How to Plan a Utah Wedding

Did you know that planning a wedding can take anywhere from 250 to 400 hours or more? Not everyone has the time or energy to take on another full-time job, which is what planning a wedding can feel like for many couples. Hiring a professional wedding planner is the best way to have a smooth, stress-free experience—a professional planner will do so much of the work and ensure that you and your guests can enjoy the process.

Whether you want to organize and run the entire wedding experience on your own, or if you’re considering hiring a wedding planner, we’re here to help! We created the Utah Valley Bride Wedding Planning Course to help you make those decisions. 

Our course breaks down the entire wedding planning process into manageable steps and clear expectations that you can bring to your planner or your support team. You’ll learn how to create a detailed budget and design your dream wedding all in one place—while staying stress-free and in control. 

So many of our brides look back and wish they had enjoyed their engagement more. With our expert guidance and fun video courses, you’ll actually be able to enjoy the wedding planning process without feeling overwhelmed!

What Is The UVB Wedding Planning Course?

It’s important to understand the commitment involved in making an informed decision about whether to hire a planner or do it yourself. Our wedding planning course breaks down the entire process into manageable steps, offering guidance and tools to help you plan your own wedding efficiently. This is exactly what you’ve been searching for on Pinterest—only better—because we’ve catered it specifically to our Utah couples!

The wedding planning course includes 45 Video Guides, a 50-page interactive guidebook, budget templates—and a bonus worksheet that you can share with whoever is contributing to your wedding finances.

Here are a few fun sneak peeks into what we have for you in the wedding planning course! From timelines to seating charts, we’ve seen what works and what doesn’t. Trust us when we say there’s much, much more where this came from.

Timeline Tips from Our UVB Wedding Planning Course

One thing everyone wants to know the moment you get engaged is, “When’s the wedding?” Whether it’s three months away or a year away, organizing your timeline efficiently will make all the difference in easing your stress and keeping track of what needs to be done. 

Two major things will be affected by the length of your timeline—the first one being your budget. When you have a longer engagement, you have longer to save up and more time to make payments to your most expensive vendors. 

The second is the fact that you’ll have more or less time to get everything done on your checklist depending on how long your engagement is. There are a few things that stay consistent no matter how long you’re engaged, but other things will be spread out or more condensed based on the amount of time you have until you say I do. Your to-do list will change quite a bit.

Our guidebook has an entire section dedicated to laying out specific timelines for 3-, 6-, 12- and 18-month engagements. It’s all listed right there for you to organize directly into your calendar, whether you’re a physical three-inch wedding binder kind of fiancé or a Google Calendar girlie. It lists everything from when to go dress shopping, or when to send your invitations, to making sure you’re filing for your marriage license on time! And we have so many videos that can help clarify and explain each step.

Plus, there’s an entire section of the course all about the timeline of your big day!

Budgets

Setting a budget for your wedding can often be the most daunting part of the process, and we understand that there’s a wide range of things that can affect it. There are a lot of factors you’ll want to consider, but ultimately you have to decide what amount of money you are comfortable with investing into your wedding.

We like to replace the word “budget” with the term “financial comfort zone.” Any amount of money can be realistic for a wedding—that’s what makes each one so unique! At Utah Valley Bride, we see a wide range of financial comfort zones in our features, and every single one of them is gorgeous (duh, we have the best brides in the world)! But obviously, different couples spend different amounts, so how do you figure out your own financial comfort zone?

Our nifty budget calculator takes a lot into consideration. It’s a cute little equation (can equations be considered cute?) where you can input your own values to come up with your financial comfort zone for your wedding. Start with how much money you already have set aside, then factor in how much money you may receive from people who are willing to help pay for your wedding. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

Then you’ll figure out how much time you have until your wedding, and how much money you can set aside in that time to put towards your wedding. After dusting off a few of your old math skills from elementary school, you’ll have your very own wedding budget figured out!

How to Choose the Perfect Color Palette

There are so many different ways to customize and utilize your color palette to create the wedding of your dreams. It all comes down to themes, and what you want to see both on your wedding day and in your pictures for years to come. The fun thing about color themes is that trends are always changing from year to year—something that was popular in our 2010 magazine is going to be pretty different from what’s in this 2025 edition!

Lately, we’ve been seeing lots of color, and we’re definitely not mad about it. But what’s trending in the bridal world doesn’t matter as much as what you want to see at your wedding. At the end of the day, you should pick what you love, and what really feels like you.

Something that factors into wedding themes that brides may or may not have considered before is texture—texture will show up on your wedding day everywhere, even if you don’t realize it. From fluffy flowers to sharp shapes, these textures throughout your overall wedding design will help reinforce the theme you’re going for. It’s all about the whole vibe you’re going for, whether it’s sleek and chic or magical and whimsical. 

When you’re able to identify the vibe or energy that you want your wedding to have, you’ll be able to find colors that speak to that energy, and then choose textures within your color theme that make the most sense for your vision. We know this can be overwhelming, which is why we’ve given you some great examples in the videos and guidebook.

Read more about this in our blog all about deciding your wedding aesthetic!

Do-It-Yourself Success and Danger

The very best way to guarantee that you’ll have a stress-free experience, and love the outcome as much as the process, is to hire a professional wedding planner. But if you’re thinking about DIY-ing any part of your wedding, there are a few things to take into consideration.

Flowers are delicate and fragile, and wedding florals can only be done right before your wedding so they don’t wilt or lose their flair. They require a lot of processing and maintenance, and it’s pretty hard to store that many flowers without a huge floral cooler. Imagine having to do all of that on top of everything you’ll already be doing in the days leading up to your wedding… Floral is definitely one we’d recommend hiring a professional florist for.

Some things are much easier to DIY than others. The types of things you can create and produce months in advance to help you avoid a time crunch in the days and weeks leading up to your wedding are the things to consider doing yourself. The biggest thing is to start early! Even then, hiring a passionate professional will save you time—and headaches—and guarantee that you love the outcome! 

We have a lot more examples of what not to do, and of which moments you’ll want to make time for in your schedule, in our course videos!

Plan Like a Pro Using the Wedding Planning Course

We just threw a lot of information at you, and there’s a lot more that goes into planning a wedding. Are you wondering about the best way to organize your seating charts? What about how to write the perfect wedding vows? We even have a section on thank-you cards—the planning isn’t over when your wedding day is over!

This course is designed with you in mind, no matter what kind of wedding you’ll have. You can watch with your mom, maid of honor, or spouse-to-be—anyone who needs to be a part of this process. 

You can even use the course as education and then take your preferences to your wedding planner for help in making it happen! It’s easy and fun, and we’ve compiled all of the best resources to make every Utah wedding a huge success—we’re invested because your wedding is what makes Utah Valley Bride so special. Jump in and start designing your dream wedding!

Love, the Utah Valley Bride Team. XOXO

P.S. …Use code UVB100 for $100 off the course!