- Weddings
- 29th May 2024
- 1
- 5 minutes
Rosie’s engaged – here’s her advice on how to organise a wedding when you’re both terrible at planning…

A few years ago, my boyfriend (now fiancé) and I thought we might like to explore Scotland…
So we looked at the NE250 loop; an easy route already mapped out, visiting the main and lesser-known parts of this beautiful country. A great plan, that never happened – simply because both of us are utterly useless at planning anything.
Fast forward to last year, when he got down on one knee at Warkworth beach to propose to me – overjoyed as I was to marry the love of my life, the necessary planning of this major event loomed over us. How could we plan this wedding if we couldn’t even plan a few days’ holiday?
We’re now almost in June and my wedding date is set for July 18th 2024. Are you shocked, HLN’er? So soon! Well, here’s what I’ve learned about planning our wedding. If you don’t want a fairytale white wedding, this might provide some inspiration…
THINK ABOUT WHAT MATTERS TO YOU BOTH
We aren’t party people. We aren’t the ones to be the centre of attention. We don’t want lots of people looking at us as we say our vows, observing us awkwardly dancing together, cutting our cake…
I don’t have lots of best friends, so I dismissed having a hen party and bridesmaids. We knew what mattered to us was celebrating with family, and being somewhere we love, which, thankfully, made choosing the North East easy.
Discussing the things that mattered most to us helped us structure our plan – we decided to keep the ceremony itself to only close family, focusing mainly on spending time with them. From this, we chose to split the ceremony and reception into different days, with a much smaller list of people (14) invited to the ceremony and ‘wedding breakfast’.
I also have a truly appalling memory, so from day one, I knew that choosing the right photographer was important. Making decisions like this helped us to prioritise what was a deal breaker and what could wait until later, or wasn’t important at all…
CONSIDER WHAT YOU WANT TO SPEND
The wedding industry is huge, and exceptional in its pricing. Throw the word ‘wedding’ in front of a request, and see the price almost double.
I only plan on getting married once (ideally) so I know the pressure of making this day really special, and therefore for some people, spending a lot is a necessity. We baulked at spending large amounts of money, and went into this knowing that we needed to keep the costs paired back as much as possible – whilst also making this day as amazing as possible.
This has been the hardest aspect of planning – not overspending. We are lucky in the North East to have many amazing wedding venues and suppliers, all with something special and unique to offer. You could spend weeks exploring options from photobooths to flower walls, prosecco vans to live paintings. I am also in a job that means I know and work with many of these businesses, seeing what they offer and knowing how much love each puts into their work.
My advice is to set your budget and don’t sign on the dotted line until you’ve got rough costs for everything.
THE MOST IMPORTANT PIECE OF ADVICE… IGNORE SOCIETY’S EXPECTATION OF YOUR WEDDING
It’s YOUR wedding – and as I said, maybe you’ll only do it once, so don’t do it for other people. My parent’s wedding was planned and organised by my Grandmother – meaning that in the end, the day was hers, not the happy couple.
For me, this meant deciding against the traditional white dress. I don’t suit white and I don’t really want to feel like I look awful on the day. This was a big decision for me, but one I’m glad I made. I’d love to look stunning in a wedding gown, and I’ve seen some truly amazing ones in North East wedding dress shops – I do still wonder if maybe I’ll have missed out. That being said, and remembering our decision about budget, I couldn’t bear the thought of spending thousands on a dress I’d never wear again, especially if I didn’t feel like myself in it. Instead, I’ve chosen a green (my favourite colour) dress that I feel good in, and I’m looking forward to wearing it on the day. I might not look like a ‘bride’, but I’ll feel confident and comfortable, and I hope that shines through in the end.
As it happens, I have quite enjoyed the planning. I don’t want to tempt fate – we’re still a few months off the day itself – plenty of time for things to go wrong.
However once I let go of the ‘expectations’ and considered who we both are, and what we both want, it became easier. I was able to focus on finding the right things for us, letting go of traditions that we don’t personally value, and keeping our stress levels low.
Congrats Rosie!