Set a time for planning

Although planning the wedding is fun and exciting, you shouldn’t let it take your whole life while it’s happening. By setting specific times of the week for wedding planning, bot you and your fiancé will know when to talk about it, and that way, your dates don’t become wedding planning sessions. Remember to always take care of your relationship.
The “My ideal week schedule” page on the Goal Digger Planner can help you set your week with chunks of time for wedding planning, dates, work, and even vendors meetings if you have specific time on the week that would be ideal. That way, when you call a vendor, you can try to schedule that specific time.

Break it down

The idea of planning the biggest day of your life, where you will feed and entertain dozens of people, while wearing the most luxurious and expensive dress you’ve ever worn and committing for life to the man of your dreams sounds almost impossible to plan out. That’s why breaking the big day into mini goals sounds more doable. Based on your timeline, you will know what you should be doing 8-12, 6-8, 4-5 months before the wedding and so forth. While you can find that in your wedding book, it’s extremely important that you break it down in your daily planner.
The Goal Digger Planner has a space to write monthly mini goals and that is a great space to mark down the big things you should have done by that month.

I.e.: Your wedding is November 12, 2016, you better mark in big words that a major May goal is to order your dress.

Money countdown

No doubt about it, planning a wedding can get pretty expensive. So unless you two have been smart enough that you already have plenty of savings, or have a set of parents that will foot the whole bill, you might need a savings plan to get this all done.
One of the best ways to keep you accountable is to have realistic and specific money goals.
At the beginning of each week, write down how much you will save. To keep you inspired you can start a countdown to you goal. Seeing the number growing definitely keeps you inspired, and that is the way to start a Monday. At least I would be inspired!

The obvious

Of course, a weekly planner also serves as a personal assistant. Make sure to write down all your meetings and to do’s. Having posts its all over can be overwhelming, and you can easily miss an important meeting that might be hard to reschedule if your vendors are busy. Adding payments due-dates and important calls to make, will avoid rushing last minute.

Custom wedding stationery | Cinnamon Wolfe Photography | North NJ Wedding Photographer

By Lauren and Chelsea

You’ve saved the date, secured the venue, and booked the photographer…so what’s next? Time to start thinking about your wedding stationery! With endless options for the design, finishes, and day of pieces, it may be a bit overwhelming, but we’re here to help!

We are Lauren Reed of Darling+Pearl, and Chelsea Burkholder of Chelsea B. Design Studio, and we are passionate about helping you brand your wedding day through your wedding stationery. Everyone has a unique aesthetic and it is our job to create one-of-a-kind pieces that perfectly represent you and your fiancé.

Process

Getting married and designing wedding invitations is not a normal, everyday thing to understand. A lot of our inquiries start with “what’s your process”, so, to give you a better understanding of what to expect, let me break down the process a bit for you in seven easy steps.

Step 1

You find us and start the conversation! Easy enough.

Step 2

We answer your questions, and send you a basic estimate without getting too in depth. We will give you a general overview of our services, but may not get super specific with your project, unless otherwise asked.

Step 3

It’s a match! You like what we have to offer, and we can provide you with your ideal dream wedding invitations. Now’s the time for you to deposit your money, and send us your design inspiration and Pinterest boards! We will discuss wants, needs, likes, and dislikes.

Step 4

We design those beautiful invitations and send them to you for approval.

Step 5

Revisions, edits, and proofreading! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make sure everything is spelled correctly, and all the dates and locations are correct.

Insider tip: Read the invitations backwards! When reading from right to left, bottom to top, your brain is forced to process each word individually rather than gloss over the sentence as a whole. ALSO, have a third party look over them with fresh eye, and then proof read it one more time!

Step 6

Once all the revisions are made and the invitations are all prettied up, it’s time for you to make that final payment. This is our kick off to print!

Step 7

We print and ship and get them into your hands! I told you it was easy!

Timeline

Now that you know everything that has to happen once you book with us, here’s a quick little timeline to sum it all up. Just refer back to this throughout the wedding planning process to keep you on track. Once your designer is hired, they will take care of this for you...so you can just take that off of your to-do list!

Printing Options

There are two main options when it comes to printing wedding invitations: flat and letterpress. There are pros and cons to both, it’s just a matter of deciding which is the best for you!

Flat Printing

This is the least expensive option of the two. The actual printing process is much more automated, so it is generally quicker and requires less manual labor overall. Because of this, it is your best option for a short timeline.

There is a lot of flexibility with flat printing, and it offers an unlimited number of colors. This means you can include photo quality images on both sides of the card if you wanted to, (though I don’t necessarily recommend it).

Letterpress

Aaaaaah, letterpress. This is a traditional artform that started in the early 19th century, and printers today still use a lot of the original machinery. This caste iron machinery creates a premium and luxurious tactile quality to the prints as a slight deboss effect is created where the machine hits the paper. Because of this printing technique, there are thicker paper stock options that are available to add variety to your pieces.

Each piece is hand crafted, and ink is added to the machine one color at a time. Because of this process, more colors = more money. Is it worth it? Yes! Letterpress printed invitations are just straight up PRETTY!

Want to save some money?

We get it. Sometimes you just can’t spend the money. However, there are still some ways to be cost effective and still get that custom look and feel that you’ve been drooling over.

You can combine information onto a fewer number of pieces. Limiting the enclosures will save you money in materials and design/printing time. You can then direct your guests to a website for the additional information. Just remember, if you are including a website on your invitations, please consider purchasing a simplified domain name instead of the length URL’s that are given to you. Instead of www.theknot.com/couples/tim-ashley/everythingintheworld, you can instead purchase timlovesashley.com (or .info) for a much easier to remember site. It’s much more visually appealing on an invitation as well...just saying...

Another way to save that mulah is to use a postcard for the response card. This will save you money on envelopes!

Lastly, consider ordering these items at the same time: save the dates, invites, and thanks you cards. This will save consultation time, money at press or when printing, and all ideas will be hashed out with your designer to provide a cohesive feel throughout.

What was that? You want more? Well we’ve got MORE!

>>> Click HERE for our FREE BONUS MATERIAL and Top 5 Tips! <<<

Chelsea B. is a stationery designer out of Princeton, New Jersey, and her passion is to brand weddings with a feminine touch and a pop of color. After planning her own wedding just over a year ago, she can understand her clients on every level, and will make the wedding invitation process as fun and carefree as possible so you can go ahead and enjoy being engaged! (which also means more time for showing off that bling!)

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