How To Start Planning Your Wedding

First of all, con­grat­u­la­tions! This is such and excit­ing and busy time for you and your part­ner. You may soon find your­self stuck between the new­ness of being engaged and the over­whelm­ing stress of wed­ding plan­ning. While you may not always be at ease dur­ing plan­ning, it is pos­si­ble to have fun. If you’re ready to jump in feet first, here’s where to begin so you can enjoy being engaged and wed­ding plan­ning at the same time:

ENJOY THE MOMENT

Take a few days or weeks to soak in just being engaged with­out fac­ing wed­ding plan­ning. The ques­tions will start com­ing in pret­ty soon and they can (and will) be annoy­ing. Our best advice? Answer with a smile and pop anoth­er bot­tle of bub­bly. There will be plen­ty of time for fig­ur­ing out the answers to the ques­tions lat­er.

HAVE AN ENGAGEMENT PARTY

If you’re so inclined, now’s the time to have an engage­ment par­ty. You don’t have to have an engage­ment par­ty, but if you do, here’s our guide to plan­ning one. Engage­ment par­ties typ­i­cal­ly take place with­in the first few months of being engaged and give you a chance to cel­e­brate with friends and family…and to drink more cham­pagne.

CREATE YOUR VISION

Once you’ve cel­e­brat­ed, it’s time to nar­row down your vision for your wed­ding. If you haven’t already, start talk­ing about the basics:

• Where will the wed­ding take place?
• What time of year or sea­son?
• What style of venue are you inter­est­ed in?
• What’s most impor­tant to you about this wed­ding?

The basics will help guide all of your deci­sions, from venue and date, to guest list and attire.

PLAY THE GUESTLIST “HUNGER GAMES”

Choos­ing your guest list can be one of the hard­est parts of the wed­ding. You and your fiancée, your par­ents, and your fiancée’s par­ents gen­er­al­ly all get to con­tribute to the guest list and it’s often hard to set expec­ta­tions across all three par­ties. Start with your budget—the eas­i­est way to cut your spend­ing is to cut the guest list, so don’t com­mit to 200 guests if you can only real­is­ti­cal­ly afford 120. Or, if you must have the 200, then find a venue and cater­er that can accom­mo­date the high­er num­ber for a low­er price. Don’t for­get space con­straints too; you want your guests to be com­fort­able.

“As a rule of thumb, allow for 25 to 30 square feet per guest. That may seem like a lot, but it’s not if you count the space you’ll need for the tables, bustling wait­ers, the band and a dance floor.” – The Knot

FIND A VENUE AND PICK A DATE

Once you have your vision and approx­i­mate guest list nailed down, it’s time to find a venue that fits your style, bud­get, and desired date. Don’t for­get that Fri­day, Sun­day and day­time wed­dings can often be much more afford­able than Sat­ur­day nights if you need to adjust for bud­get. And con­sid­er your guests’ com­fort too. You may love the farm three hours from the near­est air­port, but will your guests find it easy and afford­able to get to? Will your grand­moth­er be able to get around? Bal­ance your wed­ding dreams with the prac­ti­cal con­sid­er­a­tions of host­ing a large event and you’ll be off and run­ning in no time.

Get Start­ed