How to Balance Working From Home and Wedding Planning Without Losing Your Mind

In the past, couples were pretty easily able to separate their work lives from their personal lives. Work took place (mostly) at the office, while everything else—including wedding planning—occurred at home during off hours. During the coronavirus pandemic, however, many couples are finding themselves working from home, making it difficult to find the right balance between work and wedding planning—plus household responsibilities, exercising, getting enough sleep, and more.

If you’re having trouble finding time to plan your wedding while working from home, we’re here to help.

Create a dedicated work space.

Couples who are doing it all from home may have trouble separating out “work time” and “personal time”, so it feels like you’re working all the time. Yes, it’s important to set a schedule and have dedicated work hours, but perhaps even more important is to have a separate work space. This doesn’t mean that you and your partner each need your own home office—that’s just not feasible for most people—even a corner of the living room or a spot on the kitchen table will do. When “work time” is over, physically get up and leave your workspace to signify that you’re no longer on the clock—and able to focus on other things.

Plan activities to start and end the work day.

Aside from physically leaving your workspace, plan a short activity with your partner to help create separation between work and personal time. Yes, this can be enjoying an adult beverage, but you can also do a short workout (yes, dancing around your living room counts!), go outside, cook, or something else you and your partner both enjoy. This activity can serve as a buffer between the work day and everything else.

Use your commute time to plan.

One of the biggest perks of working from home—no commute! Whether your commute was just a few minutes or over an hour each way, you now have that time freed up to do other things—like wedding planning! Turn your commute time into dedicated wedding planning time, whether that means researching vendors, putting together your guest list, working on your wedding website, or any other task you need to check off your list.

Divvy up the workload.

Wedding planning works best when couples divide and conquer. That means, sit down and have a conversation with your future spouse and decide who wants to take on which tasks. You can also include your parents, wedding party members, and/or other close loved ones who want to help you put together your big day and assign them tasks as well. Then, trust the person to complete the task—no nagging!

Communicate with your vendors.

Your wedding pros can be excellent resources, especially during this difficult time. Of course, a wedding planner should be your point-person in terms of keeping things on track, but your other wedding vendors can be quite helpful, too. Have open and honest conversations with each of your vendors and outline the tasks that need to be done, and a suggested timeframe. Let your vendors know that you’re working from home and finding time to complete wedding planning tasks is becoming more and more difficult. They’ll be able to tell you what absolutely needs to get done now—and the tasks that can wait.

Set deadlines.

If you’re starting to feel all that planning momentum start to slow, it may be a good idea to set deadlines for each task you need to complete. Yes, it may sound super annoying, but we promise, it will make a huge difference. Use an online checklist (like WeddingWire’s) to help stay on track.

Take breaks—from everything.

Working from home and wedding planning during a pandemic is a lot to deal with. Maintaining physical and mental health is essential, so if you’re starting to feel overwhelmed, take a break. This may mean halting on wedding planning for a few days, taking a personal day from work if possible, or hiring a wedding planner to help lighten the load. Wedding planning is supposed to be fun, so if you’re starting to dread tackling your checklist, that’s a sign you should take a pause. You’ll catch up on those to-dos eventually—your sanity is what’s most important here.