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I'd just print off one of those checklists from the net/a magazine, cross out the things you don't want and start at the top :) Google is your best friend! It sounds like your mother is where the wedding will be, can she help out with anything else or do you have any other family/friends/bridal party members who can be delegated with certain tasks? Another option would be hiring a wedding planner who can do a lot of that for you. Try to relax, and breathe - the main thing is that you are married at the end of it :)
Prioritize! Some stuff needs to get done earlier than others. :) Anything (or anyone) with a contract usually is more important to take care of earlier.
Also, be sure to ask for help - once you figure out what you need to be working on, see who can help you with it - Mom in your home country, friends in the States or in your home country, etc. etc. etc.
Are you hoping to have a more Americanized service or something more traditional to your home culture? That will affect a lot of what you look for too.
I'm planning the Canadian wedding from afar and will only be back 3 weeks before the wedding. I agree that delagating is key! I've also skyped with my vendors and utilized the Internet a lot. Photographers/bakers/florists ... they usually have pretty good websites that give you a good idea of their style and options, so you can do a lot of research online and then ask someone at home to visit the people on the short list. Actually, I think doing my planning from afar has minimized the stress because it limits the endless options and possibilities.
I am doing the same thing and I am doing all my planning my internet and email. It's working out great! Start with a checklist. Keep a separate folder on each vendor type. Make a bookmark folder specifically for your wedding. Find images on the internet that you can use to clarify your ideas with vendors. Figure out which family and friends back home can help you with which things.If you are from a small town it is actually easier because there aren't so many options to chose from.
I am having my dress made and buying most of my accessories now and will ship them home or hand-carry them onto the plane.
I'm hiring a day-of-coordinator to take care of all the vendor details (arrivals, set-up, etc) after I've selected and defined what I want.
Good luck and enjoy the process!
Thanks fellow bees ... I really feel the emotional support ... I literally copy and paste your advices so I can print them out as reminder, lol!
Some of you suggested the use of checklist from magazines/the net, and the truth is I tried them all, including the Google wedding documents, but they didn’t work for me … seeing how much there are to be done just making me dizzy all over. But reading your suggestions have given me ideas as to what are actually the key things and what needs to be done right away. I think I’ll start from there … 
I guess I do have one thing that work for me, that is the wedding would be on a weekday, so I need not worry about securing certain vendors for fear that they will be booked up. But still, vendors have to be booked, dresses tried on, and I realize it’s time I give myself a kick in the butt to actually start getting things done! No more procrastinating, wish me luck!
I've tried a bunch of different types of to-do lists including the ever popular Monthly to do list. My recommendation is to first do a couple of easy things....whatever that may be, get your shoes, pick BM dresses, pick a cake vendor, pick a color concept.....whatever you want that you think will be easy.....then you'll start to feel better about doing some of the harder things like picking a photog, dress, etc. THe worst part of planning for me was getting started, I was incredibly overwhelmed by the choices, etc. Just start with a few small things and then get moving!
I agree with other posters! Start with what seems easiest or most fun. Then, once you've made some decisions, your confidence will grow and you will have a sense of what style your wedding is headed towards. Good luck!
I had spent 7+ months planning a red carpet event in Los Angeles for this past April and I'm well over 3,000 miles away. One of the most valuable pieces of advice I can give you is to get an event coordinator/wedding planner to do the leg work for you. He/she is your eyes and ears and you can buy things online and have them sent (including proofs) to their office.
I really wish you good luck with this! I know how mind numbing and hair tearing it can be!! Especially when you want to impress and make sure everyone has a good time!
I'm planning my whole wedding in 5 and a half months.
I'm having a destination wedding and I hired a wedding coordinator--which helps a lot!
You will be fine. I recommend selecting one vendor and going from there (ie: florist, photographer...etc). I picked my catering company first, and then they recommended musicians to me, and the florist recommended a photographer. Word of mouth recommendations helped me narrow down vendor choices.
yeah I literally had 5 months to plan everything; no help from anyone, my family lived far my hubby and I are long distance so I made all the major decisions, plus I held a busy job as a doctor plus I still had a social life and went out with friends
I went to barnes and Noble in between work and made lists from wedding books, I must have read every single wedding book out there
The biggest things were:
1. venue
2. photographer
3. video
4. gown
5. wedding list
6.place you will get married, i.e. church, courthouse etc
everything else were weekend projects like making flowergirl headgear, making the invitations myself, making the programs, making the giveaways, the moneybox, the car sign, planning the flowers, hair and make up
just tackle the biggest ones first then go down your list, it'll all fall in place;ask help; I brought my projects home to my sisters place and her kids helped me with all my projects; my calandar book was my best friend that period
relax and enjoy, it's will be one of your most important and funnest projects in your life
Oh I know all too well, how stressful this is. I am in another country and we just tried to plan our wedding in Canada, for the fall. After many man hours on skype and the phone, and my poor, amazingly helpful mother, running all over, we cancelled. And now we are trying to plan it again, for the Spring of next year, in a city where I have no family, also in Canada. So as this now seems harder and more challenging, I have found a solution to keep me sane..
With no lovely mother running around to help sort things, my best advice is for you to decide what is important to you and the FI and what isn't. Which corners you can cut. After all of our planning(this will be my 3rd time planning our wedding-Ahh!!), I have narrowed down what is important, and what is not worth the stress. I originally wanted the traditional, in every way, wedding.. now having almost planned that dream wedding, and finding out that nearly noone from the FI's family could make it, I see that whatever type of wedding I have to have, so that both of our families can be there, is the only wedding I want.
I have now sacrificed the huge reception and am trying to plan and traditional church ceremony, with a lavish, oceanview dinner at a fancy restaurant. It has taken a HUGE strain off of my shoulders. If you can compromise on your reception, then I am sure this will ease your stress as well. The reception planning nearly caused me to lose my mind!
Advice: Have a fancy dinner, with close family and friends so that it is personal and everyone has the chance to talk and get to know eachother. If you don't want that, and want the reception, hire a co-ordinator. It is wayy less stress.
Many blessings to you!
Prioritise, buy a lot of magazines so you gradually figure out what you like and what you HATE and NEVER ask people for ideas or opinions once you've decided what you DO like!!! Always TELL people what you're doing, rather than asking what they think about it! They'll inevitable disagree with you if you ask for their opinion so just tell them what's happening! I've avoided lots of dramas by just filling people in after the decision has been made!
It's so encouraging to know how many of you out there who plan weddings in short amount of time.
ilovenycmissie: like you and your partner, my future groom and I are also in a long distance relationship! Wow, I imagine you must be some sort of superwoman, with such a demanding job and active social life, yet still able to plan for a wedding in 5 months with some DIY wedding projects to do, too?? I don't know how you can manage ... but you give me hope that anything is possible lol :)
Thanks for all the great advices and kind thoughts, I know I know, in the end, most of the trivial stuffs won't even matter anymore but the fact that we're married. But I just hope that we (future groom and I) will come out of this stronger and no damage to our relationship ... My future husband is like a typical guy, I guess, that he doesn't really care about what kind of flowers we use, or which dress I'm wearing, that kind of stuffs, while I was hoping that he will be more helpful in the wedding planning.. Sorry, this becomes such a rambling post where I should be planning instead, lol! OK, back to browsing for inspiration and narrowing down choices!
don't stress
I am super organized and love to be creative,and needed to be in control, things started getting frazzled the day before and the day of, but in the end we pulled it off and I have absolutely no regrets doing as much as I did, it was exactly how I wanted it to be and it was the best day of my life, from food, to DJ, to decor, of course, some things will go wrong,but I wouldnt have had it any other way
the wedding is after all all about the bride hahaha,the groom couldnt care less about details and just wants a nice ceremony decent food and a good drink, the bride on the other hand has to have everything desired because to be honest, let's face it, it's really all about the bride, really
just enjoy the process dont get too bogged down, because it will be over in a blink of an eye; my only regret is I wish it could have lasted longer as in for days and days not just one day......everyone said to me it was the best wedding they ever attended
good luck and enjoy the whole process!!! here are a few things I did, there's a lot more, I made my own money box, seating arrangement board, BM shawls, table cards etc;I only had 60 guests and only 6 tables, so that helped since I made my own placecards and flower arrangements as well as bouquets
20757_wedding_stuff_4_004.jpg (43.7 KB, 18 downloads) 2 years old 20754_wedding_stuff_4_001_jpg.jpg (35.9 KB, 18 downloads) 2 years old 20064_wedding_stuff3_jpg.jpg (53.9 KB, 16 downloads) 2 years old 29336_Photo0146_jpg.jpg (32.6 KB, 20 downloads) 2 years old 19661_place_cards_001.jpg (48.5 KB, 13 downloads) 2 years old 17059_wedding_stuff_003_jpg.jpg (39.3 KB, 12 downloads) 2 years old
ilovenycmissie: that's an insane amount of DIY! I totally love the peacock pen :) wow, I truly congratulate you for achieving such a mass amount of handwork!
Yay! Thank you to everyone for posting & commenting! Everyone's advise & empathy have really helped me-- I hope that they helped you, too, siusiu! Good luck to all!
@siusiu:Try compartmentalization. When you feel overwhelmed, take a day to make your own checklist and deadlines. Do one aspect of the wedding at a time. Also, you can possibly ask your vendor for ideas on catering, photographers, djs, etc.
Good luck!
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Hey fellow brides ... any tips for a smooth wedding planning?
My wedding is in 5 months (Oct), and it's going to be an oversea wedding at my home country. I would be able to go back to my home country only two months prior to the wedding (Aug), but in the meantime I would have to plan everything from here (the U.S.).
Right now, aside from the wedding reception venue (which my mom already booked for me), I haven't got anything else nailed down ... No photographer, no idea of what kind of cake/invitation/decor/flower/dress/bridesmaid dress that I would like to have. I feel very much overwhelmed by the variety of choices available out there, and have a hard time narrowing down and making decisions. Plus, because the planning has to be done long distance, it only adds to the complexity of the planning...
Any tips to make wedding planning go easier and not overwhelming? Especially oversea wedding? I'm afraid that one day I will wake up to find that I'm only a month away from the wedding date and yet still without a dress/cake/photographer. What a disaster it would be! :(