A friend of mine recently got engaged.  Although she has nearly a year until the date they’ve set, I’ve encouraged her to start planning her wedding early.  I know from experience how stressful it is to be doing things at the last minute — even when you have a smaller wedding!  Plus, then you run the risk of things going wrong and not getting done on time, or not getting done at all.

The most important things are the things that you HAVE to do early — finding a venue and arranging a catering service.  If you are having a Michigan wedding and you want it to be at a special venue — or have a special theme, such as this Michigan garden railway themed venue, don’t wait to make the  arrangements!  The most popular wedding venues usually book quickly, and you may well need to make your arrangements six months to a year in advance, just to make sure you get the day  you want.

Food is also a concern, not only because you have to book in advance, but because you also need time to decide on the menu you want to offer your guests.  Therefore you need time to meet with the caterer, decide on wha foods you prefer, and hopefully even do test runs to make sure it tastes as good as it sounds.

And of course, your dress really needs to be done in advance.  Few brides can get a wedding dress dress and just wear it as it comes from the factory — most need to have alterations done in order to make it fit right.  After all, you only get this day once (well, hopefully) and the pictures last forever, so you want to look beautiful for them!

These are things that really need to be done early in order to have time to do  them right.  But in addition, there are also tons of other tasks — such as getting invitations ready to send — that will fill up your time in the months before the wedding.  To leave yourself plenty of time to do everything, make sure you plan accordingly — and plan early!

Technorati Tags: alterations, Michigan garden railway, Michigan wedding, planning your wedding, wedding dress