So, my guess is that if you clicked on this, you just recently got engaged, or perhaps you anticipate that you will be engaged soon! If this is you, congratulations! I can’t begin to convey how excited I am for you! Seriously, I absolutely love seeing all the new engagements popping up on my feeds and I’m sending you virtual hugs and cheers! Now, maybe you were like me and you knew you were getting engaged soon and you have a limited time frame as to when the big day can be. Maybe, you were completely surprised by your engagement, so you have no ideas yet for planning because you thought for sure you had another six months or more before this would happen, or maybe you just have absolutely no idea how to start this complex planning process!

If any of these sound about right, then this blog series is for you. I will be working through a weekly series of things I wish I knew when I was planning my own wedding to provide some insight, encouragement, and a sense of direction for those of you who don’t necessarily have every detail figured out!

For today’s post, I will first describe a little backstory of my own engagement process and then give you the one largest piece of advice that I realized quickly into the planning process that you need to keep in the front of your mind at all times!

For all my new friends out there reading this, welcome! To give a quick background of our engagement- it goes a little something like this. We had been dating for what seemed like forever (around seven years) because we were high school sweethearts! Yes, cue the “awwws” lol. Brett was in medical school (still is, but the light at the end of the tunnel is quickly approaching) and we knew that the only large amount of time he would have off for the next four years would be the summer before his third year of medical school. I would be finishing up my student teaching that spring and then we would either have to have our wedding that June or basically, wait for another three years. So to say we had a bit of a time crunch was an understatement! So flashback to the summer before, I was beginning to get nervous as June and July passed by because the one year time frame for an engagement to plan this crazy thing was gone, but thankfully Brett proposed in August! It was super sweet and very exciting, but because of our time crunch, I felt like I immediately had to go into planning mode.

I am here to tell you, that you DO NOT have to do that, so long as you have a few key ideas set that you are ready to move forward with!

My first piece of advice and thing I wish I knew, is that the absolute most important part about your wedding is that it is the START of your MARRIAGE! It isn’t the marriage itself! So make sure that when you plan your wedding, you keep that in mind at all times! It is absolutely a ton of fun to plan the little details (especially the cake, am I right?) but, it is also equally easy to get lost in it all and forget about why you are getting married in the first place!

So assuming that you have roughly a one year time frame to plan your wedding, enjoy the first week as an engaged couple before you dive right into planning! Your marriage will be much better for it and you will enjoy the process!

Next week, I will outline the most important things to plan first!

Here are some lovely engagement rings to swoon over! Including my own that I’m a little partial to 🙂

Enjoy my friends!