What are your biggest tips for planning a wedding?

Great question — and honestly, the fact that you're already thinking about this before you've booked anything puts you ahead of a lot of couples. Here are the things that made the biggest difference for us, and a few I wish we'd known earlier:

Do these:

Set your budget before you look at anything. It's tempting to browse venues first, but once you fall in love with a place, the budget tends to stretch to fit it. Decide your total number, then work backward into categories. Include a buffer — 10–15% is realistic, because something always comes up.

Agree on your top 3 priorities as a couple. Is it the food? The photos? The music? The venue? When you have to make trade-offs (and you will), knowing what matters most to both of you makes the decisions much faster and less emotional.

Book the big-ticket vendors early. Venue, photographer, caterer, and band/DJ often book 12–18 months out, especially in peak season. Everything else can wait.

Create a shared spreadsheet or doc from day one. Guest list, vendor contacts, payments, deadlines — all in one place. You will thank yourselves later.

Do a first-draft guest list before you pick a venue. The venue has to fit the people, not the other way around. This one trips up a lot of couples.

Avoid these:

Don't try to please everyone. Someone will have an opinion about something — seating, menu, colors, whether you should invite a distant cousin. Hear it, consider it, then decide together as a couple.

Don't skip the timeline. Not just the wedding-day timeline, but the planning timeline. Work backward from the date and set deadlines for each decision. It sounds boring; it saves lives.

Don't over-research. At some point you have to stop reading and start deciding. Comparison is the enemy of getting things done — and there will always be one more option.

Don't forget to plan the marriage, not just the wedding. It sounds cheesy, but it's easy to get so deep into logistics that you forget this is about the two of you. Schedule some no-wedding-talk time.

One thing I wish I'd known earlier: the guest list is the single biggest driver of cost. Every person you add affects catering, seating, invitations, favors, and sometimes the venue itself. Be honest about who you actually want there versus who you feel obligated to invite.

And one final tip: hire a day-of coordinator if your budget allows, even if you plan everything yourselves. Handing off the logistics on the day means you actually get to enjoy it instead of answering questions about where the cake should go.