Where to start with wedding planning when you are completely overwhelmed
For most people, a wedding will be the biggest party they’ve ever planned in their life. At times, it can feel like tossing confetti in a hurricane – difficult and confusing, making it hard to see a clear path forward.
Pretty soon, what began as something you were really excited about can suddenly leave you so overwhelmed that it feels impossible to do anything – especially if you’re neurodivergent. Between social media trends, unsolicited but well-meaning advice, and a million tiny decisions, it’s easy to lose sight of where to actually begin. So, let’s strip it back to the basics and make this as simple (and stress-free) as possible.
Here are the 7 steps to wedding planning, in order, that will cover all the most important things, and the key questions for you and your partner to consider when making your decisions.
Step 1. Decide who you want at your wedding
We don’t mean you need to figure out the exact guest list immediately, but before you can start booking things in, you need a rough idea of the size of the celebration.
At a minimum, you need yourself, someone to marry (i.e. your partner), someone to solemnise the marriage (i.e. a celebrant), and two additional adults to be witnesses. So your celebration could be just five people or it could be 300 people (budget permitting) or anything in between.
Step 2. Choose a time and a place to get married
You might have a specific date in mind, such as an anniversary. Or you might be looking a little wider, like a spring wedding or a Saturday. If you’re not fussed about the ‘when’, consider if you’d be open to a midweek wedding when you might snap up a deal from a venue.
And speaking of venues and locations, here are some questions to ask yourselves: Do you want to go the all-inclusive venue route? Or perhaps something more intimate, like a backyard wedding or a clifftop elopement, followed by a relaxed lunch at a restaurant? Do you mind if the ceremony and reception at the same place or not? Do you even want a reception?
Step 3. Find a celebrant
Once you know the who, when, and where, you need someone to marry you (and we don’t mean the bride or groom). In Australia, only authorised celebrants can legally solemnise marriages – this includes civil celebrants, some ministers of religion, and selected employees at the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages. And the best thing about getting married here is that the celebrant will take care of most of the paperwork for you!
And wouldn’t ya know it, The Celebrant Society is the best directory to find civil celebrants in Australia! You can either browse for a celebrant who fits your vibe, or fill in our request form and we’ll send you a pre-vetted list of celebrants who are available for your date. It couldn’t be any easier!
Step 4. Find someone to record the memories
Pics or it didn’t happen, right? At a minimum, you’ll probably want to nominate someone to take photos. For an elopement or legals-only ceremony, this might just be a friend with a camera. But if you’re spending any kind of money on your wedding, it’s definitely worth investing in a professional photographer.
Additional options you may wish to consider are a videographer and/or content creator.
Step 5. Plan your outfit
Unless you’re planning a nudist wedding (and hey, that’s certainly an option), you’re gonna need some sweet threads for your big day. There are no rules that say you have to wear a custom-made wedding dress or suit, but if you do go down this route, make sure you leave enough time for alterations.
Otherwise, you can just pick something nice off the rack or even select from your existing wardrobe.
Step 6. Feed your guests (and yourselves)
Food is an integral part of most celebrations, and weddings are no exception. You may have already taken care of this in Step 2 when you booked your venue, but if not, there are a lot of fun options.
You could go with a traditional wedding caterer, or maybe a food truck. For an at-home wedding, in lieu of gifts, you could suggest a potluck celebration, with everyone bringing a plate. For smaller groups, you might opt for a restaurant, pub lunch or gourmet picnic. Eloped? Plan an intimate dinner at the fanciest restaurant in town.
Step 7. Fill in the details
At this point, you’ve found someone to marry, a time and a place to do it, a person to make it legal, someone to capture it, something to wear, some people to celebrate with you and a way to feed them all. Congratulations! You’ve ticked off all the big things.
From here on out, everything else is just the details. Choose good vendors you can trust, use their experience and knowledge to guide you with the remaining logistics and choices, and the rest will start falling into place.
Conclusion: Wedding planning doesn’t need to be overly complicated
We’re not pretending that planning a wedding isn’t a big deal and a lot of work. But by looking at the big picture items and making sure they are taken care of first, it will help keep you on task, prevent analysis paralysis, and most of all, preserve your sanity.
Main things all sorted? Here are some articles to help with your wedding planning:
