Lost in Planning

Congratulations on your engagement!

I understand how you feel. I was in my first wedding ever last year and then we got engage in 2017. I will say, I never knew all that goes into planning a wedding. Here are a few suggestions:

Discuss the date for the wedding first with your fiance

I used wedding wire to set up venues tours (I went on 5 I think, it was stressful at first but when I found the one it was like the best feeling ever) Be patient during this time.

Discuss how many guest you both want to invite. Also discuss if you both will be having a bridal party and how many?

Figure if you want to DIY or hire a decor company. (I thought i wanted to DIY until i ordered the wrong vases and I literally had a break down and was like nope I am finding a decor company). Some companies are expensive but I used Instagram to help find my florist and decor. I hashtag #757weddings (the city or town your getting married in) on Instagram and it pulled up brides who tagged their vendors. This helped a lot BC I was able to find reasonable price vendors.

Once you find a flow it will come easily. I am a planner so it wasn't to hard for me and I also started early ( I did get a lot of you starting to early or you got plenty time) but now i am two weeks away from our wedding and everything is done.

Sorry so long, hopes this help. Ask me anything if needed.

PP gave great advice, but before any of that, I'd start by figuring out your total budget. What can you afford/want to spend on your wedding? That number will potentially impact your date (do you need time to save?), your guest list (this is typically the #1 driver of total cost: more guests=MORE $$$ ), and budget, guest list & date will be critical in choosing a venue. Good luck!

Just to get a rough idea of what to expect the total costs might be, try Googling "average cost of a wedding in __wherever you live_." Be prepared for the number to give you a heart attack.... It may or may not apply to the wedding you decide to plan, but it will give you an idea. We didn't believe it at first, but a relatively traditional, semi-formal wedding with 100 guests actually ended up costing almost exactly what the "average" predicted....) Again, good luck!

There are a lot of good reference articles and forums here that give you this whole timeline that's recommended. e.g. what to do when you're 12 months out, 9 months out, etc. so definitely refer to those to give you a better idea of what to do and when

Hi Brianna, welcome to Wedding Wire!! There are free wedding checklists everywhere! There is one on here that is very good and helpful. I also went to Michael's and got myself a big binder that has a great timeline and category checklists, etc. Very good for planning. There are also other websites like Zola, The Knot, etc. that can be very useful. Use all the tools you have at your disposal! The more organized you are, the easier it will be.

But I agree with MOB So Cal that you have to start with budget. We had set a date originally, and started booking vendors, then halfway to that date realized that we weren't going to have enough money in time. Basically, we hadn't given ourselves enough time to save for the wedding we wanted that soon. So, we pushed it out about 9 months, and now we're on track to have everything we want, with a price tag we can afford, and enough time to save that amount. So, you just want to be sure you're giving yourself enough time and the resources to plan what you want. It's about prioritizing--what is most important to you and FH for that day?

It's not easy, for sure. But WW is a great place to come with questions, frustrations, or even just for a laugh. The ladies on here are super supportive, and very helpful. Happy planning!!

We have an estimated guest list of 50 people for the ceremony and were having the reception at our small town bar that we feel is family we want to enjoy it with. Our date is August 15th 2020. We sped up our date seeing as his mother has stage 4 lung cancer and we want her to be there with us. We have a budget around $8000-$10000. We know our location, budget, theme, date, and guest list. Its just picking the invitations, trying to find someone to create my vision for decorations. We want a traditional wedding but with an underlying harry potter theme.