Once the butterflies and excitement have quieted down after your engagement, you’ll be hit by the sudden realisation that, oh gosh, there’s a wedding to plan – and boy oh boy, are there a lot of details to take care of! Like your eventual marriage, the planning will work best when things are equal, and when both bride and groom share the responsibilities of a day that will launch you into the rest of your life. Below, we take a look at how you can ensure this happens, all the while guaranteeing that your special day is just as magical as you hoped it would be.

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The List

Before you start handing out assignments to your partner, it’s important that you both sit down and write a list to determine what exactly has to be arranged before the big day. It’ll hopefully be no shock that there is a lot to take care of, but even if you’re expecting a heavy workload, you’ll be surprised at just how many little things have to be sorted before you can start looking forward to the event.

Your Skills

With your list by your side, it’s time to take a look and see what tasks are naturally suitable for each person in the relationship. If you’re a queen of talking to people, then it’d make sense that you would be in charge of chatting with the florists, caterers, and so on. If your partner to be is a boffin at spreadsheets and organisation, then leave all the tasks with nitty gritty numbers and the like to them. Things will run much more smoothly if the person in charge of a specific task has the natural skills to organise them without a hitch.

…But What Do You Care About?

That being said, not every surrounding your wedding will be a chore. Some will be fun, and it’s understandable that you’d want to be involved in those details, even if your partner has m0re of a claim to be suited to it. If you really care about one aspect of the wedding, then pipe up – we’re sure your fiance will be happy to let you have it. If they’re not, it might be time to think twice whether you want the day to go ahead (just kidding…)!

What You Can Live Without

The wedding, again much like the marriage, will be a question of compromise. You can’t always get everything you want, and if something is vitally important to your partner, the best solution might be just to let them get their way, especially if it’s something that doesn’t overall concern you. There’s no point trying to agree on the wedding DJ if your fiance is a music fanatic and you’re happy dancing the night away regardless of what music is playing.

The All Important Wedding Guest List

There’s one area of the wedding that simply can’t be left to one person: the guest list. Of course, you can both a long list of the people you would like (or think you should) invite, but in reality,

there will be practical limitations, both spatially and financially, regarding how many people you can have at your wedding. This might be the real first test of the wedding, as it’s not easy telling your fiance they might have to cut their great uncle Joe because the budget is taking a beating. Handle this one carefully.

Joint Decisions

Some issues can be organised separately, and some can be organised through compromise. Others, however, should be made jointly. This is, after all, a day when you’ll become a union, so it makes sense that there’ll be aspects of the wedding that you both contributed to! You should pick your wedding invites together, as this will be the first thing that any of your guests see from the two of you. Also, the big factors, the ones that you couldn’t possibly be ambivalent about – the venue, date, and so on – need to be made together.

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Travelling and Reporting Back

There’s a lot of decisions to be made, but actually, a large portion of organising a wedding will be deciding what you don’t want. You should both be doing to things like tasting the samples of various caterers, but other things, like meeting with photographers, florists, and transport companies can be done individually. As this can be a slog, it’s best not to overthink the approach: simply draw a line down the middle of the tasks that require travelling; one person takes one side, the other person takes the other.

Roping In Friends and Family

With all the will in the world, you won’t be able to organise every last detail just as a couple. You have regular lives as well, remember! However, if you ask nicely (and maybe buy them a beer for their efforts), then you might be able to rope in friends and family to help out where they can. All the big things will be taken care of, but stuff like picking up supplies, taking a tie to be cleaned, and other non-taxing but essential duties can be passed off.

A Helping Hand/Watchful Eye

Even if you’ve handed off some of the responsibilities to your partner, you’ll still want to make sure that you’re keeping a watchful eye on what they’re doing. This is your wedding day we’re talking about! As much as you’d like to think you can trust them to do everything, mistakes are always made, so it’s best to have four eyes on every task rather than just two. If they overlook a detail, you’ll be on hand to help them out.

What To Do When There’s Unequal Division

Everything sounds good in theory, but it can happen that one person is left with too much responsibility. If this happens to you, talk to your partner; it’ll be a good test of the communication skills you’ll need to have when you’re married.

All going well, you’re planning will be a breeze – as well as fun – and you’ll have a day to remember!