Ready to jump into wedding planning? Say hello to a whole new world where your Pinterest boards finally come alive! With so many ideas swirling around in your head, it can be dizzying deciding where to start. We planned our wedding plan (don’t judge us!). It was such a help! So, we hope you can benefit from our relentless, Type A nature. Here are some suggestions to get you started in our guide for how to plan a wedding.
Establish a rough timeline
Have you been asked the “when’s the wedding” question a million times? You don’t have to have the answer yet, but you may want to start thinking what time of year/season would work best for your lives, families, and vision for your wedding day. Don’t forget to consider school, work, and holiday schedules. From here, you’ll be able to set a rough timeline for wedding planning basics. Remember, there’s no rule on how long your engagement is!
Determine budget
This is by far the most important part of your wedding planning (and maybe one of the most stressful parts). It’ll be a factor in every wedding planning decision. You may want to have a conversation with anyone who will be contributing to the wedding. Determining what your budget is will help you know what you have to work with, especially before making big decisions like vendors.
Choose an overall look
You don’t have to pick out colors, decorations, and finer details now, but you may want to reflect on how you’ve always envisioned your wedding day. Is the look more modern, classic, elegant, rustic, chic, vintage, coastal, etc.? Peek at Pinterest and start pinning wedding pictures you like. You may find a theme in the pictures you’re drawn to!
Hire a Wedding Planner
Can you plan a wedding without a Wedding Planner, certainly. But if you can afford it, oh boy, it’s worth it! Having a planner to help you navigate the process may minimize your stress. Heck, you have a more fun engagement period because of them! It’s their job to find ways to make your dreams come true within your means. Not to mention, they may have resources or connections that can help maximize your budget, making your job easy peasy!
Brainstorm Priorities
It’s important for you to decide what your wedding day priorities are, whether practical or aesthetic. For example, for some their top three priorities may be: live band, food, and real flowers. While another’s may be: large guest list, photography, dress. Work these priorities into your budget and see what’s realistic and how it’ll effect your spending on other non-necessities.
Outline a guest list
By making a list of your must-have guests, you’ll be able to determine how large of a venue you’ll need. This will save you time venue scouting at locations that can’t fit all your guests! You may also want to talk with both your families when making this list.
Set the Date & Visiting Venues
Once you know what time of year (maybe even the month) that would work best for you two and your families, visit venues and ask what their availability is during that time of year. It’s common that couples base their dates on the venue’s availability. Keep in mind that venues often book far, far in advance and will likely want a deposit to reserve your date! This means you’ll need to start scouting for a venue soon and have a portion of your budget available to use.
Book Vendors
Your Wedding Planner should be well-networked with vendors (photographers, hair stylist, make-up artists, musicians, food catering, etc.) in your area and should provide recommendations to you based on your budget, theme, and personality. Knowing your date will help you find out what vendors will be able to work with you. Remember, the sooner you can book, the better! We’d like to think this post eliminated any stress you had, but we know how much of your heart and soul is going into your wedding planning.
We wish we had tallied how much money we spent on just staying organized during the wedding planning process itself! If you’re Type A, you may want to make room in your budget to buy organizational items to keep you sane – just kidding. Well…sort of 🙂 Happy planning! We hope this guide on how to plan a wedding proved helpful to you!
