What was your first wedding planning decision?

Well, we knew we wanted a woodland fairytale aesthetic and we made up a rough guest list and approximate budget which helped us pick our venue... but the venue is the first thing we set in stone. The ballroom has beautiful tree trunk pillars and huge glass windows and we both knew it was perfect. My mom even gasped when she saw the pictures. It was over the rough budget I’d been given to work with, but both parents agreed it was worth it, so that was that. The venue comes with catering, doc, and bartending, so we actually made a few decisions at once. Woo!

Now for all the other decisions.

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What did your guest count end up being?!

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Wow sounds like an amazing venue! And it's so nice that it come with so many vendors in the package! That's a lot of vendors to cross off!

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Yes yes yes! Texas Roadhouse is our FAVORITE restaurant. I've never had a bad experience at one (food and service!). I hope you'll have some of those amazing rolls at your wedding hehe

View Quoted Comment 179-200 if we decide to include extra people

When he asked me to marry him on Christmas Day and telling me that he wants the one song we both fell in love with” a thousand years” he said it remind him of our love growing stronger each year. We’ve been together now for 7yrs and still deeply in love!

First decision was which beach to get married on! Because I knew we were doing destination

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We are having the ceremony at my university chapel and our reception at a local banquet center. The first reception venue we looked at was completely booked up for every Saturday in spring! I am so glad we chose our venues first.

First decision was having a first draft of our guest list so we would know which venues could accommodate! Trying to stay close to 100, so that automatically put a lot of venues out of the running.

The venue for us!

Our first decision was our budget! That really helped us to price venues & such!

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We booked a Saturday evening reception at a well-known Los Angeles restaurant that features hilltop views and good food. Our room doesn't have a hilltop view, but it came with a garden and a pond attached so our guests can step out and get some air if they want to. Most of the other locals we looked at offered the same stuff, but their ballrooms either weren't as nice, or cost more to decorate to our liking, or didn't offer the same extensive menus as the one we booked with.
My experience with negotiating with a venue is to have them show you what they have to offer, and then once you have set your eyes on a room, ask point blank: "Can I get a breakdown for your time slots on x-y-z date?" Basically it means "I dig your place. How much money do you need to make money off of it on the date I ask for?" Usually they give you a dollar amount for the room, for full-service catering, so that is your touchstone to compare to your budget. We ended up agreeing to a higher slot in the catering to reach that minimum for a bigger much more desirable room.

There were a couple of venues we wrote off right off the bat even though they were closer: the Warner Center Marriott and the Woodland Hills Hilton. Warner Center was abandoned because they wanted to charge our guests for parking: not cool since they are making money off of us anyway, plus they were a Pepsi establishment and I like my Diet Coke. The Hilton apparently doesn't think that they have to give any documentation on their website for receptions, even though I know they have the space. They didn't seem all too eager to do business, and if that was their attitude towards it, I don't need half-hearted vendors on my team.

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That's awesome, it sounds like it's a great venue! This is great advice when it comes to touring venues, it's nice to get an estimate of the price they will charge for the facilities! I'm the same as you, I'm a Cherry Coke girl so can't have a Pepsi establishment!

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It sounds like a beautiful venue! I love huge windows, I think natural light just adds such a nice aesthetic to a venue! That's great that it came with some of the vendors, makes it easier! What decision is next?

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That's awesome!! What beach are you all getting married at?

Definitely the budget! With a budget in mind we had a better clarity of how we want our day to be and who we want to invite.

The color Rose Gold! And just booked the venue yesterday! Now time for bridesmaid proposals.

Our first decision we made was our wedding date. We considered 3 different potential dates, before finally deciding on the special day!!!

Our location and venue! Since we are on the east coast along with friends but most of our family is in the Midwest, we had to decide what made most sense. We had wanted to get married in September or October but realized pretty quickly everyone else did as well and there were only 3 dates available for our venue in July and August - so we chose August and we booked it and started creating theme boards for our ideas togehrer. While it felt like we planned a ton of stuff in a short amount of time (we got engaged in December and had most deposits paid and done in December) we’re really grateful to know our vendors are set (or so we hope!) and we can worry about the small things now instead of the big ones. I would however if doing it again, set a more serious budget at the beginning - we were shocked and couldn’t believe before getting engaged at how much people had told us they spent on their weddings and now find ourselves pretty close to their numbers!

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That's awesome! I feel like the budget is a great place to start! Have you started looking at venues?