Need advice on how to slow down on planning.

Congrats on your engagement! It's natural to be excited and your brain will slow down in its own lol! It's only been a week so it's obviously going to be the only thing on your mind. There's not a ton you can do now, but there's nothing wrong with getting ideas and talking with FH about the type of wedding you want, where you want it, and saving!! My engagement will be 20 months by the time we get married. We started looking online at venues early at went and chose our venue at a year and a half out. Happy planning!!

I think when you first get engaged no matter how long your engagement is going to be for you get really excited and start looking into things. It will wear off a little bit.

Maybe just focus on slowly looking at different venues since that will be one of the major things you book first. Just do some slow internet research, that'll help you figure out what you want your entire budget to be as well.

I don't think it ever hurts to get the wheels turning early. With the luxury of all the time you have, I would first start with just getting ideas together and organized...like via Pinterest maybe or a binder with magazine tear-outs if you are more visual that way. Give yourself some time to really get an idea of what you two will want the overall look and feel of your wedding to be and start making boards with ideas to come back to. Luckily, it's early enough that you don't actually have to commit to anything just yet, so if your ideas change or evolve it's OK! It's also a great time to start on a rough guest list and kind of see where you might be at with that (because almost everything will hinge on that guest count!) and definitely start working on a budget now! A longer engagement means more time to save and pad the wedding budget for a few extras you may not have otherwise been able to have as well as being able to build in a good cushion for the last minute unexpected costs that WILL come up. Always budget in a cushion...and if you end up not needing it, then it's more $$ for the honeymoon

Trust me it will slow down. When I first got engaged I was completely obsessed with my wedding and thought about it 24/7 because it's all new and exciting and I was finally able to plan my wedding and now not so much. I go a few days without thinking about it and planning for it.

Totally with you on the manic planning. I just passed the two month mark and am finally slowing down a bit because I got a lot of major stuff done early so now there's not much I can do until it becomes time for tastings and until my dress comes in. It's not really advice but once you get stuff done you have less to do so you naturally slow down and become calmer about it.

I totally understand. I went a little nuts at first but now in the third month of engagement, I'm mostly over it lol. I've booked my most important vendors and decided I'm taking a break. It will wear off. It helped me to fill up my pinterest board with idea.

Omg I am the same way .. I got engaged Dec 19 and I booked the venue dj hotel photographer and got the dress lol I would suggest making a timeline with things spread out and sticking to that ..I know it's hard !

Pinterest. Just go on Pinterest and start creating boards. You'll get lost there for hours at a time.

Also, create a detailed planning checklist broken down by month. Look at it all once, and then only look at the monthly planning list. If there are 4 things on the list, do one a week. If more, do the math and make it work. Lol. But this will set a pace so you don't just throw yourself into planning and get so overly caught up in it that you forget about proper research and properly vetting your wedding professionals/searching for the greatest deals online.

I was the same way at the beginning of my 18 month engagement. Start working on bigger picture things such as guest list, budget. Start looking at prices for vendors in your area and venues to get a feel of what a realistic budget would be, and a plan for how much you need to save each paycheck to obtain that goal!

I did exactly what Nicole did. I have a huge excel spreadsheet. I contacted multiple vendors to get an idea of what I would need to save.

Thank you SO much, everyone! These are awesome suggestions! (And I'm so glad to see that I'm not the only one who jumped right into planning!)

Plan other stuff. vacation, engagement pictures (I took about a week to think up clothing concepts and locations), engagement gathering (you shouldn't throw your own party but you can throw something to celebrate with no gifts), do you have a house? Maybe start thinking about your next big thing. We had a 20 month engagement. By the end of the 1st month we had venue, our first date (ended up changing), website done, my dress, and potential photographer. But a couple months later started looking at houses, next thing you know I am caught up in the world of home buying (visiting open houses, getting my credit together, looking a potential furniture). Got the house at the end of summer. Moved in. Started planning the house warming. It was a slow crawl back to wedding planning (never left WW but it had been about 7 months since I'd done something wedding related). Now we've got 6 months, and after my birthday and the long weekend, we'll be back in full swing with the wedding (premarital counseling, booking the rest of our vendors, shower, bach, finishing attire, rehearsal dinner planning, sending invites, booking the honeymoon, and finalizing the timelines/playlists/program/etc).

We had a 2 and a quarter year engagement and I also started the "planning wheel" fairly early after getting engaged and setting a date. Echoing what others have said here: it doesn't hurt to start researching the venues now, especially since you are looking at a June wedding (prime wedding season!). Once you find a venue you love, check it out and see if it fits. Everything else will stem from that

Congrats on your engagement and well wishes during your planning phase! It's so exciting and I understand your eagerness to get started