How do you make decisions? From the very beginning of the wedding planning process (or any process for that matter) your decision making style will impact your stress level and your planning success. And as I have discovered, the attitude and time you invest in your choices can make you very happy or very stressed. So the following items are two of the best tips I could offer on how to make decisions as you plan your event, based on my experience so far, and why they will make a difference.
1) Be as decisive as possible. It is in your best interest to make a decision, stick to it and move on. This isn’t to say you should jump into your decisions because of pressure from your planner, fiancé, and/or family. Nor does it mean you should take an apathetic approach to planning. If there are some items, you really don’t know how to decide on – then wait! But, give yourself a time limit to decide; because the longer you belabor over which salad (or soup?!) you should choose as your first course, the less time you have to keep yourself sane. If you are at all like my fiancé and I, you are planning your wedding between working a full-time job and managing the other incidentals that pop-up in a life (like the leak in the basement or several other friends engagements). The longer you take to make decisions, the longer they will be weighing on your mind; and taking up valuable airspace from all of the other aspects of your life that require your attention. According to Jen Sincero, author of You are a Badass, How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life (which is an incredible book btw), “deciding is freedom, indecision is torture.” By making quick and smart decisions you give yourself permission to plan your day in joy, instead of planning each step in misery. The longer you wait to decide on a first course, photo booth or a signature cocktail, the more stress can build up and take away from what you are really doing: getting ready to start the next exciting chapter of your life’s journey.
One thing that can help you make quick decisions is to use your budget as a guide. If you have an unlimited budget, then shoot for the moon! Get the gold flatware to match the gold ombre cake and the fancy cookies with gold foil from the best bakery in Philadelphia. However, if you are on a budget – like me – think about the items you thought were most important when you first started planning so, you don’t get caught up wasting money and time on the minor decisions. For example, if you are debating over a photo booth and you originally picked your venue based on their dance floor and killer menu options, then do you really want to pay money for an item that could take away from those things instead of complimenting them? Plus, that is one more vendor to be concerned about on the day of. Sometimes less really is more. Channel Paul Rudd’s Surfer attitude from Forgetting Sarah Marshall — “do less!” Your body, mind and wallet will thank you for it later.
2) This is equally as important as number 1; make sure you and your beau are on the same page before you make a decision. Matt and I checked some major items off of our wedding to-do list at our wedding-tasting last weekend which required making a lot of decisions about dinner options. And when it came time for us to make those decisions it was very easy because we agreed on what we wanted before we started the tasting: simplicity for ourselves and classically good food. So, we opted for a variety of awesome appetizers like bacon wrapped scallops, which are easy to eat and drink with. And for our main courses we went with a traditional Ceaser Salad and a surf & turf (with filet mignon and Chilean Sea Bass)! Our guests will enjoy a variety of the best the Windrift has to offer and we won’t need to collect a 150+ entree selections from everyone, win-win! Our wedding coordinator even gave us props for how quickly we decided on each item; And we can proudly say we hold the record for quickest course choices at the Windrift!
Despite our success, I can see how these choices can become big hang ups for couples. From yummy classic options like Ceaser salad to creamy lobster bisque and New England clam chowder the range of good options is so large, couples could easily get caught up on trying to please everyone instead of just choosing what they both want or even blow their budget on soup and salad for ALL. Worst-case scenario they could end up alienating each other because of disagreements regarding the decisions they make. That can be a one-way ticket to a tortuous tasting event. Going into the process with a united front made the difference between making decisions that suited us both versus ones, which could cause friction – and misery later on.
One-way to limit the opportunities for a disagreement is to write a pro’s and con’s lists for the choices you think you both might get hung up on. And if you run through each of your pro’s and con’s and still are at an impasse, ask an expert. You are hiring a caterer, florist, event planner, photographer etc. for a reason – they are experts at what they do. So don’t feel obligated to have all of the answers. One of the tried and true ways to lighten your planning load (and life load) is to relinquish some control to those who know best! They may think of options that you both didn’t even know existed. For example, we thought we would need to decorate a wedding arch for our beach wedding and we were concerned about the cost. My florist offered me the option to use two palm trees instead which is perfect, not just because it is cost-effective but, because anyone who knows me, understands that palm trees are one of my all time favorite things (alongside sunsets and fireworks) in life. If we hadn’t listened to her ideas or thought we needed to have all of the answers we may never have come up with the perfect option.
As Alex McClafferty so eloquently states in the Forbes Article, 5 Simple Steps to Improve Your Decision Making, “decision making can be difficult because you become too personally invested in how a decision will make you look and feel.” So making decisions as you plan can be very emotional for you and others involved in the process with you. It can also make each choice seem much more important than it is. If you start to get overwhelmed remember: planning this event is not the end of the world, if anything it is just the beginning of the planning for you an your fiancés future. Have fun and don’t forget why you are doing this all to begin with (and it’s not to go broke and bald from stress). Your wedding is about the love you want to share with all of the people who you love. And if they truly care about you, your linen/floral/food choices won’t matter to them anyway. They will just be excited to spend the day celebrating one of the most amazing gifts life has to offer!