Just got engaged yesterday!!

1. Establish a budget


2. Search for a venue you love and then pick a date based off of that. For example explore outdoor venues as well as indoor venues that way you can have the choice of getting married around anytime of the year.
3. Guest List
4. Start the planning process! Everything from decor to thinking about meal options.
5. Dress Shopping!
6. Send out save the dates nine months before the wedding typically. Minted.com is GREAT for this! They also do a wedding website which is phenomenal!
I do NOT recommend using WeddingWires wedding website because everyone has problems with it!

Congrats very beautiful! We narrowed down a date by discussing how long we wanted to stay engaged for (under 1 year), what season we wanted to be married in (spring). We discussed the guest size (this can help keep expenses either low or high), developed a budget, and found a venue that was within our budget (did it have an open bar, catering, clean up etc).

View Quoted Comment I mostly discussed the same things Jai Butcher described. Also important to consider when talking about the budget is if you and your FH are paying for things yourself or if family is contributing.


I knew I wanted to get married in Winter (really, we wanted the anniversary in winter so we had an excuse for a vacation when it was cold and grey), have as small a guest list as possible, and wanted plenty of time to do DIY elements for the ceremony/reception. Focus on your priorities early on and that can help guide you with making some of your other decissions.
As for the date, my fiancé loves puns and after he realized 2/22/22 was a Tuesday he refused any other date ("It's a 2's day!" he kept saying). He also wanted a day that would be easy to remember. We were already looking at sometime late February so it worked out well for us.

View Quoted Comment Yep! We got engaged July 4 2019 and married May 16 2020. We love the spring! Summer is too hot and fall weddings are too common. Definitely setting a budget is very important too, even bought a wedding budget book from Amazon

Congrats!

I agree with setting a budget! As to narrowing down a date - you can do a date that is important to you, or if you think about what season you like! I knew I wanted a fall wedding, and our dating anniversary is end of October so just decided to get married on that date! I suggest avoiding holiday weekends as they tend to be more expensive, at least thats what I've seen since I've been planning.

Happy Planning!

Deciding on a budget, guest list, and date/season should be first. Then you can look for a venue. You don’t want to choose something to small to host everyone or out of your budget. I would have an idea of date before looking, but it doesn’t hurt to be flexible.
We chose our date because I was in grad school and it’s hard to plan when the schedule only comes out a few weeks before. I didn’t want to wait until graduation. So we picked MLK weekend since I was off that weekend when we got engaged. We were engaged a year and 2 weeks. If you’re paying yourselves you can choose to have a longer engagement and choose a date by looking at how long it will take you to save. My advice would be to take small steps because it can be overwhelming. I dived right in and it was a lot even though we didn’t book anything right away. Oh and a second piece of advice don’t be afraid to ask questions and do research. Don’t feel pressured to make a decision right away on anything. And use a binder or spreadsheet to keep everything organized.

Congratulations, I see you posted May 2022 as your date. Are you still planning on having a destination wedding? It's not too early to get started since a lot of 2022 dates have been booked with Covid brides postponing their weddings.

View Quoted Comment Not anymore! We have actually decided on March 12, 2022 tradition wedding

Congrats!!!

Congratulations
First thing set a budget that you can afford not what you think you can afford.
Second what do you want your color scheme to be pastels or deep Hughes that will determine your seasonThe. Pick a month Go venue searching and pick a date they have available
For me we picked April and a spring wedding cause I wanted pastels and we have 3s in our birthdate so we chose 23rd of April 2022

We first decided on the budget, approximate guest list size, and general time of year we wanted to get married (fall). Once we found the venue we wanted, we chose the date based on the venue’s availability. From there we were able to hire our other major vendors. Once they were hired, we were able to focus more on the details.

Make sure that you obtain a date where both the wedding ceremony and wedding reception venue have the same open date. Wedding ceremony places (like churches) and wedding reception venues (Ballrooms, etc.) book a year to a year and a half out. If you are going to have a big wedding, you need to plan this out about a year out. Planning a Wedding is like producing a broadway show. There are lots of players (vendors, wedding party personnel, etc.). You will be quite busy during the year. Make sure to include your fiancée in the planning. Yes, the guys can help out. This website, Weddingwire.com is a great asset for planning the wedding (and no, I am not affiliated with this website). I put together a Wedding Planning file in my Word program and it runs 75 pages. Make sure to obtain all of the information on your vendors (Florist, photographer, videographer, etc.) and get all of the particular infomation: Name of Business, address, website address, telephone number, contact person, price, hours of operation, etc. I hope that this helps. Congratulations to you and your fiancée. Wishing a very long, happy and blessed marriage.

🤷‍♀️On "Black and White"For us it was...
Budget
DateThemeGuestVenue

☺Needless to say,it didn't happened in that order...It actually went like this..ThemeVenue DateBugetGuest
Happy Planning 🥂

Congrats & welcome to WW! Love these forums but don’t purchase a personal domain from them. Seen way too many people having issues with glitches & issues. I use The Knot for our wedding website & checklist.
Guest list & budget - top priority! My fiancé is a firefighter & does wild land assignments during the summer time so a summer wedding was out. We didn’t want a winter wedding either. We knew our date was going to be in 2021 but didn’t know when. We got engaged at a family reunion & was having dinner with the family. His cousin mentioned “what about April 3rd?” We didn’t know the importance of that date until she said “think about it 4/3/21!” We loved it!

Congratulations! SO exciting! I got engaged in November 2020 first thing we did was set a budget! Once you have that set it will give you a better idea of a time frame for a wedding.

Congratulations

Congratulations Samantha!! 💍❤️

Here are a few helpful guides you can check out that walk you through those first planning steps:

Just Got Engaged? The 8 Things You Need to Do First

How to Plan a Wedding Step by Step

7 Things Couples Should Agree on Before Wedding Planning

We went off our dating anniversary. And made sure all family who we wanted there would be available on that date. 😊

We picked our date based on the availability of our church. We also wanted am engagement of less than a year--deciding how long you want to be engaged will help you decide. Also make sure your VIPs can make your date.


First thing is definitely budget, then venue, than photographer. First thing is NOT bridesmaids (which I did first)--dont ask them til 6-8 months before your set date.
If you want a custom dress, bump that up too

Congratulations. We got engaged August 15 2019 and originally wanted to get married on August 15 because that's when we started dating. But my fiance didn't want to get married the next year and I didn't want to get married on a weekday because of my job. So we decided on August 14 2021 its the day before our anniversary and it gives us plenty of time to plan and save for it.


First thing I'd do is see just how much you can afford to spend on the wedding. And budget for each thing you want or need at the wedding. Then I'd start searching for venues and vendors in your price range. Vendors and venues book fast so you are going to want to research them and find out how much they are and what their deposit is, also what is their refund policy. And then when the wedding is within the year start booking.