You’re engaged. Or, very soon to be engaged. Wedding planning is in your (very near) future. You’ve made the most important decision of all: get married. But now you’ve got what feels like a million more decisions to make as you plan how that first day of your marriage is going to go.

I believe your wedding can help set the stage for the way you want to enter your marriage: reflective of who you are and how you want to live. Of course you want a beautiful wedding day, but it’s important to remember that “beautiful” doesn’t necessarily mean having a wedding that looks like a curated scene straight from a magazine.

A beautiful wedding day is more about how people feel as they’re gathered together, celebrating all God has done to bring the two of you into this forever kind of commitment. You can create a space for people to experience something beautiful, no matter your budget.

Before you turn to Pinterest for some inspiration, here are three questions to ask as you begin planning your wedding.

 

1. What is the focus of our wedding day?

It can be easy to think only of the details of your wedding day, but the most important thing to remember is the most detailed-focused writer of your story: God. He brought the two of you together and is co-creating a love story for your lives that is specific to your hearts.

How can you honour Him and share about the incredible love you’ve experienced (both in your own walks with the Lord and with each other) with your guests? How will you remember to put Jesus in the center of your relationship leading up to marriage so that it’s the center of your wedding day, too?

Remembering this at the forefront of our minds while we planned our wedding helped Brandon and I to openly share about God’s love for us with our guests throughout the day. Whether it was telling part of our story on our wedding website, planning a well executed and personalized liturgy (picking readings, prayers, music that had meaning for us), giving our guests a chance to bask in the beauty of creation at our venue (and the little details we chose), or verbally sharing what the Lord has done for us in our speech – we wanted everything to point back to God’s extravagant grace and glory in our lives.

How can you use the details of your wedding day to show God’s love?

2. How do we want people to feel / what do we want them to experience?

For our wedding, Brandon & I wanted people (ourselves included!) to feel relaxed. We wanted everyone to feel welcome (both at mass and with kids) and like they were hanging out for a laidback summer BBQ. It ended up being a pizza party, but that still fit the experience we were going for! As we planned our day, we always came back to what would enhance the feel and experience our guests would have. If it didn’t fit with how we wanted people to feel, it didn’t make the cut!

Want lunch or brunch instead of dinner? An afternoon reception! Want to visit your favourite coffee shop between the ceremony & reception? Plan for time to do that en route from one to the other. Want to talk to every person on your guest list? Perhaps invite fewer people, or plan for a lounge type of evening instead of a dance.

Write a list of what you’d like your guests to feel and experience on your wedding day. Compare your lists and talk about the similarities and differences. How can you compromise? How can you execute the common goal?

3. Are we doing this because we’re supposed to or because we want to?

You can do whatever you want to celebrate your marriage. The important thing is that you talk about what you want to do that day before you start booking things because you think you’re supposed to, instead of because you want to. Whenever you’re making a decision about the wedding, consider asking a few more questions:

Does it align with how we see the world?
Is it bringing joy into our marriage prep journey?
Is it telling our story well?

 

Before our official engagement, we heard God speak the word “simple” over our relationship. We took that into wedding planning and used it as a guide when we were deciding wedding day details. We wanted a beautiful day, but not at the expense of our sanity or our budget. Once a decision was made, we stuck with it! And we loved the day we created with and for our family & friends to enjoy!

 

If this helps you, would you share it with a friend who needs help planning their wedding, too?

xoxo