Engaged? Here's What You Need To Do First!
December is notorious for being one of the most popular months of the year for proposals. The holidays bring about a huge spike in engagements making the winter season prime time for the beginning steps towards wedding planning.
With so many new brides-to-be about to embark on their wedding planning process, we are here to help things run smoothly by offering you the top three things you should do once you are engaged.
Determine Your Wedding Budget:
Organize your finances and figure out where the money is going to come from for your wedding in order to determine your wedding budget.
This is very important to do early on in your engagement because it dictates how you will plan your affair as you do not want to look at wedding venues or interview vendors that are too expensive and out of your budget.
Ask yourself the following questions:
How much money is in your budget? How do you want to allocate your funds? Which features (flowers, wedding dress, venue, photography etc.) are most important to you?
Guest List:
Your guest list helps you to determine two very important things which you need to know at the very start of your wedding planning process:
1. How much of your budget is devoted to your guests.
2. How large of a venue do you need.
It is very difficult to plan your wedding without having an idea of how many guests you will be inviting. Sometimes wedding couples struggle to put the time and effort into getting a guest list established early on in the process but it really will help you to get this big to do list item accomplished as quickly as possible.
Conduct Your Venue Search:
Once you have your wedding budget and guest list established, you are ready to conduct your wedding venue search!
The wedding venue is often the largest financial obligation and is a great starting point for locking in your vendors.
Usually, the venue you select will recommend many vendors to you for you to choose from and from this selection, you will need to make decisions based upon value and what you are looking for.
As you will see, getting yourself organized from the start is the best way to ensure that the planning process is as smooth (and enjoyable!) as possible.
Happy Wedding Planning!
