Wedding Tip of the Week #1: Enjoying your Engagement

An engagement is an exciting time; there are congratulatory hugs, kisses, champagne, and… advice.  Some will be helpful, some unsolicited, and come conflicting.  Town & Gown’s Wedding Tip of the Week will be a place to come for helpful advice for all of you busy brides-to-be.  It will cover a variety of wedding related topics based on my recent wedding planning experience and I hope that you will comment and share yours too! 

Today’s advice comes from  NYC event planner Karen Bussen’s Simple Stunning Bride (which my first tip for newly engaged gals would be to read this book!) and is based on her “Simple Stunning Seven” – her first bit of advice for the newly engaged, with a few supplemental thoughts from yours truly.

1) Get in touch with your own style No matter where you are getting married adding meaningful accents and details to your wedding is a way to personalize the big day. (Also keep in mind that this may or may not be your day-to-day style.)

2) Take time to be inspired Don’t rush into any wedding related decisions and trust your instinct. Inspiration can be found all around you – in your daily life and through other weddings (check out wedding blogs for new ideas!)

3)  Don't try this alone Surround yourself with people you trust and who understand your wedding day vision and assign specific tasks with instructions to others who really want to help but may not naturally jive with your style.

4) Remember, your wedding lasts for a day (ok, maybe a weekend) – your marriage is forever Becoming enthralled with the wedding planning is easy, but try very hard to take time out and spend time with your fiance NOT talking about the wedding.

5) Slow down and enjoy your engagement It flies by and only happens once so yes – enjoy it.  Have an engagement party, throw a BBQ for your wedding party, celebrate as much as possible! 

6) Take the opportunity to pamper yourself (Most) every girl looks forward to her time to be a bride but the time leading up to the big day is your special time too - make the most of your entire engagement season.

7) Love out loud It is truly a wonderful thing to feel the love and support of your friends and family – something the wedding process will brings out more than you can imagine. Enjoy that, love back, and make sure you thank them (especially love and appreciate your fiancé, who will undoubtedly be sick of hearing you agonize over millions of little details which he cannot even conceptualize but support you and love you anyway.)

Newly married or engaged?  Share your news in the Announcements!

Author Erin Ethier is a shoreline CT resident who writes a daily wedding blog Sparkle & Hay: Inspirations for a Rustic Chic Wedding.