Wedding Wednesday- Wedding Planning Update

Hey everyone! As I plan my wedding, I've decided to do an update each month of where I stand. Hopefully this will be helpful to you guys as you plan your own weddings. I'll say this- wedding planning is hard! There are so many variables and opinions and just when you think you know what you want or other people want, a wrench gets thrown in and you get all confused again. The advice I've been getting so far is to do only what you want and not listen to what anyone else says. So that's my focus for right now!

Accomplishments:

Engagement party has been planned and is now complete! It was so much fun to plan and do. You can see the post here and how I planned it here.

Engagement photo shoot- complete! I didn't really plan to do one of these, but a few people on Facebook did one and they looked like fun. Plus we hired a photographer for the engagement party so we wrapped it up in that. Hopefully we'll get the photos back soon!

Wedding dress shopping was attempted. I found some really great ones and I thought I found "the one", but I was afraid it might be a little much. Seeing my MIL and sister's faces kinda cemented that fear for me, so that was a HUGE bummer. Like, I could cry tears of stress bummer. I've bounced back though and I'm so excited to try on more pretty dresses and find the real "one"! (Update: it was this one, and I loved the one I chose in the end SO much better!)

Needs to get done:

Wedding venue needs to be booked! This is priority #1 for me. Picking a venue has been really, really hard! Between budget restrictions and differing opinions, finding a venue has been an uphill battle. They say that if you can have a short engagement, you should and I'm starting to understand why! Now that we are seemingly running out of time, I think that we will be more motivated to make the tough decisions. Even just narrowing down a geographical location would help! My wedding is about a year away and I have no idea exactly where or when it'll be. This is a huge stress factor but I plan to at least have solid options, if not a decision, at the end of this month.

To bridesmaid or not to bridesmaid? I'm currently conflicted between having bridesmaids or only having my sister up there with me. Several people have suggested just keeping my sister, which is probably the route I will take to avoid added stress, but it seems so odd not to have my girls with me.

Save the dates and wedding invitations need to be planned out. I'm thinking of having my sister create these for me, so I need to get her some inspiration so she can start working on it. I want them to be ready to go for when we finally pick a venue!

Such a long list of things to do, and although it feels like I have loads of time, I know it'll creep up on me! What's on your wedding to-do list?