Just got engaged and plan on getting married next year! Any tips from fellow ladies who juggled the demands of Big Law and wedding planning? Lowkey terrified of the lack of time and energy - any advice would be appreciated!

Hire a wedding planner or have a smaller, simpler wedding that isn’t hard or stressful to plan. I did the latter.

Echo the wedding planner and learn now to let go of the minutia. I billed 250 the month I got married and told my planner it was his show now. If you trust your planner and have properly expressed your vision, they should be able to carry it out without bothering you too much.

Congratulations! I got married as a second year in BL and planned everything myself without a full wedding planner, although I did have a month of coordinator, which is essential. I think having a full planner is probably ideal, but if that isn’t an option or you just want to be more involved in the process, I would recommend the following:
1. Pick maybe 3 vendors to really invest your energy in researching and choosing and let them build your vendor network for you. For me, that was my wedding coordinator, photographer, and venue. Once I had those in place, all of my other vendors came from their recommendations.
2. Make decisions and move on. Don’t overwhelm yourself with choices. If you’re choosing a reputable vendor, they’ll be great—don’t overthink it. This approach was how I was able to keep that initial phase of planning in check, because I wasn’t interviewing 5+ options for every vendor category.
3. If you don’t have a full planner, outsource as much as you can. Friends and family are excited for you and will be delighted to help. Would recommend finding some sort of wedding planner or checklist (my coordinator also had one she provided) and assigning out discrete tasks so folks know what they are responsible for. You can also pay people to do about anything, such as stamping and addressing invitations.
4. There are ebbs and flows over the course of the planning period. I was most busy the first couple months after I got engaged, when save the dates went out, and then the last 2 months before the wedding. If you’re in a practice area that also has ebbs and flows, try to plan wedding stuff around that, but know that you won’t be constantly inundated with wedding stuff.
5. If you’re doing the lion’s share of wedding planning, have your partner plan the honeymoon. Alternatively, hire a travel agent or pick something simple like an all inclusive.
6. Be super communicative with your colleagues about when you’ll be out for wedding stuff—including bachelorette trips, showers, and honeymoon. In my experience, people were excited for me and super respectful of my time off, but make sure folks have plenty of advance notice.

Not specifically about wedding planning, but I highly recommend splitting up your wedding and honeymoon because this is some of the only time off that is fully protected in big law and it’s a sneaky way to take more time off. I did a week and a half for my wedding + “mini moon” and going to do 2.5 weeks this fall for my actual honeymoon. Just blame it on your spouse’s work schedule. I was also EXHAUSTED after my wedding, so it was nice to have a few days to lay low then go on a chill trip for a few days.

I got married before I went to big law but I still hired a wedding planner to help me. I think step one is figuring out how much control you want and the level of detail that you care about being involved in. I had opinions on some things, but honestly left a lot up to my wedding planners as far as the minutia. For example, I knew what colors I wanted and some of the feel that I wanted as far as the decor goes, but I didn’t really care to pick out the specific table linens or cutlery or exactly how the chairs would be arranged at my outdoor venue. Letting go of that control was easy for me, but I know harder for other people. If you’re able to let go, it will make your life a lot better so that you can focus on enjoying the wedding process while still maintaining your high billing standards

I’m not in big law but I’m currently planning a wedding and really wish I had hired a planner. It would have saved me so much time to have someone cull through the millions of options for me, take some of the vendor calls (no vendor wants to just email and it is killing me lol), and make some of the small decisions.

Absolutely hire a wedding planner. I had a colleague totally tank her reputation attempting to plan her own wedding (and constantly talking about it) to the detriment of her work. A planner helps you enjoy the best parts of the process without having to slog through the worst. Make sure to vet that they’re willing to hold calls with you off hours due to work work schedule. Ours was a dream and totally fine to chat with us at 9 and 10pm when needed and to make small decisions without our input (within boundaries we’d set, of course).

I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but we eloped with a small <10 person ceremony through a elopement company’s package deal. Zero anxiety and zero regrets. Only decision making involved was the date and location. Every penny and hour saved goes to my sanity and my back-up plan for exiting big law.

Also engaged and planning a wedding. Having a relatively small wedding (by choice, not because of the job), so it’s not as big of a production as, say, a 200+ person event.

One thing I’ll add is: let your partner handle little details if he (or she) works more normal hours! My fiancé is detail oriented, and he’s doing a lot of the leg-work: emailing vendors, scoping recommendations from friends, identifying a few too options for me to look at, etc. He’s so helpful, and I’m not sucked up in planning at all.

Get a wedding planner it’s worth the money and alleviates so much stress

Thank you, all! Hired a planner for my sanity - appreciate the responses and advised! 💕