Let me say—it feels a little weird to be on the other side of wedding planning. I’ve helped close to a dozen brides execute their wedding day dreams, and now here I am, planning my own. A little back story: My fiancé Ryan and I have been together for over 9 years. The talk of marriage has come up so many times, but we always seemed to put it on the back burner. If it’s not broken, right?

Something last fall changed in our minds. The talk of marriage started to feel more serious, it started to feel like the right time, and it’s ultimately what we both genuinely want as we move forward in life. We picked October 10, 2015. This is significant because our 10 year anniversary falls on October 12, and we thought this was an amazing way to celebrate a decade together. (We know, 10 years on 10/10…cheesy but whatever!) So in January we started slowly telling friends and family. However, after so many years, I honestly am struggling a bit. I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that it’s ACTUALLY happening. We’re getting married. Ah!

I feel like I’m cheating a bit. A lot of wedding coordinators decide to get into the business after planning their wedding. I’ve had the advantage of seeing the ins and outs, the several ways that things can and DO go wrong, as well as having the opportunity to work with so many different vendors before we even picked a date. All of these things make the “job” of planning my own wedding easier—and harder!

So with that being said, I’m a professional coordinator that has less than 4 months and a budget of $5000 to pull everything together. No pressure, or anything! I hope my random planning blog posts offer an inside view of what it’s like to plan a “cheap and easy” wedding (seriously though, it’s going to be beautiful and amazing), as well as some insight from a professional.

Let’s do this!