new to planning and overwhelmed..

sweetestlife28

hi girls.. so im relatively new to planning my wedding. we've set the date - beach wedding and reception in key west. i have 10000 ideas running through my head about place cards, favors, centerpieces. with so many choices how do you narrow things down and come up with a theme, or at least a bunch of ideas that work together... help. in overload!

Kahtie41

Congrats and welcome to the board! I'm a Key West bride and I know there are a couple others on this board. Glad to have ya. You have the date and location set, so even though you feel overwhelmed, take comfort in the fact that two of the biggest checks are done. As for narrowing down all the millions of choices, I took a decorating approach and picked one thing I LOVED and am building everything around it. My one thing was limes... get it... Key West... key limes... From there it was what looks good with green, what looks good with actual limes, how do I incorporate this into a theme. For me it's much easier when I have just one anchor like that. So my advice is to pick a detail you find yourself coming back to, and run with it! Have fun!

carrieoz_76

I've tried to not worry about things before I really need to decide anything about them. So the big stuff comes first - date, location, venue, general size, which we decided. Next will be wedding coordinator, reception location, photographer, but I've got time before we need to settle on that. So in the meantime, I look around and research. Other stuff like decorations, themes, decorations, favors, etc. isn't anything I need to worry about for a long time, which means I read a lot about them but don't *worry* about them because I don't need to decide anything for a while. As for decorating, I just looked around a lot at other girls getting married in faraway locations to see what I like, what I think I could afford, what I think represents FI and I the most, and what vendors are available to help. For now I collect, narrow things down, collect more info, and further narrow things down. It's be doing this that I figured out our STD design, found a couple possible invite design vendors, and found a theme we'll probably go with. So take your time. Until you have to decide stuff, just enjoy getting to look around and gather information - don't stress about it. Then when you need to decide, you'll be fully informed and probably will know better what fits you and your FI best.

chosen175

I have folders on my computer for centerpieces, flowers, dresses, decor, cakes, invites, hair, etc. When I find something I like, I save the pic to the appropriate file. When it comes time to actually BOOK something or sign contracts, I go through all the pics in that folder and delete the ones that no longer appeal to me. By the time I'm done re-scrutinizing things, I've deleted all but 4 or 5 pics. Then I print them out and email or bring them to our vendor for inspiration. That's what has worked for me so far. Good luck!