Apply project management tricks to your wedding planning
Wedding planning is the classic project management challenge. Before you react — we’re not saying that’s all it is! However, you can’t ignore the fact that it consists of tasks that are blockers to other tasks, and of components that you can do in parallel with each other. You also cannot ignore there is an efficient way to manage your wedding planning project that’ll reduce stress, reduce delay, and ensure your dream wedding :)
To successfully manage this project, you must first figure out the exhaustive list of tasks. Then you should determine the dependencies of each task — aka, what does this task depend on, and what does it affect. Based on this exploration, you can figure out what order to do the tasks in. Lucky for you, we’ve done weddings a bunch of times, and are sharing our industry learnings below.
We’re starting this article series with Phase 1 of wedding planning.
Phase 1
Budget
Depends on the couple. Affects all other tasks.
Every single task in your wedding checklist is affected by your budget. This means, don’t plan other parts of your wedding until you and your partner have settled on a budget, written it down, and committed to it. Yes, it will be an underestimate. No, it will not erase the magic and wonder of wedding planning. Actually, it will provide a concrete constraint that makes it easier to make decisions between vendors.
Decide this first. Base it off of the goals you and your partner have together — do you want to buy a house? Take an amazing honeymoon trip around the world? Are you well off already and can afford to splurge? Then, you’ll be ready to tackle the rest of the tasks in your planning checklist with peace of mind.
Location
Depends on budget, guest count, couple style. Affects guest count, venue, schedule, caterer, drinks, party rentals, lodging, photographer, music, decorations.
By location, we mean the venue. This affects the remainder of your wedding planning. As an example — your location will affect whether you can bring in an outside caterer, bring your own alcohol, whether you have to rent tables, chairs, linens, whether there will be enough hotel lodging for your guests, whether you can play music until 2am like you wanted to. Since your venue impacts the rest of your planning significant, it’s important to ask detailed questions when browsing, and read into the fine print. Of course, Honeydew does this for you.
If you need help deciding between a destination wedding and a local wedding, see our article here.
Location and guest count are interdependent —if as a couple you decide that the look, feel, and experience of your wedding is higher priority than having all your cousins, family friends, and dad’s coworkers on the guest list, then you should definitely choose location first. If that’s not the case, work backwards from the guest count before choosing your location.
Guest Count
Depends on budget, location. Affects venue, caterer, drinks, party rentals, lodging, music, transportation
Notice first that guest count depends on budget. It’s very tempting to list out your ideal guest list first, then pray that this will fit into the budget you agree on later. However, this is a plan for disappointment. There is data for the average cost per guest in every city in the States. For example, say you set your budget at $35,000 and you live in San Francisco. In this case, we recommend you have 125 guests at your wedding, so you don’t go over budget.
If you prioritized location before guest count, then the capacity of your venue will also affect the number of guests you can invite.
If you prioritized guest count over location, then after you decide your approximate guest list, make sure to ask all the venues you’re browsing for their seated capacity, standing capacity, and seated capacity if there’s a dance floor.
Of course, guest count will affect the amount of food and drink you pay for, and the number of tables/chairs/linens/napkins/china that you need to rent. It also surprisingly affects the audio/visual setup you need, the number of nearby hotels that you want in the area, and how you will transport guests (if you decide to.)
This is Phase 1 of your planning. See the checklist below for the rest of your wedding planning tasks.
Want more tools and help for your wedding planning? Follow us on Instagram , or contact us on our site.
Subscribe to our mailing list if you want wedding planning tips straight to your inbox.
