Congratulations! You’re getting married! You're about to embark on two exhilarating adventures - the first is beginning your life journey with your groom and the second is the exciting, yet often overwhelming, process of planning a wedding. A wedding will probably be the biggest and most elaborate party or ritual either of you have ever put together.
Before you start to panic, take a deep breath, relax, then do these ten things:
1. Start your wedding guest list. And stay on top of it. Knowing the numbers of who will be attending is important for your budget, especially if you have family members helping pay for some of it. You don’t want to surprise dad with a guest list of 300 when he was planning for 50. Nor do you want to try to squeeze 300 guests into a venue such as a lighthouse. Decide whether you want just close family or whether you’d love to have all your friends and family involved in your big day.
2. Have a budget. Don’t start picking out flowers or dresses or reception halls without knowing what your bottom line is and who is paying for what. This is the most important factor to keep in mind throughout your entire planning process. In the end, dollars, not dreams, are a main determining factor for the size and style of your wedding.
3. Pick a date. Sounds simple, but picking a date during peak wedding season will be more expensive and add to your overall budget. However, picking one off season may have unfavorable weather. The same is true for times and days of the week as well. A Sunday brunch is much cheaper and more laid back than a Saturday extravaganza.
4.
Purchase a wedding planning book. Good ones have a section for budgeting and checklists, and a timeline or calendar for appointments as well as sections for each stag e of the wedding and reception. Keep you book in a prominent place so that you can add to it as needed while making important arrangements.
5. Purchase a Journal If You Don't Already Have One. There will be ten thousand moments you won't want to forget, as well as some extremely frustrating times that you'll need to vent about, and not necessarily to your partner. The journal you keep while you plan your wedding will not only help you through these good and bad times, but it will be something you cherish for the rest of your life. If you're internet savvy kinds of folks, you may also consider doing this journaling online with your own blog or starting a wedding Pinterest account to pin your favorite pictures to.
6. Plan an engagement party or don’t. Another party on top of everything else? Don’t stress. Make this party simple. You really just want to be able to share this exciting time in your life with others. So if this is too much with everything else you have to worry about, nix the party. No one said you have to add more stress to your life or extra money to your budget. However, this is a great way for future in laws to meet.
7. Stop the Insanity. Family members are the first ones to start asking a million questions the moment you tell them the good news. They also want to offer all their advice (and expect you to follow it). Sound familiar? It's easy to let people stress you out during the "newly engaged" phase. Don't let them. If people keep pressuring you about the date, don't be intimidated. Instead, say, “Once we come off cloud nine, you'll be the first to know the wedding date.” Whatever you do, don't miss the chance to bask in your new status and enjoy those first few weeks free from planning pressure.
8. Envision your style. Your wedding style will be reflected first and foremost in the location, whether it's a luxurious ballroom, a beach getaway, or an intimate backyard reception. Your color choice will also play an important role. Do you want bright bold hues or soft pastels? Also, keep in mind your religious and ethnic backgrounds as you start to plan. Talk with your groom about both your styles and backgrounds and which styles you could implement together.
9. Include your Groom. Sure he might not care about the little details of whether the flowers should be peonies or petunias, but he may want a say in what type of wedding to have, where it should be held, and who to invite. Once the main decisions are made, don’t feel offended if he decides to let you have control of the rest of the details. Still, keep him in the loop of where you are at in wedding planning. Also, let him know up front that his main job will be to listen to you vent about wedding planning.
10.
Plan the Invitations. Lots of brides like putting this off until later in the planning process, however, the sooner you pick your overall style of wedding, the sooner you should find invitations to match. Of course, we recommend starting you quest for the best invites at Nobbies, where invitations start at 25% off every day!
The moral of this engaging story? Treasure engagement bliss and revel in your excitement -- you'll have plenty of arrangement headaches to worry about later. From announcing your engagement to narrowing the guest list, we’ve made it easy to figure out what you should do first. The most important thing is to enjoy the journey because your engagement will be over before you know it (even if right now it seems like your wedding day is a million years away!).
