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detectiveharmony · 4 years

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How I Planned My Wedding

Hi guys! I realize this isn't normally the sort of thing I write. Usually, I write book advice that has to deal with writing, editing, publishing novels, and everything in between! But as I have recently been married, I thought I would release the secrets of dark magic I conjured in order to plan my wedding.

1. Set a Budget

The first thing is first. Set a budget. If you ask yourself if this is really necessary, yes, it is. It is 1000% necessary. While you are setting a budget, I would also get a binder to make your wedding binder. Whether you want to or not, you are going to be purchasing a lot of things for your wedding, and it's best to keep all receipts together in case you need to return some things.

Now, as far as setting a budget goes, I just downloaded a free spreadsheet online and printed it out. If you don't want to print one out, there are a lot of websites that have online budgeting and spreadsheets. Weddingwire.com and the Knot App were especially helpful for me because they had super helpful checklists plus budgeting, registry trackers, and online RSVP. I kept budgets on everything I made. My printed budget looked something like this:

I didn't use all of the spaces, but it at least kept me on track. The goal is to set the absolute most you are willing (and have the ability to) spend on any certain thing. This was sort of a game for me. I'd set the amount, and see for how much cheaper I could get it, with quality, in reason. Mine and Josh's total wedding budget was around 11K. I think we actually ended up spending around 7K. A lot of our services were gifts from friends, and for that I'll be forever grateful. Which brings me to my next point:

2. Find Talented Friends Who Are Willing to Help

I would first and foremost like to say that just because you have a photographer friend does not mean you should go up to said photographer friend and blatantly ask them to take pictures of your wedding for free. It's cheap and demeaning to them, especially if that is their only source of income, or if they work a job with low income. Even if they have plenty of money, they are not going to be willing to take 6-10 hours out of their day plus weeks in editing to take pictures of your wedding with no compensation. The same principle applies to other services. What I am meaning is to search out friends who render services, and ask them for quotes. In my experience, 9/10 times they cut us a deal or even offered the service for free as a wedding gift. If you are part of a church family, I would definitely recommend looking there first. In the spirit of the Lord, most people are more than happy to help you for free without you even asking. My church family is where my cake, sound, and officiant services came from, and they were all more than perfect. It's also worth noting that I tipped my friends anyway, even though they didn't ask to be paid, because I really appreciated their services (even though some of them returned the tips and refused any type of payment).

The talented friend also applies to friends who have also been married before, who are good with money, or good with budgeting if you don't know where to start or how to begin.

3. Set a Guest List

When you are setting your guest list, it's important to remember that you don't have to (and probably shouldn't) invite everyone you have known since kindergarten or on your Facebook. The more people you have at your wedding, the more expensive it's going to be. In our case, if our guest list exceeded 100 people, our security cost would double, so I tried to keep it at a minimum, only inviting close friends and family. A lot of people didn't understand this, and you'll probably make a lot of people mad in doing so, but it was important for me to cut costs wherever possible. At the time I was financing an 11k wedding by myself on a 20k salary. Long lost cousin Susie wasn't a priority on my guest list. People I hadn't seen or spoken to in years weren't a priority. I gave my husband a pen and paper and told him to invite whoever he wanted, but he also understood that we were trying to save money. Every penny saved helped, and honestly, the day went by so quickly I don't even remember a lot of the people who were there. If people truly care about you, they'll understand that married life is hard and will be eager to help you in any way they can, even if that help is not coming to the wedding. Most of my friends and family were understanding when I explained to them that we didn’t have the money to invite everyone we wanted. And at the end of the day, it's your wedding, nobody else's.

4. Do as Much as You Can Ahead of Time

If you want to be so stressed out that you are incapacitated, then wait until the last second to book all of your services. I recommend, if you can, to book at least a year ahead of schedule. I didn't, and around four months before my wedding I was wondering how everything was going to get paid for.

You will end up financing a lot of things, especially the more expensive things. Unless you have boat loads of cash just laying around, of course, and a lot of places will turn you down if you don't have an adequate time frame to finance. The most important of these are the wedding ring, your catering service, the venue, the cake, and your wedding dress. A lot of DJ and music services will also require you to book ahead of time. We did, but I ended up stressing anyway because our DJ canceled on us 2 weeks before the wedding.

The process of looking for these people is pretty straightforward. I just googled the service I needed and made inquiries until I found someone within my budget. The venue will be slightly different though, as you'll want to tour venues and see which best suits your needs. It's also worth mentioning that before you choose a theme for your wedding, look at venues first. I originally planned for us to have a vintage wedding, but then we got married in a barn in Texas, so it ended up being a country fall wedding.

The very minimum amount of time you want to have for your dress is six months, unless you are having a friend or family member make your dress. Besides it taking a long time to pick a dress out (for some of us, anyway), bridal boutiques need time to clean and do alterations on your dress. I went with David's Bridal, but I personally wouldn't recommend them. The first time I picked up my dress from cleaning, I was deathly ill, I had to wait for 3 hours after they said it would be done, and when I picked it up and drove almost two hours home, I noticed the next day that my dress had oil stains all down the front of it from the sewing machines. They eventually fixed it, and my dress turned out to be gorgeous, but I would rather not have had that stress, especially when I was running fever and lost my voice. Not to mention the arm and leg I paid for my dress. I know a few who have had similar experiences, but I also know some who have had great experiences with David's Bridal. Either way, it's up to you.

Weddingwire.com had some great timelines to follow for booking all of your services. If you are past the month mark for booking your services, don't worry about it. I did the bulk of my planning in the last 6 months of my wedding (not recommended).

5. Wedding Shower and Wedding Registries

I forget how early I made my registries. I think maybe 5 or 6 months in advance. Even if you are already living together and have house stuff, making wedding registries is a good idea because you can update all your stuff, or get new stuff that you've wanted for a while. People are going to buy you gifts regardless, so you may as well have lists people can shop from to avoid ending up with a bunch of duplicate gifts or useless stuff that will just sit in the garage or in the corner of the junk drawer in your kitchen for years to come.

I registered with a variety of places. Amazon, Target, and Walmart were my top choices. I would especially recommend getting an Amazon registry because a lot of people are last seconders, and prime 1 or 2 day shipping will still give them a way to buy your gift even if it is the last second. Amazon was my most highly trafficked registry. Walmart was second, but a lot of people don't like shopping Walmart online because it can take up to two weeks for items to ship, and even if you go in store, most stores carry different products. Just because they have it online doesn't mean every Walmart (or any Walmart near you) carries it. When making your registries, don't be afraid to put anything and everything you could possibly want or need on there. I wish I had put more stuff on mine because nearly everything got purchased. I amended my registries right before the wedding, but very few gifts were purchased at that time.

Your wedding shower is typically two months before the wedding, around the same time you send out the official invitations. A lot of people I knew didn't know what a wedding shower was, so here you go: A wedding shower is an event where people bring gifts to the new couple to usher them into their new life together, helping them settle in. No matter what you do, weddings will end up being expensive, and if you buy couples gifts, even small ones, it helps them out a great deal in the long run by helping them save money on house things they won't have to otherwise purchase.

6. Wedding Day Preparation

Assemble a wedding day crew. Find people who are going to help you set up decorations, organize, direct, and put everything away once the event is over. It's easiest if you assign small duties to everyone who is helping you. I made lists of all my bridesmaids names, plus my grandparents, brother, parents, and aunt, who also came to help me set up. Under each name I wrote what I wanted them to do. It can be simple things like, “Decorate tables,”, “Set up head table,”, “Be in charge of handing out cake after the cake cutting,” or, “Decorate main stage.” Whatever small thing will make it easier for you, designate it to someone you can trust. My family was wonderful and helped me out more than I could ever thank them for.

I also had a table chart everyone could reference, so when we were moving tables and chairs around, everyone had a picture of what I wanted everything to look like so they knew what I wanted without asking me. It's also important to set a wedding day timeline. Even before the ceremony starts, you want to have given time frames for any activities, including decorating, salon trips for hair and makeup, a love note exchange, or whatever else you want to do before the ceremony and during it. Unless, of course, your venue let's you decorate the night before, which ours didn’t.

7. Last Bits of Advice

Your wedding day is going to happen one way or the other. Some things are just going to go wrong, and you have to let it happen and not worry about it. You're going to be married at the end of the day anyway.

Do as much reading as you can on planning a wedding. Every little tip I read helped, and in the end, I think my wedding was perfect. The only thing I would have changed was shortening the ceremony a bit so we would have had more time for family pictures. The wedding itself ended earlier than I thought, but I wasn't going to complain. I was exhausted, and thankful to get to go to bed early.

As my last piece of advice, turn your phone off on your wedding day and give everyone someone else's phone number to text or call for important questions. I designated my maid of honor for this task, but you could also use your mother or anyone else for this. Turn your phone off on your honeymoon too, or if you can't turn it off, don't answer text messages. And if you are that person who calls or texts on wedding day or honeymoon, unless it's of dire consequence, don't be that person.

Happy wedding planning!

#wedding #wedding plannning #love #fall wedding #wedding planning help #wedding planning ideas #wedding ideas

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detectiveharmony · 5 years

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It's coffee and candle burning and word processing o'clock. ☕📃☕📃

#writerblr #writing blog #writer

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detectiveharmony · 5 years

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Hi there guys! So due to my wedding being in September and moving across a few state lines, I won't be posting very much in September/early October. I'll be back soon. Cheers! Happy writing!

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detectiveharmony · 5 years

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My little army

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detectiveharmony · 5 years

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Stop Being Afraid Your Book Will Offend Someone

I’m going on a rant today, so stay tuned.

I’m tired of seeing posts in my writing group like:

“I’m afraid my book might trigger someone.”

“I don’t think I should publish my book because it might hurt someone’s feelings.”

“I don’t know if I should put trigger warnings in front of my book or not.”

Look, I know that a lot of people try to be kind and considerate, but nobody ever made anything of themselves by being afraid. If you feel passionately about something, write it and publish it anyway. I’m writing a romance book about a high school girl who gets involved with an older man, and I know it’s going to upset a lot of people, because I don’t exactly cast their relationship in a negative light. I wrote it in first person from the perspective of the girl, so of course she’s not going to immediately think it’s creepy that this twenty-something is interested in her. And to be fair, he didn’t know how old she was until it was too late. She, much like myself when I was a teenager, was often mistaken for a college girl. But you know what? I don’t care. I don’t care about what people think of my book. If someone can write something about a thousand year old vampire falling in love with a teenage girl, then my twenty-something isn’t so bad.

You can’t say those types of books aren’t successful either because let’s all just remember Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.

And while we’re on the subject, let’s remember The Color Purple by Alice Walker. It was rejected from schools and libraries for being too outrageously sexual, or Ulysses by James Joyce. For a period, all copies of the book coming into the U.S. were burned just because the book had a masturbation scene in it. Or let’s remember that the freaking Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by mark Twain use to be unacceptable reading because Huck’s family was too kind to their slave.

I could go on because there are any number of books which have caused controversy throughout the years, and more than a handful of people became upset at their existence, but you know what? They got published anyway. This post isn’t about just my book, either. It’s about any book. It could be about a book completely condemning the type of book I’m writing. If you are passionate about it, write the book. If you want a chance, even a small glimmer of hope to be successful in the vast ocean of books and publications, you can’t be afraid to be audacious. Not everyone needs to agree with you, and if you’re afraid you’re going to upset some people, those are what back covers are for. They can read the description and if they don’t like it, they don’t have to read it. If they read it anyway and get upset, that’s on them and not you.

Besides all of that, no matter what you write, somebody is going to get upset. Even if you wrote the most neutral, trigger-less novel in the world, somebody would still be offended by it. So quit worrying so much about offending people; it’s taking from the beauty of your work.

Today’s post was short but sweet, but I really feel like this needed to be said. Making it as a writer is hard business, and nobody is concerned about your feelings, so don’t be so concerned about their feelings. Hopefully someone takes this to heart. Write your inner darkness. Go about your books murdering children and framing people for crimes they didn’t commit. Unless you stop caring what people think, the true spirit of your books won’t shine through.

#writer #writing #write #author #writerblr #blog post #offended #triggered #author help #book help #writing advice #writing help #am writing #book buzz #romance author

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detectiveharmony · 5 years

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Street harassment is not a compliment.

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detectiveharmony · 5 years

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Top Writing Tips

Lately I've been invested in doing beta readings. Some people's stories are great, others are not. Along the way I've learned a lot of things about writing myself. So today I'm going to give the top writing tips I've learned recently.

#1 Flesh out your paragraphs

Short, choppy sentences are good for actions scenes, but every one of your paragraphs shouldn't be one or two sentences. In one story I read, it seemed like every single paragraph lacked description. I know description is hard for some writers, but it can be easier if you break it down into steps. Write your dialogue, action, and description in separate runs. Whichever you prefer to start with is fine. Write all the action first, then go back and write the dialogue, then write in any necessary descriptions. It makes it easier to get a good grasp on each aspect of the chapter. Or you could do what I do and wait until the first draft completed, not worrying about any mistakes, and then go back and add in the details. Either way, fleshing out your paragraphs gives the reader a better grasp of what's going on, and it'll help the flow of your story.

#2 Do a draft before you send out for beta reading

Most people do this anyway, and it's not a bad idea to have a critique partner or someone to look over your first draft, but if you're sending out your book in mass for people to read, it's a good idea to draft it first, rather than sending out your first initial work. For one thing it can be hard for beta readers to pick up on mistakes that matter because they're focused on unfinished work/spelling errors/descriptions not properly developed or any number of things. You want them to see the errors that you can't see, so get rid of the ones you can first in order to get the most with your beta experience.

#3 Don't be repetitive

This is more an editing tip than a writing tip, but if you go back and read the same word several times, then try to be conscious of not using that word. For instance, if you say that a character has emerald eyes, you dont have to remind the reader every chapter that this character has emerald eyes. You can change the word if it's relevant, like saying green or grass colored, but if it's not really relevant then get rid of it altogether.

Hope this helped you guys, and that you'll be able to use these tips!

#writer #writing #book #literature #write #writing advice #writing help #author #novel #books #fiction #am writing #book help #lit #novelist #writerblr

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detectiveharmony · 5 years

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A year ago today, I was getting my oil changed by this cute mechanic, and 2 weeks later he proposed to me. 💗❤

(P.S. I had been dating him for 2 years already. 😂)

#writer #writing #book #literature #write #writing advice #writing help #author #novel #fiction #am writing #book help #novelist #writerblr

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detectiveharmony · 5 years

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Outlining Your Book 2

I got so sidetracked outlining my 4 book fantasy series that I almost forgot it was Monday and I needed to put up a post. Oops. So here is my second edition of outlining your book. I mainly decided to write about this again, even though I have a video on YouTube about it and probably another blog post somewhere because a lot of people asked me questions when I posted pictures during my outlining process, so here we go.

What is the point of an outline? How can it be helpful to the writing process?

Well, how long you got? Because let me tell you, we could be here a while. Having an outline isn’t necessary for some people. SOME PEOPLE, I said. Most people need to use them, especially with stories that have a lot of characters to follow and stories with a complicated plot or some mystery to be revealed later. For starters, it helps with the fluidity of your work. If you write down a sentence or two for every or chapter on a piece of paper or index cards or whatever, then you can see clearly and concisely how your plot works together. There won’t be any of this, “Umm… did I say that three chapters ago???” nonsense because you literally have your whole book right there in front of you, and by the end of it you should know how everything works together. Secondly, it will save you a ton of time because instead of realizing the second or third draft through you forgot to tie up that subplot, so now you have to go back and rewrite a bunch of stuff, you have the whole dang book right there in front of you in concise little sentences so you remember that Sally getting her lollipop stolen twenty chapters ago was relevant in some way. Thirdly, it helps you get to know your characters better before you start actually writing a book. An outline is the plot. The plot is the decisions that your characters make. If you know all the decisions your characters are going to make in the book, then you have a better idea of who they are, which will help to bring them to life when it comes to the actual writing.

What are the colors for???

I use an index card system for my outlines. This entails taking index cards, cutting them into snippets, and writing a sentence or two of what that scene will be about. Some people use just plain white cards. I do not. I use the most colorful cards I can find. All the colors of the wind, or whatever Pocahontas said. These colors are plot specific. Again, I am writing a 4 book medieval fantasy series, so bear with me. It all corresponds.

Green = Religious Orange = War Pink = Love story between Gaius and Demetria Purple = Scenes with my antagonist Yellow= Scenes with Demetria by herself Blue = Scenes with Gaius by himself Pale Yellow = Scenes with Drake

There are a couple others, but these aren’t as important. Organizing my outline in a color coded way like this helps me organize the different parts of my plot accordingly. There is a lot going on in this book, so I need to make sure everything gets developed at an even pace. There is a rebellion group trying to overthrow the church, someone is trying to usurp the crown from the rightful ruler, two of my characters are desperately in love but always separated by circumstance, the whole country is thrown into a war—it’s a lot. And I’m not about to try and hold all of that in my head and try to make it fluid, cohesive, and engaging. I re-designate the colors for each book I right, so it isn’t always like this. The last book I wrote, I didn’t use color coding for. All my cards were green, but that was because the plot was really straight forward.

Does your system work for you?

Yes, it does, and extremely well at that. I started writing my medieval fantasy without an outline because I thought I would just write it, and then use my first draft as an outline. Nope. Big mistake. I ended up writing and rewriting it at least five times, probably well over a hundred thousand words erased and done over, just because I’d get to the end and realize something in the beginning didn’t work. I don’t think I’d write a book without an outline, now. It has also helped with the amount of writer’s block I get, because I always know what has to happen next. I’m never stuck wondering what to do, or where to go with the plot from here.

But like I said, not EVERYONE needs them. Some plots are simple, and some people are just super geniuses and can write amazing books without having to use tools to keep them on track. I hate those people. I am not those people.

Just kidding.

No I’m not.

#writerblr #writer #writer blog #book help #book advice #writing advice #writing help #am writing #outline #book buzz

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