Where to start?!

Very first thing to do is take a big breath and enjoy being engaged! Second thing is to sit down with everyone who's going to be involved monetarily with the wedding and hammer out a budget. Then pick a date and a venue before you try and book anything else!

Welcome to crazy town!

Congratulations! Enjoy being engaged for a little bit before going into the planning. Two things you need to do before anything else is figure out your budget and guest list. How many people you'll have will help determine your venue options. The more people you have the more it'll cost. Breathe, everything will get done and it'll be fabulous.

Congratulations! The first two things you need to figure out are your budget and guestlist. We created a spreadsheet that was broken into categories and we approximated how much we wanted to spend on each thing. We based our budget off of about 125 people since we had a rough idea of how many people we were inviting. After you figure out these two things then I would start looking for venues. The first two things should be done before you look for a venue so you know how much you can spend on a venue and a rough idea of how many people the venue will need to be able to accommodate. Those were the two most important questions every venue we looked at asked us.

Start with your budget, date & booking a venue. Without a date and location secured, you really cant hire other vendors.

....Also a tentative guest list to help select the right size venue.


Funny enough, we already planned to have a smaller wedding of about 80 guests. But we loved our venue and when they told us it held 60 people, we were like “Oh well, I guess some people are getting cut” Lol 🤷🏽‍♀️

Congratulations on your engagement! The first thing I would say to do is to take a step back and enjoy being engaged for a little while without the thought of starting to plan the wedding.

The first few things my FH and I did to get started was deciding on our budget, made a rough draft guest list so we knew around how many people we wanted to invite (this will help you when you start looking at venues), and we made a list of must-haves for the venue and for the day of. Then we started looking a venues.

For me, after we got our venue nailed down everything else starting falling into place. We asked our bridal party to be apart of our wedding, ordered our save the dates, looked into catering, our cake baker, the DJ, the photographer, got my dress, styled and purchased his custom suit, decided on our bridal party's attire, ordered invitations and everything in-between.

If you plan on planning the entire wedding on your own without a wedding planner (like we are), I strongly suggest that you get a calendar and decide on dates that you want things completed by. That way, you have an overview and a timeline for getting everything done/ordered. I even put the small things I might forget like "ordering the fake throw flowers for the flower girl" on January 10th on my calendar. That way I have them in time for the wedding.

Congratulations again!!

Congrats!!! Definitely take some time to enjoy this. Starting is literally one of the hardest parts. Here's what I did but everyone is different so do your wedding at your pace.

**First and foremost, I would suggest making a special wedding email. Something you and your partner both have access to so all your emails with vendors can go to one place. This will help you stay organized, especially if you plan on going to any bridal shows. You will want somewhere for all these emails to go. Just try to stay on it so it doesn't get cluttered.

Once you feel like your ready to get started think about a budget. It doesn't have to be detailed, but you should have an idea of what you're trying to stay under. Although more detail can help if you're super organized. We just decided to have a goal max and a drop dead max.

Then you want to think about the things you HAVE to have. Make a list of the most important things you and your partner need to make this wedding special. Whether that is a specific venue or maybe even a destination wedding, a certain type of vendor, a certain style of food, etc. That's going to decide where you look, what you look for first, and where you'll want to put more money. I would stick to just a few things.

Next I would suggest thinking about venues and dates. You'll at least want a date range if you don't have a specific date in mind. You'll need one to decide the other. For us, we had a venue we really wanted for the ceremony and an idea about spring so we nailed down the date with that.

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We did the same. We initially expected to invite around 75 people but cut it to 50 when we found our venue. I know people say guest list first, but I think the venue can really help determine the guest list.

I think the best 2 things to start with our budget & guest count (so make a preliminary ideal guest list). Then once you have those two, start looking at venues in your budget that hold your guest list (and start thinking about a time of year or a few dates you guys like). After those are booked & figured out, the rest of the vendors will fall into place a lot easier.

1. Budget

2. Draft of guest list

3. Vision of wedding (big or small, indoor or outdoor, fancy or causal, city or country, spring or fall etc.)

4. Look at venues that align with your guest list size, vision, and budget.

Congratulations!

View Quoted Comment And it makes it so much easier whenever someone wants to start a discussion about the wedding. I start off by explaining, “we’re having a very small wedding of only 60 people…”. That usually cuts off any follow-up questions about whether they can attend or not. Lol!!! FH and I know a lot of people. But I like the idea of only having our innermost circle attending.

Honestly this app was the first place I started! It had things broken down by months out and tasks to be completed! Enjoy the engagement, pick a date, a budget, and get started! It’s been a blast so far!!

Congratulations!! I definitely suggest starting with a budget. After that I started looking at venues, but I was all over the place. Barns, country clubs, banquet halls. Someone suggested looking at dresses first and the dress will choose wear you have it. An elegant, full ballgown looks great in a ballroom, whereas a lacey A-line could look great in a barn. I didnt believe them when they told me, but I definitely see how the dress helped me choose the place.
After that, I figured out my guest list and how many people I could invite. It goes without saying that the more expensive the venue is, the less people you can invite. So keep that in mind before you start looking at venues. Have fun with it!!

Pick a date, find a venue. Most vendors in our experience didn’t really have much to talk to us about until we picked a date

Congratulations! We actually talk about our colors for the wedding first and from there it kinda just feel in place I knew i wanted a fall wedding so the colors kinda came easy and the next thing was a venue we both wanted somewhere out and inside plus at the same place so no one had to drive to the next place and it just so happened that they do everything from cooking to even fixing up the place how we want it abx they take it down I don't know what's your price range is but it you could do it find somewhere that has everyone yall need right there its a life saver

Halloween engagement! Happy day!


Plan on who is helping you financially, if anyone, to sit down and talk about what it is you want to do. Where and when you want to get married. Guest lists can be a huge thing. Especially, if one sides parents are helping more- they can feel they have “the right” to add more people.
If you need help let me know. Certified wedding planner here! Lol

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That was us exactly! We had to keep the number under 50. Most people got that and were fine wishing us well. Of course that made the half dozen no shows a bit more annoying, but what are you going to do?

Take a deep breath and enjoy being engaged. It will fly by. Make sure you continue to spend time together and go out together without talking about the wedding (don't talk about it all the time). Work on a budget with whoever is involved monetarily with the wedding. Then pick a venue and a time of year. Your venue will determine your date. Some venues book 1 year to couple years in advance. Then book your venue & date. And start looking for photographer, videographer (if you want one - I highly recommend), DJ, etc. Weddingwire's checklist is a great guide. They even have a budgeting tool