So you’re newly engaged – congratulations! But where in the world do you start planning? There are so many infographics and guides on the internet – Pinterest is flooded with them (and if you’re a bride to be, you’ve spent quite a bit of time on Pinterest)! Here’s our take, from a vendor perspective, to hopefully give you some new and usable insight.
The First Steps:
– Settle on a budget: This is super important and somehow still gets put lower than 1st on most lists! When you’re figuring out your wedding budget, decide on your bottom line of ‘how much I can spend total,’ but then also think about where you want to designate the most funds. Decide what’s most important to you and where you’re willing to spend, and what you would be okay spending less on.
– Narrow down potential wedding dates: The general internet advice is to choose three dates that you would be happy to have be your anniversary. From a vendor perspective, we suggest picking a season and not getting attached to specific dates. We are much more likely to have availability during a season and be able to find a date for you. There’s a much higher success rate for both of us when we tell you all of our available Spring dates and you pick one, rather than if you ask if we’re available May 18th and we have to tell you no, which ends the conversation.
– Start a preliminary guest list: Think about how you want your wedding to feel – intimate and personal, or surrounded by everyone you know and love. You don’t have to have a set list at this point, but there’s a big difference in 70 guests vs 170 guests when you are choosing a venue and budgeting for food.
– Start a wedding Pinterest board: Just kidding, we know you’ve had one for years! But start really researching and pinning inspirational images of what you want your dream day to look like. There’s tons of options out there for venue, food, flowers, photographers, and everything in between, so it helps to have a specific image in your mind of what you want when you’re choosing vendors.
Happy planning! Remember, our wedding experts are always available to help with any aspect of the planning process and are only an email or phone call away!