help you. You don’t have to do this alone!

Planning a wedding can be one of the most exciting and overwhelming times in your life so try to enjoy the moment.  Focus on the aspects of the wedding that are the most important to you and your future spouse!

Happy Planning!