I want to just hop into it and give you the helpful tips & tools I’ve learned but let me give you a little background first.

I got engaged in May 2021 and am planning a Spring 2023 wedding. My fiance and I took our time to enjoy being engaged (it’s literally been my favorite!) and because we were set on a Disney Cruise Wedding for so long and just waiting and waiting for dates to become available, and for our guests to be comfortable, the Disney magic seemed to be fading and we felt it was time to set sail without that dream and just start a new one. So we did, so here we go!

Enter Destination Wedding: Vegas. It’s not an elopement, just a rather intimate, yet grand wedding in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Update! After writing this blog, we finalized our wedding ceremony & reception site the week after writing this. We will be holding the ceremony at the Bellagio Resort & our reception at Sunset Gardens.

Now, if I’ve learned anything about wedding planning, it’s that it’s a masculine energy thing and it is EXTREMELY addicting. 

Although I wanted an all-inclusive style wedding, I have found the venue searching, and planner searching game to be extensive. Because I want a wedding that is intimate but grand, non-traditional but memorable for our guests, AND destination, I had found myself planning 7 different wedding scenarios. Let’s just say at this point, my fiance is just going to have to be surprised at which wedding option I choose to go with. 

Since I consider myself a DIY bride, type A bride, and whatever else means that I like to do deep research just so I make the perfect selection, I figured I’m the person to tell you what I’ve found to keep me slightly sane, and what I’ve found to not serve me. 

What’s been helpful:

1. Flutter Social – thank goodness for this service. I will rave about this company because not only do they have a 24/7 FB support group for brides going through the planning woes, but also they have a whole gallery of resources to help you keep your wedding planning organized. I’m talking spreadsheets galore, email templates to send out to vendors, & so much more. Their Getting Started packet has helped my fiance & I narrow down the vision of our wedding so that any choices we make we know that it’s because we are staying aligned with the vision.
2. Miss to Mrs. Box Subscription- Thank goodness for this little slice of joy that has started arriving at my front doorstep because it reminds me there’s the little girl inside me that is ecstatic to plan her dream wedding. This company also has a special with FlutterSocial (how I discovered them) and Miss to Mrs also gives you access to a Name Changing Kit once you’re all done & married. Check out their site here for your first box FREE.
3. BRIDES blog- I’ve had a few questions pop up that I would ask Google, and BRIDES blog always came through with the best answers & resources to questions I didn’t know I had.
4. Lastly, based on what my fiance & I found to be important to us via the FlutterSocial sheet, I was able to start painting a picture in my head of how I wanted the day to flow and what the vibe of the wedding was. I basically set the scene for how the wedding would look and flow so that any options that came up, I could see if it fit that vision or not, so it’d be easy to make a decision.

Tips on how not to plan your wedding:

1. Staying up late googling every question that popped into my had and going down that rabbit hole of articles on if it’s okay to elope or not. Seriously, just write down in your little bridey notebook the questions that pop into your head in the late hours of the night and just get some rest. Chances are you actually don’t even care in what order your bridesmaids walk down the aisle. Again, remember the things that matter most to you, and let the small details fall into place, or pass it along to your planner or MOH. I found running across my crazy ideas with my MOH was actually a great idea to have her confirm that what I was planning was fitting for me or not.
2. Researching more venue options after you already know what you really want to do. This was an overwhlemingly bad idea. For me this was because I want to make things really easy on my guests, but really it’s an underlying people-pleasing trait I have and that ultimately people travel all over for weddings every weekend, and if they really can’t make it, we can broadcast the wedding to them. Problem solved!

After about 2 solid weeks of wedding planning, I could see how if I was having to find a different vendor for each element of my wedding, I would never even notice my fiance was in the room. So my final piece of advice? Do remember your partner exists and to show them love! Because this is forever after all.

Cheers! Chelsea