Wedding Advice Nugget #11 — Save Yourself Time Packing for Your Destination Wedding by Being Organized from Day One
Hello Everybody!
Can you believe there are only 14 days left until Christmas? Wow! It seems like time is flying by faster and faster every day — oh wait, that’s what they mean when they say I’m getting old. Hmmm… But with so much to do and so little time to do it in, it’s important to figure out the best ways to prepare ahead for your island wedding. You’re going to have a LOT of packing to do. You’re going to ship some things, pack some things and hand-carry some things. Don’t wait until a few weeks before your wedding to start this process — get it over with well in advance!
When you first start planning your wedding, get three boxes (if you have a big house, put three empty boxes in your basement or laundry room — if you live in NYC or San Francisco, get out three shoeboxes) and label them “Hand Carry,” “To Pack,” and “To Ship.” As you buy things for your wedding (shoes, tiara, makeup, perfume, garter, etc.), put them in the proper boxes. That way, when it’s time to actually start sending and packing things, everything is right there for you. You won’t be tempted to use something that you shouldn’t before your wedding — and you won’t have to risk losing something important that you put “in a really safe place” and now cannot remember exactly where that safe place was. I’ve done that.
Anyway, using the box sorting system as you get things ready ensures that it will take a lot less time to mail out the box to your wedding planner with your placecards and attendant’s gifts and all those little items that have to come from home. And if you are mailing that stuff to someone who is going to have to open up your box and sort it out, put an inventory just inside the top of it. It’s much appreciated.
The “To Pack” and “Hand Carry” boxes are obvious — but they do give you perspective on how much stuff you’re planning to check and carry. You may end up shipping a few things ahead once you’ve seen what-all you’ve got there. But the poiont is that if you do this from the beginning whenever you have something related to the wedding in your hand, you will have a much easier time finishing everything up when it’s time to actually go get married. You’ll save yourself tons of time that you would have spent wandering around finding everything you’ve hidden from yourself and freaking out about how much you actually have.
Until next time, happy wedding planning from Weddings in Vieques and Weddings in Culebra. And if you’re my clients, go label those boxes if you don’t already have them!
Sandy