Our Top Wedding Planning Tips & Tricks

After being together for 9 years, we tied the knot on October 21, 2017 in Piedmont, CA. When we got engaged, we really didn't know what planning a wedding was like. Since we learned so much through the process, I wanted to dive into how we did it, where we saved money, what we splurged on and how we used our creativity and style to bring everything to life. I hope you enjoy this wedding planning guide, which is chock full of all the wedding planning tips I could think of. 

My Honest Feelings About Marriage

I'll be honest. I was not a traditional little girl that dreamt about my wedding. I always thought about the store I would open one day and the career path I would have. I wasn't a traditional little girl in that sense but when I thought about my future, I always hoped to have someone by my side. 

Tanner and I met when I was 14 and had been together 9 years by the time we got married. When we met, we never thought we would grow old together and thought it would be neat if we got married one day but it wasn't something we talked about often. We grew a lot over the years and experienced success, failure and everything in between. We started and built a successful business together and built our life centered around both of our passions. 

At 23 years old, I can say that it is a young age to get married and that I wouldn't recommend it to most people. We spent 9 years getting to know one another and after all that time of maturing and growing together, there really wasn't a doubt that we wanted to continue to share all that we built with one another for the long term. We are proud that we went into the whole marriage thing knowing each other in and out and knowing that nothing would be drastically different once we got married, you know other than the tax benefits. 

I can't say that there is a time stamp on when people should get married or how long people should be together. I do think it's important to go through everything with your partner before committing to lifelong future. Society wants you to get married but my best advice is to do it for you when you are ready, not for anyone else.

Choosing Our Venue

We felt pretty hopeless for a while when looking for venues. We were looking for something out of state (California) in an area that had a lot of options that we weren't familiar with. Our number one priority was to have something easy for our grandparents to get to and walk around at. In a perfect world, we wanted to get married in the middle of a forest but the venues were either too expensive, not traditional wedding venues (a lot more planning involved) or not very accessible for guests. 

Eventually, my sister spoke to someone who got married at Piedmont Community Hall, which is essentially an extremely beautiful community center in the middle of a nice neighborhood that does yoga during the week and weddings on the weekends. They had a redwood amphitheater so we felt we could get the forest feel with the modern conveniences. They had a staff to move chairs and set up tables, but that was about it. We handled everything else. 

I liked this aspect because I wanted to be involved and do our own thing even though it required more work. We scored the last date of the 2017 season and had about a year to plan from the time we secured our venue. What we really liked about the venue was that we could separate the day by having different sections for different times. Our ceremony took place in the amphitheater, our cocktail hour, dinner and toasts took place in the beautiful outdoor courtyard and our dancing, dessert and photo booth took place in the hall. 

Choosing My Wedding Dress 

I got my dress from BHLDN, which is the Anthropolgie wedding line. What I love about BHLDN is that they carry some of the best dresses for each different style. What I mean by that is that they have maybe 50 dresses at most at any given time so you don't spend hours going through millions of dresses. 

That said, all of their options are beautiful and top quality. The best part? They are all affordable and gorgeous. I would suggest trying them on because the sizes can be a bit odd. I tried about 4 dresses on total and fit in a size 4 in all but the one I ended up getting which I had to order in a size 12. I'm not huge into dresses so after 15 minutes, I found one I loved and was sold. 

Navigating Wedding Tux Rentals 

We used The Black Tux, which was such a great idea in hindsight. All of the groomsmen have different schedules so getting them to the same place at once was difficult. All we had to do with The Black Tux was email the groomsmen a link with everything we needed them to rent, they put their measurements in, then got the suit a few days before the wedding in the mail. 

The cost was reasonable at about $110 per suit. Just make sure to measure correctly. All of the groomsmen did this right, but Tanner's pant legs ran a bit short which may or may not have been my fault.

Choosing the Wedding Shoes

We wanted the groom and groomsmen to match so I kept an eye out for nice shoes. I was shopping one day and found a pair of Steve Maddens on sale and bought them as a gift for the groomsmen to keep. 

The bridesmaids got what made them feel comfortable and I got a cute pair of Toms sandals since you couldn't see my feet. I wear old workbooks every day, so comfort was more important to me than anything. When I got my dress altered months earlier I just told her I was wearing flats.

The Rehearsal Dinner 

We went to a local Italian/pizza place called A16 in Berkeley where we got a private room for our rehearsal dinner. We picked a menu ahead of time that had a variety of options that we felt everyone would like. The rehearsal dinner is such a fun time to hear stories, hang out with those closest to you and have a last hoorah before the wedding. 

My advice? Have fun but don't let anyone get TOO smashed or you will end up staying up all hours of the night and hungover on your wedding day. Have a good time but make sure your wedding day will still be enjoyable for everyone.

Lodging for the Wedding Party

Since we came from out of state we had to rent some sort of place regardless. We wanted it to be a fun experience for us and our bridal party so we decided to get a big Airbnb for us all to stay in. We ended up getting the most gorgeous mansion I have ever seen that had a view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Looking at this place, you would think it was unaffordable but when broken down, it was actually cheaper per person than a Bay Area hotel and everyone got their own room. 

We treated our bridal party to this as a thank you for traveling all the way to celebrate with us. We used this house to have everyone get ready in (which worked out great for the photographer to hop back and forth), and just separated boys and girls by floor. We spent the few days beforehand making flowers, boutonnieres and other last-minute things. 

Our Wedding Food 

This was something that mattered to us, but also something we just didn't want to overspend on. We were originally looking at getting a food truck because we thought it would be neat and we had the space for one but as we thought about it more, we decided that it would probably take a while to get everyone their food and we didn't want people irritated and hungry. We didn't want to go with an outside catering company that charges upwards of $50-$70 a plate for food that just didn't sound very good to us. 

We started to think about Bay Area restaurants we have been to and remembered that we loved Tacolicious (also my sister’s favorite). We ended up using their catering service to do a taco bar and got customized apps to pass out during cocktail hour for a very reasonable price (under $26 per person for everything). Their service was impeccable! They gifted us a cookbook and served all of our grandparents to make it easier on them. We had quite a few leftovers that they boxed up for us. 

Since we were packing up to go on a road trip, we were sad to think we had to throw them away but since it's one of my sister’s favorite restaurants, she had meals for quite some time. We were super pleased with their great food, reasonable price and phenomenal service.

As for our dessert, I'm not really sure I can explain why but we both never had an interest in having a traditional wedding cake. We knew they could get expensive, it didn't mean that much to us and at most wedding I have been to, I noticed that people don't really pay attention to or even eat the cake. 

We still wanted dessert, so we opted to go with Harvey's mini donuts who made mini donuts on site for our guests. It ended up being about the same price as a cake but was a huge hit with the guests and we enjoyed eating them more than a cake. We decided to make donut holders to match the branding of our wedding because they were easy for us to screen print ourselves.

I should also note that you need to make sure you eat on your wedding day. I had heard this before and even got food for the house ahead of time but still didn't eat prior to leaving for the ceremony. About an hour before the ceremony, we realized we forgot something so my future brother-in-law ran back to get it. 

When he asked if we needed anything else I was like well we really should eat so he said In-n-Out is on the way! He arrived 2 minutes before the ceremony was set to start so we ate really fast and ended up being just a bit fashionably late. The look on my mom’s face when we told her everyone needed to wait while we ate burgers was priceless. 

The Wedding Booze

Our venue was a BYOB venue, which was pretty much a non-negotiable for us when we were looking at venues. I wanted our people to have plenty of liquor accessible at no cost to them, but we couldn't afford to do a full service open bar. Our venue only allowed wine, beer and champagne, which made things easy on us. We've connected with local brewers after having booths at beer festivals so we were able to trade t-shirts for about 250 beers for the wedding. 

This cost us next to nothing and we were able to pack the car since we road tripped out. My parents gifted us champagne and wine. We put a bottle of red and white on each table and hired a licensed bartender (MUCH cheaper than a full service bar company) to distribute beer and pass champagne out for the toast. We found our bartender through Thumbtack by listing what our needs were, then seeing who was available and who would be a good fit. 

Our bartender eliminated stress from us by purchasing ice, water jugs, lemonade and iced tea and just charged us for the cost of the product. Since this is usually such a huge bill for people, we were pleased that we saved quite a bit here.

Our Wedding Photography 

This was by far the most important thing to us because it is the one thing that will actually last forever and that will help us remember the day forever. We worked with Brandon Wehman on both our engagement photos and wedding photos. We really liked Brandon's style and were excited to work with him. This was definitely our biggest splurge. We did our engagement photos with him back in March to A) Get engagement photos, B) Get to know Brandon, C) Know how he works creatively. 

Doing engagement photos with your wedding photographer is great because the relationship you have with them matters. You want to feel comfortable in front of the camera so that they can truly capture the natural moments you have throughout your day. Connecting with other creatives is a huge part of what we do in our everyday business lives so working with Brandon was really fun.

Our Wedding Videography

We have spent the last few years working with Grant Lemons on lookbooks for Moore. He has been such a great product photographer but is really truly passionate about videography and has done many wedding videos in the past. We have not only loved working with Grant professionally but have become really great friends as well over the years so we were so excited to have him be a part of our wedding to create a video that we will have forever. 

Wedding Flowers/Garlands/boutonnieres

This was something that we wanted to look really nice but didn't want to really spend any money on. We couldn't justify spending an arm and a leg on something that is just going to die the next day, so we (by we, I mean my sister) got creative. My sister Dana has a great taste in floral arrangements and had taken a garland making class recently (If you can't take a class, you could easily find tutorials online, you just need to want to put the time in). 

We went to the San Francisco flower mart and spent around $150 on ALL OF THE FLOWERS. We made garlands, assembled vases AND got succulents for our boutonnieres. Tanner's mom works with flowers so she made the boutonnieres with succulents for all of the groomsmen, dads and granddads. I love succulents but realized people don't make succulent boutonnieres so it was great that we could do it on the cheap and get exactly what we wanted.

The only thing we weren't really skilled with were bouquets, so I decided to just buy them for me and my bridesmaids from my favorite Bay Area Florist, Farmgirl Flowers. 

Choosing the Flower Girl 

We had a few options for flower girls but ultimately we decided that my 88 year old granny was the one and only flower girl for us and she stole the show. I enjoyed not being traditional with this and choosing to do what we wanted to do for us. A few years back, I got really into plants and flowers and it was all because of her so when I think about anything related to floral, she comes to mind. Because of this, I just couldn't think of anyone else that would be a perfect fit for this job. 

All the Wedding Rentals 

I underestimated just how much we had to rent. Since we weren't using a full service venue, we were responsible for renting furniture, dishes, heaters and everything in between. We ended up having to pay more than anticipated because we had to have their clean up crews get everything between 11 and midnight the night of the wedding which caused a big increase in our bill. Full service venues may often seem expensive at first but when you start adding things like this up they start to seem more reasonable. 

Our Wedding Photo Booth

We decided to work with Tomfoolery to set up a photo booth that provided our guests with photo strips and high res digital downloads to keep forever. This was a bit pricey but we wanted to have it for a few reasons: 

• It gives people something to do that don't want to dance.
• It gives them something to take home and keep forever to remember our wedding.
• It gives people the chance to let loose and express themselves.
• Your wedding photographer often doesn't get  many pictures of all of your guests so It gives you another chance to get more photos of everyone.
• We used our photographer to capture the elegance of our wedding but used the photo booth to have a blast and to get a fun variety of photos. 

We had a few phone calls, went back and forth building our ceremony and actually didn't meet until the day of. It’s a weird world to not meet your officiant until the day you get married but it felt like we knew her already. About a week before the wedding, Northern California had a bunch of fires and unfortunately Stevi lost her house and everything in it just a few days before our ceremony but showed up and did a beautiful job. She was fun, upbeat, professional and made everyone feel at ease. 

Booking a Hotel Block for Guests

If you will have out of town guests (which you almost 100% will) then it's a great idea to get a block of rooms at a specific hotel. They will often get you a really good rate and it's fun and easier to have everyone in the same place. I would be careful because our hotel contract said we would have to pay for any rooms unfilled (we reserved 50) but were a few short because we had larger families rent Airbnb's and had a lot of family come that lives really close. Since our hotel was in a metropolitan area, they could easily fill those rooms so they didn't charge us for the ones we didn't fill but they easily could have.

Wedding Hair & Makeup

This was another thing I wanted to splurge on. I don't ever get all glammed up so I felt like if we're putting so much into our special day, why not treat myself to feel my best. I was referred to Cassandra McClure who had a great portfolio, great natural style and had even worked with celebrities. When I found out she was available for our wedding date I decided to book her. 

I really wanted to do a trial beforehand so I knew what I liked and didn't like. Since we were planning a wedding from out of state, I handled most everything over the phone. We even booked our venue without seeing it in person! Doing a hair and makeup trial was not something I could not do remotely, so we met up three days before the wedding. I had pinned some styles I liked and then she did her thing. I think I have nice hair, so I wanted to wear it down but I just wasn't digging any of the looks so she did an amazing updo that I fell in love with. 

Since I don't typically wear much makeup (I work a fairly grungy job and have a fast paced lifestyle) I didn't want to do anything over the top that wasn't me. In the trial she put on fake eyelashes and I felt ridiculous. Once I took those off and had her alter a few colors I felt natural and like myself. When it came to the day of she knew exactly what to do and nailed it. I hired her to do my bridesmaids and she volunteered to do the hair for my mom and my mother in law as well.

Booking a Day of Coordinator

Getting a day of coordinator was some of the best money we spent. Like most of us, we had not been through the wedding planning process before. We have busy lives so we wanted to have someone keep us on track and gently guide us through the logistics that we didn't have time to handle ourselves. We didn't want a complete coordinator because we wanted to be involved and put our touches on everything but wanted help for the day of coordination and vendor communication for logistics. 

Wheelchair Needs

2 days before the wedding I remembered there was a steep hill and a decent amount of old people attending our wedding. It occurred to me that wheelchairs would be a good idea, so we ended up renting 2 of them for $35 and you could keep them for an entire week. This made the experience much more enjoyable for everyone knowing they didn't need to worry about overextending themselves.

Wedding Invites

Since we started our business, Tanner has drawn just about everything by hand. From t-shirt designs to marketing materials, everything starts with a pen and we didn't want our wedding invites to be any different. Tanner hand drew our invites and we screen printed them by hand. This was one of the main things we wanted to design from scratch. 

Since we screen print for a living, we felt it was not only fitting but we also saved quite a bit of money by buying the paper and printing them ourselves. Each invite was only about $.20 to make. We then used leftover paper to do things like table numbers and signage. 

Wedding Ties

We have become friends with the makers of Knotty Tie over the past few years so we knew it was a no brainer to get our wedding ties from them. We wanted them to have our own spin so Tanner custom designed a pattern (which matched the rest of our wedding branding) and they custom made them for our groomsmen, dads and grandparents.

Wedding Rings

If you can't tell, our brand is very much centered around the outdoors. When Tanner proposed, he gave me a handmade ring made by Kristin Coffin that had a band that looked like a twig. I've never been huge on flashy jewelry so I felt it was perfect and unique. We both got the same wedding bands to match my engagement ring. 

Wedding Napkins

Folding napkins is one of those things that takes a really long time. Since we had so many moving parts the day of, the last thing I wanted anyone to worry about was folding them, which was going to be a challenge if we rented them. I noticed that It was more expensive than I anticipated to rent them so I looked around to see if I could buy them. I looked and looked and looked and everything was cheap looking and kind of expensive. 

I started thinking of all the places that might have them and came across a huge sale at World Market that had high quality linen napkins for $.60 a piece! I scored a killer deal and was able to fold them all ahead of time. I had to wash them, iron them and fold them all so that they could just be thrown on the table.

Wedding Music choices/DJ 

We worked with an amazing DJ, DJ Cinnaminh to not only have songs for the dance floor but also for the ceremony, provide microphones for speeches and play background music the entire day and into the night. Since our ceremony was in an outdoor location, it was a bit of a pain to get audio figured out so we were happy to pay to have a professional do the job. 

As for music choices, we were so not interested in using traditional wedding music, it just wasn't us. We used fun, upbeat classics as we walked down the aisle to set the tone for the wedding, used artists like Lord Huron and the Lumineers for intros and Leon Bridges for our first dance. We love the old feel that these modern artists have and felt as though they were perfect for us. 

Personalized Coke bottles 

This was definitely an unnecessary expense but one of those things that I thought about way too many times. I have always been a huge fan of Coke. I have always loved it as a special treat, but more than that I have always loved their branding and advertisements. I have collected a lot of Coke things over the years, so when I found out they did custom bottles I knew we couldn't pass it up for our wedding. They typically run at $5 a bottle but were running a promotion where you got a free bottle for every 4 that you bought so buying them in bulk actually saved us quite a bit.

Wedding Koozies 

Since we screen print for a living, printing koozies was super easy and getting the blanks was super cheap for us. We got them for about $.60 a piece. Since we had quite a bit of beer for everyone, we thought it was a nice and easy touch and something our guests could take home with them.

Wedding Tote Bags 

The same goes for tote bags, we got them for $.90 each and printed them ourselves. If we didn't have the ability to print high quality things on the cheap then we likely would not have spent money on gifts for our guests to take home. Since we could, we had fun branding our wedding and making little things here and there that went with the theme of our wedding.

Table numbers 

We spent less than $15 by getting table number holders on Amazon and then using the midnight blue cardstock that we used for everything else and just printing a nice number on it. We couldn't justify spending a lot on something that would be used for a few hours.

Glasses 

We used the Created Co to get some custom branded can glasses that people used as water glasses. We used them for our seating arrangements and had people use them for water. At the end of the night they could put them in their tote bag to keep for a lifetime. We could've just rented water glasses but wanted to do something a bit more creative. 

Weather/contingency 

The entire reason we picked our venue was because of the redwood amphitheater. We knew that we could do the wedding inside in its entirety if we needed to but also knew that our day would've been very different if the weather was bad but still had a plan in place in case we had to make that decision. Luckily our venue also had a really beautiful hall that we ended up using for the last part of our ceremony that we could've used for the entire wedding. We got lucky and had a 65 degree day which was great for most of the day. It did start to get cold when the sun went down so when that happened, we just moved the party into the hall.

Transportation 

When we first started planning I thought that getting a shuttle to get people to and from the hotel was a must. Once I really started thinking about it, I realized that since we were in a metropolitan area it would be quicker to take an Uber or Lyft. I knew that if we got a shuttle then people couldn't really come or leave at their leisure and that a car service would be more efficient for people. 

Piercings 

Prior to the wedding I had some family members ask me if I was keeping my piercings for the wedding. I hadn't even thought about removing them because they have been a part of me for 10 years and I didn't want to take them out just for the sake of taking them out. I have a nose ring and an industrial in my ear and have felt that they are a part of me and that they were classy enough to keep them in. 

Account for tips 

The Knot has a great tipping guide on how to know who to tip and how much. At first I thought we needed to tip the caterer the 20% since that is standard. I then read the breakdown of costs and realized that the "service charge" was actually them automatically putting the tip on the bill. I likely would've tipped an additional $800 had I not caught this and researched what was standard. 

I would suggest finding the tipping guide first and allowing for extra compensation for the people that you really appreciated. We put all of the cash for tips in labeled envelopes ahead of time and then gave them to our coordinator to distribute accordingly.

Follow up and thank your vendors 

Our every day business lives revolve around networking and building long lasting relationships. It was really weird to connect with so many new people to know that we would likely not need to talk to them again once our day was over. That said, it was still super important to get to know them so that communication could be clear, do all that we could to make them feel comfortable and as non stressed as possible. 

Once everything was over we took the time to reach out to everyone to thank them for their hard work. I know it's their job, but they worked hard to make our one day as special as it could be. Our caterer served all of our grandparents without our request and offered us margaritas on the house anytime we visit their restaurant in the future. It's worth it to be nice and to not take any bridezilla moments out on them.

Tanner's wedding gift 

Tanner is a great artist but I couldn't have him make his own creative wedding gift. Since I'm not artistic myself, I thought about the local artists that we have gotten to know over the years. I always loved Adam Vicarel's style and noticed he had done some neat projects in the past. I worked with him to brand our last name and then make a wooden sign for us to hang in our new workshop. I didn't want to get him some generic gift so having someone we know and respect craft something for us is something that meant a lot to the both of us. 

Thank you notes

I can't emphasize enough just how important this is. Yes, it will take you quite a bit of time to get them all sent out but you must do it. People go out of their way to come celebrate with you, they likely spend quite a bit of money to get themselves and their family there and they often get you a very thoughtful gift. Yes, they do these things because they love you and because they want to but make sure they know just how much that means to you. It's easy to lose track of what people get you so start either a spreadsheet or a simple list to keep track so that you make sure to thank each and every one of them.

Opting to Take a Delayed Honeymoon

We made the genius decision to get married 2 weeks after we opened our first store and 2 weeks before our holiday rush. Since we already felt like we were so pressed for time as it was, we decided to hold off on doing a traditional honeymoon. We decided to plan a trip to New Zealand a year out but still wanted to at least celebrate with a little road trip. 

We've been wanting to visit Portland for quite some time so we decided to road trip up the west coast then back to Colorado. We both got really sick the day after our wedding but still decided to go on our trip. It wasn't the most relaxing but was definitely a trip we will remember forever. We saw many places we both had never been to and enjoyed experiencing them together for the first time. AND we got to bring our little boy, Scout!

Read more: Our Complete New Zealand Road Trip Guide

Our Top Wedding Planning Tips

Don't know where to start with planning a wedding? Same. We set up an account with The Knot, which was so incredibly simple and was a huge life saver. The Knot breaks down your timeline for you to keep you on track, gives you a to do list so you know what you need to do and is also a phenomenal resource to find vendors. All vendors have reviews, so you know who is trusted and who is not. Since we found so many people through word of mouth, we didn't use the vendor resource guide much but we did find our officiant who was perfect for our ceremony. 

In addition to creating an account with The Know, here are a few more key wedding planning tips to keep in mind: 

1. This day is meant to be special DO NOT SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF things will go   wrong so just let it be
2. Don't be a bridezilla. It's okay to have some moments but I couldn't justify having breakdowns over things that didn't matter because this was meant to be a happy time.
3. It's okay to be (a little) selfish. I think that although it is your day, consider your guests when making decisions
4. Thanks your guests. You won't get to have long talks with many (If any of them) but they just came all the way to your wedding so make sure they know that you are over the moon excited to have them there.
5. Do things the way you want to not because of what society wants you to do. We decided to keep our bridal party small so that it could be more intimate, we didn't get a cake, we had a non traditional flower girl and I wore comfy sandals under my dress.
6. Use your network. 90% of our wedding was from word of mouth or personal connections
7. If you stay on top of your shit throughout the planning process then your day will be relatively stress free
8. Eat. Eat. Eat. Even if it's an In n out cheeseburger 
9. Embrace every moment, It goes so fast 
10. We enjoy drinking but chose to have little to no alcohol until the toast so that we made sure we would remember every moment in our right mind. 
11. Accept help and know how to delegate
12. Hire people to do the things you don't want to do or don't know how to do
13. Set a budget and decide how flexible you want to be based on what matters to you
14. Get contracts from all of your vendors.
15. People want to help so use their talents and let them help! Just manage everything appropriately (We picked the flowers and had someone else arrange them)
16. Do something you want to do the week before. We had a lot of planning to do but I spent a day with my sister shopping and we went to the Museum of Ice Cream in San Francisco so that we could all just chill a bit.
17. Space out your payments. We were engaged for a year and paid for everything here and there each month. After our busy holiday season was over, we paid for everything that costed us the most because we knew things would be tighter as we got closer to the wedding
18. Treat your bridal party well
19. Get pictures with every table
20. Take some time for yourself and bring your photographer with you

How to feel when it's all over 

We heard from many people that you almost feel let down when it's all over. You work for a year (in our case) to plan one single day. You put so much time and effort into planning a day that society leads you to believe is the one day of your life where you should feel on top of the world. You have all of the attention on you (some people love it, others can't stand it) and then suddenly it's over. 

I did feel a sense of let down when it was over because it was just weird to build the anticipation for so long and then to suddenly have it be a thing of the past. I will admit, I cried when it was over. The few family members that were there asked if everything was okay. I felt okay internally but something just hit me that I couldn't explain where all of my emotions just spilled out. I was thankful for everyone there that came to celebrate, a bit sad that I couldn't spend quality time with each one of them, relieved that I would never have to plan a wedding again and proud of everything we put together and the couple that we have become over the past decade. It was a weird feeling I can't quite explain. 

If there is one thing I can tell you, it's that you will feel some sort of emotion when it's all said and done.