They say weddings are a family affair, and no one feels that more than the mother of the bride or groom. While we love the idea of hiring a wedding planner, moms often step into that role — ready or not.
Becky Higgins recently walked this road as a first-time mom of a groom and she shared her top 10 takeaways of the real-life wisdom she learned along the way. This is the mom-to-mom advice every wedding planning parent needs.
1 — ESTABLISH THE BIG PICTURE FIRST. Including the budget + the overall vibe you are trying to achieve with your celebration.
2 — CREATE AN INSPIRATION GATHERING SPOT. This dumping ground would be a shared place for ideas and inspiration for the main people involved . You can establish organizational categories or albums from the beginning, but you also don’t have to worry about that. Just make sure you designate a place to share ideas.
3 — DIVIDE + CONQUER. Once decisions are made about all the different key components to the wedding day, designate a point person for each project or part of the wedding. Unless you are a professional wedding planner, it is unrealistic to expect one person to be able to execute everything. It’s also a lot of fun and very meaningful for multiple people to be involved in this special way.
4 — BRIDE + GROOM INVOLVEMENT. Get clear about how little or how much the bride and groom actually want to be involved. Have a good conversation early on about the types of things they are passionate about or have strong feelings about being involved with, and which things they really just don’t care to personally work on.
5 — TAP INTO EXISTING SKILL SETS + RESOURCES. Identify what is in your wheelhouse, or if you are willing to learn something new, or if it just simply needs to be outsourced. Same with resources. What kind of things are already items that you own, or could borrow?.
6 — APPROACH THIS AS A “SHARED FAMILIAL EXPERIENCE”. Yes, you want the bride and groom to have the day THEY want — AND — it should totally be balanced with considerations that the parents bring to the table (especially if they’re financially contributing) because they will have perspective the couple may not have.
7 — BE PROACTIVE. As much as you can do in advance, do it. Your later self will thank you! For example, why wait to gather addresses until the time that you are sending the announcements? That’s something you can do months in advance.
8 — PHYSICAL ORGANIZATION FOR THE WIN! Have a quick setup window of time for decorating tables? Have everything for each table in its own bin, with a picture of exactly what it’s supposed to look like so that helpers are clear.
9 — PEOPLE OVER PROJECTS. Taking on the planning of a wedding can be all-consuming. Don’t ever let the project itself be more important than the relationships.
10 — PUT THE PHONE AWAY. Consider hiring a personal document for the entire day, someone to capture lots of photo and video with their phone… Someone you can trust to capture lots of details that you would want to capture yourself, but in the spirit of being completely present in the experience, this helps you to not be on your phone all day.
To find more from Becky, find her on Instagram @realbeckyhiggins or beckyhiggins.com
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