Golden rules for wedding preparation

If you have caught up with Zg and/or I recently, you would probably know that we have (finally) started our wedding preparation. Frankly, there are so many to-dos, so many items to check off the list, and so many wedding vendors providing so many different services. All these choices just mean that it is very easy to forget that the wedding is just an event (albeit a very happy, meaningful and exciting one) and we still have the bigger task of enjoying our marriage thereafter.

So, while I still have clarity of thought and have not been completely suckered into signing a million things that we will probably regret, I have decided to set some golden rules which I hope we (I, mostly, since I am the more impulsive one) would remember in the months to come.

• Stick to the budget. It is okay to exceed the budget by a little bit (up to $100) but it has to go if it is really too expensive. Just think about the amount of food that amount of money can buy and walk away. Recently, I have also been thinking about money in terms of the number of man-hours I have to put in to earn that amount of money. If the number of man-hours sounds too gross, then that item has to go. 
• Don't have to please everybody. As long as we like it and we are happy, just smile and nod when the naysayers strike. There will always be naysayers and we don't have to mind what other people say. Frankly, why should we? It is our wedding and our money, and I do think we can decide for ourselves what we want to do thank you very much.  
• Research. I'm a nut for researching so this one is easy. I think I research everything to the death of it so no problemo.
• Know what you need and what you don't and don't budge. I'm stubborn as a mule and Zg is an Ox so we probably don't have a problem here too. People will probably have a harder time trying to convince us than we do resisting it. 
• If you like something and the price is right GO FOR IT. Prices in the wedding industry only go north and vendors tend to increase their prices every year. So stop procrastinating, just go for it and hope that they do not pull down their shutters before your actual day. 
• Have fun! Zg and I are pretty good at planning things in general (we are crazy fond of tables and spreadsheets) so I hope we would be able to have fun in the process of planning the wedding. We are also champion saikang warriors (otherwise known as staffers) so I think we should have no problem staffing ourselves. 

Hopefully I will get around to sharing my wedding preparation in the months to come!