How We Planned Our Wedding In One Month

Caleb asked me to marry him on October 24th and our wedding date is January 22nd. As of today (November 30th), we have basically finished our wedding planning. We have a few more tasks to do (I’ll mention those later), but today I wanted to outline how we planned our wedding in one month- because the planning is done.

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Quick backstory-

Caleb and I started looking at rings in August.

I’m so glad I got to help choose my ring :) I perused Pinterest and Instagram, of course, and eventually, I’ll probably write a whole post about my ring & the meaning behind it. (UPDATE: Read that story here.)

Well, Instagram picked up on the fact that I was looking at rings. So it started showing me a TON of ads about weddings as I was swiping through Stories. I started compiling links in a note on my phone so when we did get engaged I’d have a decent stockpile of ideas.

I would joke with Caleb that Instagram was going to be my wedding planner… and that ended up being kinda true LOL.

He and I bought a ring on September 24th. We bought it online from Zales and the experience was wonderful. No having to deal with people. No having to wear a mask. Just lovely shopping from the couch in my apartment.

That night as he left my apartment, I asked if we could schedule a time to look at a venue I had found on Instagram and really liked. He said sure :) So I messaged the owner to schedule a tour.

That might sound pre-emptive, but Caleb and I both have wanted to get married in January 2021 for about a year now. So knowing that January would tentatively be our wedding month, I knew we needed to be able to book a venue ASAP after getting engaged.

After we bought a ring, my pre-engagement brainstorming continued.

The day afterward, I discovered Something Borrowed Blooms on Instagram and instantly decided they would be our florist (more about them later).

I ordered The Budget-Savvy Wedding Planner & Organizer from Amazon to get some ideas on saving money.

I started looking at wedding dresses to figure out what style I wanted.

Oh, and I even created a potential guest list and budget.

Not to mention I ordered color swatches from a few online bridesmaids companies so I could have options to show Caleb when we got engaged.

And I ordered “Bridesmaids Proposals” from Etsy so I could ask my girls ASAP after the proposal. (This is what I ordered.)

Caleb and I toured the venue I had found on Instagram and I LOVED it. However, the current Covid restrictions for wedding venues in my state limit the number of people we can invite significantly. Due to that, we weren’t sure if we’d be able to invite everyone we wanted and host it at that venue. I stressed about that quite a bit until I realized that I wasn’t technically engaged yet so I didn’t need to stress! *Facepalms*

We got engaged on October 24th.

Read the proposal story here :) 

We confirmed that we were going to get married on January 22nd. This is the anniversary of the day we started dating and we thought it would be super awesome to get married that day. Like I said before, we thought we’d get married in January for a while, so once Covid hit and we didn’t get engaged as soon as we originally estimated, we just decided to have a super-fast engagement.

I decided that I wanted us to get the majority of our wedding prep done in November so we could enjoy December and Christmas as best we could without being consumed with our wedding.

That meant we had to plan our wedding in one month.

Kinda a stressful thought, especially when you’re both working full time, but we were up to the challenge!

Here’s how we did it:

The day after we got engaged I Facetimed my extended family members to tell them the news, as well as my friends that I wanted to tell “in person” before they found out on Instagram.

That Monday, official wedding planning began. I went over to my friend Michaela’s house and we spend almost the whole evening wedding planning. We discovered the website Milanote and began to play around with that.

And let me just say, I credit our wedding being planned in a month ENTIRELY to Milanote. That website was a lifesaver!

Milanote is basically Pinterest and Google Drive combined.

It’s amazing, and it’s free!

I was able to create “boards” in Milanote and organize things by subject like you do on Pinterest.

But then you’re able to put boards within your board. You can add to-do lists with due dates. You can type notes and upload PDFs. I uploaded copies of emails exchanged with our vendors so I have all of them in one place.

Here you can see what my main setup looks like:

My mom and matron of honor are also able to see these boards and make edits as needed.

This is what I see when I click on my “Decorations” board. Here I have more boards for more specific things like centerpieces and flowers, but I also have pictures of things my future mother-in-law has that I can borrow. You’ll also see my brainstorm list of ideas as well as things I need to buy from Amazon.

Here’s what it looks like when I click on “Tables/Centerpieces.” I was able to create lists of what I needed for each type of centerpiece as well as upload screenshots from Pinterest so I can remember my inspiration.

This is a way zoomed out view of my master to-do list.

You’ll see that we needed to do the majority of our tasks in November. That’s because even though our engagement is technically 3 months, I wanted us to be able to enjoy Christmastime without stress :)

I created this master to-do list with the help of The Budget-Savvy Wedding Planner & Organizer– I took their 6-month wedding planning timeline and squished it into three.

For added motivation, I included a Legally Blonde meme I made LOL!

Each week, I’d look at this master to-do list and then write down that week’s task on my main page in Milanote. You’ll see that in the purple category below.

I also have pics from the proposal, because those are happy to look at :)

Only being able to see a few tasks to do each week kept me from feeling overwhelmed in the planning process. :)

So that’s a quick summary of Milanote. It’s free so long as you use less than 100 items (boards, links, pictures, etc.) I currently have 91/100 items used up. I keep deleting things once I no longer need them so I stay under the limit and don’t have to pay for it :)

If you are planning a wedding, I 100% recommend you use it!

So what did we accomplish in a month?

• Told our family and friends we were engaged
• Decided our wedding colors/theme
• Finalized guest list
• Finalized budget
• Asked the bridal party to be in the wedding
• Booked our venue
• Found my wedding dress
• Booked our photographer
• Booked our videographer/livestreamer
• Picked out a bridesmaids dress company and told my bridesmaids what to order (I chose Azazie)
• Registered for gifts (so much fun!)
• Created a Facebook group to host our Livestream
• Created a wedding website (we chose Zola)
• Asked our youth pastor from high school to be our officiant
• Figured out how we would do premarital counseling with him via Zoom
• RSVP our flowers- we’re renting 90% of our florals through Something Borrowed Blooms
• Planned centerpieces and gathered supplies for them
• Chose music for walking down the aisle
• Designed & ordered invitations (from Shutterfly)
• Designed & ordered our guestbook
• Found a caterer
• Figured out what we’re doing for a honeymoon during a pandemic
• Found a place to live
• Had a bridal shower

November was insane!

Basically, I ate slept, and breathed “wedding” in all my spare time.

We still have quite a list of things left to do, but we’ve finished the main tasks. Everything else is basically adding the finishing touches on our wedding.

In case you’re curious, this is what we still have to do:

• Find and order our wedding bands
• Complete premarital counseling
• Figure out what we want our cake to look like (his dad is making it for us- his cakes are the best cakes I’ve ever had!)
• Pick up my wedding dress and schedule alterations
• Pick out our first dance songs
• Order bridesmaids gifts
• Finalize our honeymoon plans
• Get our marriage license
• Figure out what I’m going to do with my hair/makeup (my best friend is going to curl it and I’m going to braid it, but we have to practice first!)
• Have a consultation with our photographer
• Create our wedding reception playlist
• Confirm who is giving toasts & when
• Create a day-of timeline
• Create my sub plans
• Move our stuff into our house
• GET MARRIED!!

So to sum up, it’s totally possible to plan a wedding in one month.

Granted, you won’t do much else during that time, but in the end, I’m glad we planned our wedding super fast.

I’m also really glad we’re having a short engagement! I can’t wait to marry Caleb!

Perhaps I’ll write a post later about why I’m loving my short engagement. Let me know if that’s something you’d be interested in :)

If you want to plan your wedding in one month, or at least finish the majority of the prep in one month like we did, these are my tips for you:

1. Use Milanote to organize everything!
2. Delegate tasks to your mom, mother-in-law, bridesmaids, aunts, and whoever else wants to help.
3. Use Pinterest to create a vision for your wedding, and then delete the app! Sometimes too many ideas is a bad thing.
4. Make sure your fiancé is on board with all your decisions! It’s his wedding too :)
5. Keep in mind that your wedding is just one day. Your marriage will last forever. In the grand scheme of things, your wedding day is just the start of your grand adventure with your best friend. So make sure you still invest time building and nurturing that relationship, even in the business of planning a wedding.

Do you have any other tips? Please share them in a comment :)

Let’s be Instagram friends! @kara_beth17

Posted by Kara Beth & filed under Engagement. This post has one comment.