The Cardinal Rule of Wedding Planning: Hire a Pro

The winter holidays are a popular time for marriage proposals. From December to Valentine's Day, diamond solitaires make a mass exodus from stores to velvet boxes to left hands. All very well, and certainly exciting for the parties involved, but this means that if the couple in question plans to get hitched in either June or October-currently the most popular months for nuptials-they've got a lot of wedding planning to do in a short amount of time.

Even the most simple and straightforward affairs require a lot of planning. Choosing attendants, clothing, location, food, invitations... the list can be downright scary. One crucial piece of advice can save the organizationally-challenged from becoming too bogged down and overwhelmed: If affordable, hire a wedding planner; if not, consider scaling back your budget until it becomes affordable. Skipping a wedding planner hire will cost you far more in emotional distress than the monetary investment of securing one. Do-it-yourself wedding planning should only be attempted by someone willing to say goodbye to all their free time.

The wedding fêtes of magazines, bridal reality shows, and films are enviable, but they're also largely fantasy. No real couple with a modest budget doing their own wedding planning could reasonably put together something on that scale, at least not with sanity intact. But if having a chamber quartet, a custom-designed cake, and renting out an entire art museum are absolute musts on your list of wedding dreams, trust your preferences to a professional wedding planner.