Things I learned from getting married: (And none of this advice is personally directed at the two of you, I don't know either of you well enough to give any specific advice. This is just things that I think I think.
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After being engaged, I'm for short engagements.
Particularly if you're trying to be "good" before you get married. A long engagement when you've already promised yourselves to one another makes temptation harder to resist. After all, you've already made the commitment in your head, right?
(The one caviat is that you must be sure that this is who you want to marry. We were sure and so our engagement was a bit torturous.
If you're not sure then you might need a longer engagement.)
Get a wedding planner. It doesn't have to be a professional, and you don't have to pay them, but it must be someone who is not you or your Mom. Because on the day of the wedding you need someone in the know to make sure that everything you want done, gets done. Get someone who can see the big picture and will pull all of the stuff together for you on your big day. We had 2 receptions (West coast & East coast) and for one of them, it was completely stress-free because we had someone take care of all the itty-bitty details while we just enjoyed ourselves. On my wedding day, I did far too much running around at the last minute when I should have been able to sit back and enjoy my wedding day.
Don't have 2 receptions (not that most people do, but with a bi-coastal wedding, I tried it so that more people on my side of the world could share in our happiness) - It costs more money, and people don't get as much out of the non-official one.
If you want your guests to dance, play songs they like (this is one of the few areas, where I say that it's somewhat important to do what others want)
Have a separate party proof-read your invitations for spelling and details.
I forgot to put the time for our 2nd reception on the invitations.
Which brings up a larger point... you don't have to go it alone. Get as much help as you need, you'd be surprised at how helpful people want to be for big celebrations like this one.
I thought that pre-marital counseling was helpful as well. As it turns out, we had already talked about most of the things that they asked us about, but it doesn't hurt to get someone trusted to help you see whether it's a good decision, and to point out obvious problem areas than are not as obvious to the people involved.
Some people say that you should hand address each envelope and return card
It's becoming more acceptable to print off your own invitations and print the addressing using Word's mail-merge with a database or a spreadsheet. I highly recommend printing all of your envelopes, I did it for a friend and it looked great.
Book the church and reception hall first thing. Once you find out when those places are available, you can firm up a date. We started our planning for August, but because of logistics and people we ended up in mid-July, easily 3 weeks earlier than our first estimates. Coordinate with the Best Man / Matron of Honor, family etc.
That's all I can think of right now....
Congratulations you two!
And remember, no matter what happens, the wedding always has a happy ending. If the cake falls off the table, and the tuxes don't arrive, it just isn't worth getting stressed about. In the end, you get to be together forever. You get the happy ending, no matter what happens on your wedding day
So good luck!