Soooo, I have been living in the United States all my life and have never really helped plan anybody a wedding before it was hard and stressful.
So I wanted to share my experience. My entire wedding is taking place in Pakistan, and I am going only 3 weeks before the wedding and that too in Ramadan, and right after Eid-ul-Fitr is my wedding.
I had to throw a party for the people here in the States, it was a women only mehndi event. I did everything on my own from venue to decorations to the mehndi plates. My budget was also very small. Getting my mom and dad to understand that even if its small it still needs to be nice.
Here are some ways how you could narrow it down.
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Find a budget, everything needs a budget. Plan accordingly and please, please find a reasonable amount. For example this happens in my house a lot, it takes my sisters half an hour to shower, another hour to straighten blow dry their hair, pick their outfit and iron it takes about 20 mins, so all together it takes them at least 2 hours, but yet they can get ready in 1 hour. So same thing here, call around and see how much catering is going to cost, the venue etc. to get a glimpse of prices way before hand.
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See if you could get an alternative to something for a cheaper price so you could spend more in another particular area. For example, some people might have mehndi decor or plates sitting around in their house that you could use or a music system and dont feel ashamed to ask around.
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Any DOLLAR STORE will be your best friend. Start buying stuff before hand. Get an empty cardboard box, and whenever you find something cute or something that you think you could use buy it, put the receipt in the bag and toss it in the cardboard box.
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To make sure your not stressed out at the last minute, don’t procastinate, get things done sooner. Go ahead and make the invitation cards, put addresses/names on them and set them aside. If you have to make the mehndi plates, go ahead and make as much of it as you can and finish it the last day. Make sure your camera memory is cleared out, charged, etc.
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Plan the songs you want to play, if your not having a dj. I didnt have a dj so i would just skim youtube, and start downloading them into a folder called mehndi playlist. Also as i browsed the internet whatever I liked, from dresses to decorations to jewelry I would simply just save the picture into a folder called “Wedding Planning”. It came easier when I had to find something.
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If you are to make a stage at home. Go to Walmart, and find the curtains that go well with your outfit, theme, etc. Get a rope from there and simply put them all on the rope and the day of the function all you do is hang it. A lot of the halls/recreation centers dont allow you to make holes in the walls, therefore I used 3M hooks that have glue on the back.
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Mehndi plates were all made at home, and materials bought from Dollar Tree.
For right now, this is all I could remember. If anyone is struggling with anything please let me know. I’ll try to help you out as much as I could, even if it comes down to the music list. Even a little helps 