“I’m engaged!!! I’m so happy and overjoyed to spend the rest of my life with this person 🙂 Now what?!?!?”
No matter if you are the girl that has been dreaming of her wedding dress since she was 3, or have never really thought about it, now you have to plan a wedding. Wedding planning can be hard, time consuming, and stressful. When you start to sit down and realize the number of decisions must be made, vendors to book, and things to organize, the idea of planning your wedding can get really overwhelming really fast! My biggest advice for brides to deal with this stress is to take it all one step at a time (and to take a lot of deep breaths). One of the hardest parts in the beginning is even knowing where to start. I’ve put together a few of the first things to think about, and check off the list, before you move on to the rest.
1 | Be prepared for a lot of questions the second you get engaged.
You may have been engaged for 30 seconds, but you will be asked when the wedding date is, what your colors are, or any number of wedding related questions. Know these are coming, be comfortable with saying “we don’t know yet,” and don’t let this stress you out. It doesn’t mean you should know by know, or even that you have to figure it out immediately. Your friends and family are just excited for you, and this is how they show it.
2 | Give yourself some time to enjoy just being engaged.
There is something so special about being engaged. There is also a lot of emotions you are feeling right now. You just made a pretty big (but hopefully easy) decision to change the rest of your life, and it is a wonderful decision filled with so much hope, excitement, and joy. Revel in it for a little while before you worry too much about how it’s all going to go down.
3 | Start talking about the “big picture” wedding questions.
I know this is vague, but it’s meant to be. It can encompass a lot of things, but these decisions must be made before you can move on to further planning. Do you want a big church wedding, or a small destination wedding? What months would be acceptable to get married in? Do you want a casual day, or an elegant affair? Generally what type of style are you drawn toward? Use this time to figure out what you want very generally, so that when it comes to finding specifics you know what to choose and aren’t wasting any time.
4 | Find a way to keep yourself organized.
This is going to look different for each person. For me, I had a 4 inch 3-ring binder that had everything wedding related in it, that I loved so much I still have it. I’ve seen other brides use file folders, extensive excel files, etc. Whatever works best for you is fine, but get yourself set up. There are all sorts of resources online for worksheets to help guide you. I find that if you get organized before you even begin to have anything to organize, you start out on the right foot and don’t have to go back and do it all later which is a much harder task.
5 | Figure out what is most important to you when it comes to your wedding.
It amazes me when I ask this question of couples in our initial consultation, how many of them don’t have an answer. Start with a general idea of what is most important about your day, and then figure out what vendors/plans need to be put in place to make this happen. Is it most important that everyone just has a rockin’ time? Then your DJ will probably be on the top of your list. For me, it was that it was a beautiful day, and that I had amazing photos to remember it all by. This will help guide your decisions for the rest of the process.
6 | Have the budget conversation.
This is no fun. No one likes talking about money, but it’s a necessary evil. Are your parents contributing? How much can you realistically spend? Once you have a total in your mind, there are all sorts of online resources that will give you a guideline of the best way to allocate that. Keep in mind, this doesn’t have to be set in stone! Think about what you decided is most important; splurge on what is going to make that happen, and save on what doesn’t matter as much to you.
7 | Book venues, wedding planner, and photographer.
In my experience, these vendors are the first to get booked up. One of the biggest reasons is because they cannot accommodate more than one wedding in a day (while a cake artist can do multiple cakes for one wedding date). Additionally, the look of your venue may have a significant impact on your decor, flowers, dress etc, so you want to have that settled early. If you plan on having a wedding planner, then you’ll want to get them on board from the get-go.
8 | Remember that no matter what happens, at the end of the day you’ll be married to the love of your life.
This can be easy to lose sight of. Wanting everything to be awesome and wonderful and perfect can very quickly take over your brain. Everything will be awesome and wonderful, it won’t be perfect, and it’s ok. You can plan a giant wedding, you can be very specific about every detail of your day; I absolutely was! But you also have to not let that be the driving force for planning a wedding.
Though this is in no way a comprehensive list, it’s meant to be a start. Don’t worry about napkins or bridesmaids’ shoes right now, just work on these things first. If you remember to just take it one step at a time, then wedding planning becomes a lot less stressful. As you get going in planning, don’t be afraid to check out my other wedding tips! Lastly, don’t forget to lean on your vendors for help. You’re not an expert in weddings, and you’re not supposed to be, but your vendors are! Ask them questions, get their opinion, trust them! That is what they are there for 🙂
Good luck planning!
P.S. Have something you think should be added to this list? I want to hear in the comments!
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