Your Guide to Planning a Wedding While Working 9-5

Dec 5

Planning a wedding is no easy task - between touring wedding venues, hiring vendors, dress shopping, and more, it can quickly turn into a full-time job. But what happens when you already have a full time job? Add in errands, chores, etc. and it can easily become extremely overwhelming.

But don’t panic quite yet - if you’re beginning to feel stressed and overwhelmed with planning your wedding, check out these 10 tips and tricks for balancing a 9-5 job and planning a wedding.

Hire a Professional

Even the most meticulous planner can become overwhelmed when trying to plan a wedding around a traditional job. To help alleviate stress, consider hiring a professional wedding planner. They’ll take the bulk of your planning - including the nitty-gritty details - so your wedding to-do list isn’t a mile long at the end of the day.

Designate Planning Time

While a wedding planner will help with the bulk of planning, there are still details that fall on you - including creating your vision board, choosing florals, caterer tasting, etc. Therefore, it’s important to designate planning time during the week or weekend to iron out and finalize those details. Whether you work best batching your wedding planning time or conquering small tasks throughout the week, two to three hours per week will help keep things streamlined and organized.

Stay Organized

Speaking of being organized, juggling a full-time job AND planning a weekend can easily become chaotic. Figure out a system that works best for you - whether that’s Google Drive, a physical notebook, Notion, or something else - will keep you organized AND sane.

Make a Wedding-Specific Email Address

We’re all familiar with the dreaded inbox - we receive hundreds of emails day in and day out, which can mean missing an important wedding-related email. Consider creating a separate email address you’ll use specifically for your wedding. Not only will it help you stay on top of important emails, it will keep your work life separate from your wedding planning! To take it a step further, create folders for each vendor or detail so information is easily accessible when needed.

What Are Your Priorities?

As much as we wish we could, we don’t have unlimited time. Therefore, identify what is truly important to you and your partner and only focus on those details. For example, if you and your partner are foodies but not the biggest sweets fans, focus more on finding your perfect caterer and less on finding the perfect wedding cake. That way, you won’t feel pulled in a million directions when wedding planning!

Cut Down on Research

If making decisions isn’t your strongest suit, this one is going to be tough. As much as we love to find inspiration and gather as much inspo as we can, try limiting your scrolling. Too much time on Pinterest or Instagram can result in decision fatigue and overwhelm! Chances are you already know what you want aesthetically, so trust your instincts!

Limit the DIY

As much as Pinterest and Instagram makes DIY-ing your wedding look fun, try to limit your DIY projects. This is especially important for 9-to5’ers who are already limited in time! We’re not saying stay away from DIY completely, just stick to one or two manageable projects to keeps things from getting out of hand.

Delegate

Delegating tasks is not easy - especially with wedding planning. We often feel we need to be in control of every little detail but the reality is, handling every single aspect on your own with a full-time job is nearly impossible. Trust and lean on your wedding planner to help bring your vision to life and ask friends and family to help with tasks based on their skill set. You’ll be thankful for the extra hands!

Be Held Accountable

At the end of the work day, it can be tempting to skip the wedding planning and leave it until tomorrow. But, tomorrow will come and chances are, you’ll feel the same as you do today. If you find it difficult to stay on task, consider finding an accountability partner! This can be a friend, family member, or even coworker that checks in on you to hold you accountable and keep you from missing those important deadlines.

Change Your Thinking

It’s easy to tell ourselves that we don’t have enough time at the end of the workday. But if you’re constantly telling yourself that, wedding planning will become a dreaded task when it should be fun! If you’re feeling stressed or anxious, remind yourself that you’re planning a celebration to honor the love you have for your partner. Sometimes a quick walk or change of scenery can help shift your perspective and calm that wedding planning stress.

Trust us, we know how difficult it is to plan a wedding. Add in a 9-5 job and it can seem like an impossible task! If (or when) wedding planning seems too overwhelming, refer back to these 10 tips to help!

Chelsea Tirone