What to Do One Year Before Your Wedding
Congratulations are in order if you’re newly engaged or in the process of planning your wedding. A wedding is a special milestone and a joyous occasion—one that requires a good deal of planning, preparation, and funds. But take comfort in knowing there’s plenty you can do in the twelve months before your wedding to help you feel ready for the big day. Read on for how to make the most of the timeline leading up to your wedding to ensure your nuptials are on track, within budget, and joyful.
Come up with a budget
Are you and your future spouse footing the bill yourselves? If so, how much are you able to spend and how much do you want to spend? If any family members or loved ones are contributing to your wedding expenses, have a conversation with them to confirm how much they’re comfortable spending. There are many costs involved in planning a wedding, and while some may feel nonnegotiable, others may come as a surprise, so it’s often best to establish your budget early on and honor that number.
Create an organizational system
There are so many details and decisions that go into planning a wedding—it may feel challenging at first to keep track of it all. A great way to stay organized and on top of your to-do list and wedding priorities is to create an organizational system. This could be a planner, checklist, spreadsheet, binder, online tool, app—whatever method best helps you keep track of your deadlines, ideas, budget, vendor contact information, timeline, floor plans, seating charts, and beyond.
Embrace a (realistic) vision
Even if you feel like you know exactly what kind of wedding you want from the beginning, it never hurts to search for some inspiration (especially before seeing potential venues and meeting vendors). As you look through inspiration—think bridal sites, wedding magazines, Instagram, and Pinterest—remember that you’ll ultimately want to marry (pun intended!) your vision with your means. When making an inspirational list or a vision board of your wedding must-haves and nice-to-haves, keep in mind what you can reasonably achieve with your budget.
Decide on your dates
Aim to think of a few different options for the “ideal” wedding date and season. Leaving some flexibility in your preferences will allow you to consider more options for venues and vendors.
When narrowing down your dates, be mindful of how popular that season might be for other engaged couples. The date can also affect how many of your guests can attend as well as the price.
Consider life insurance
Although it may not sound as romantic as shopping for wedding outfits and rings, a wedding can be the perfect time to look into life insurance. Committing to sharing your life with your future spouse means planning for your future together, so you may also want to start planning for a shared financial safety net; perhaps you plan to buy a house, have children, or retire in the future.
Many newlyweds consider term life insurance, which lasts for a set amount of time. You may find that 20 or 30 years, roughly the amount of time it takes to raise children or pay off a mortgage, is right for your situation. While a wedding can be a big expense, life insurance can be an affordable way to protect your financial future.
Most people tend to be in their younger years when they get married. Because of this, there’s no better time to obtain coverage. Matt Schmidt with Diabetes 365 mentions, “Life insurance rates are partially determined by your age at the time of applying. The younger you are, the less expensive rates will be. Not to mention, you can lock in a policy, hopefully, before you develop negative health issues like diabetes. We see life insurance for diabetics to be nearly 25% to 30% more expensive compared to nondiabetics.”
Source: iQuanti
