In need of help this my first wedding i am nervous wreck

that will be beautiful and colourful !

Congratulations! Everyone here is helpful and you'll find some fabulous ideas. Best wishes on your journey.

I have 150 ppl coming maybe more cause my hubby to be his family lives all the way in Africa and Jamaica and bc so he has a bigger family then me lol

Me and my Fianca wanna spend about $15,000 and we want Jamaican flag colours

Hi Chantelle, congratulations and welcome to the community!! Im so happy to see you here, as you notice we help each other with the preparations. We are in the same boat darling

Here are the first steps for your wedding planning

How To Start Planning Your Wedding

We provide a complete todo list so that you don't forget anything for your wedding and when the big day arrives, everything will be ready >> My To-Do List

how do you visualice your wedding?

Hi Chantelle, welcome to the community! It is most of our first weddings as well, so I guess it's a bit of the blind leading the blind, but we are always here to help.

Do you know any details yet, like where you would like to get married? How many people you would like to invite? The "where" is the first big thing you will need to figure out and having a rough guest count really helps (since many venues have minimum/maximum numbers)

Congratulations!

You have lots of time still and since your date is in November things will be less expensive and less rushed on booking June through September is the "wedding season" so demand and therefore prices are usually higher I have found. Make a list of everything you need and want to do, there are some great tools online, including Wedding Wire which will help you with timing things out, what should you do now and what can wait a month or 5 and then just start working on your list. Take it one step at a time and don't worry about everything at once!

We are, most of us, in the same boat with you having never done this before and if I can do it, you can do it, we can do it!

Hi Chantelle! Congrats and welcome! Don't worry you have plenty of time! Here's some advice I gave to Kayla:

A good place to start would be to sit down with your fiance and you each pick your top 3 things you want for the wedding. (Ex: food, photography, dress, music, decorations, etc) Once you know what your priorities are, you can figure out which areas you're willing to compromise on so that you can make sure you can fit in those important items. (For us, food and photography were important so we didn't do a lot of decorations or flowers. And we were lucky to find a space that already had nice decor so we didn't have to do much!)

Next you want to work on your guest list because that will determine everything else. You and your fiance should each make a list of everyone you'd want to invite and then go through and start narrowing it down. Maybe run the list by your parents too to see if there's anyone you're forgetting. Once you have a general idea of how many guests you want, you can start researching venues and vendors.

You probably want to research the pricing for vendors in your area so you can start putting together your budget. What you think things are going to cost versus what they actually cost can be very different! (We definitely had quite a few things that cost WAY more than we were expecting!)

The first things you want to book are your venues so that you know they're reserved for the day of the wedding. (Some places are booked more than a year in advance, especially if it's during prime wedding season.) Generally if you've been in contact with a venue but are still deciding, they'll give you a heads up if someone else wants it so you can put down your deposit or decline.

You might want to check some used book stores in the area and see if they have any wedding planning books. I found a bunch at my local store and they were way cheaper than buying a brand new book! (And I plan on selling mine back so that they can help the next bride!) They had lots of good questions so you know what to ask vendors as you're interviewing them and good tips on things to remember. Wedding vendors have more experience than we do as a first time bride so don't be afraid to ask them questions and for advice!

And make sure your fiance is helping you! You're both in this together and are a team!

Do you have an overall vision of what type of wedding you want?

Best advice I can give is just take it one day at a time and budget ... use the wedding wire budget tool it has helped alot ... congrats on your engagement !!

You might need o use a wedding planner to help you with planning. How many guests do you have? Did you book a Venue? Church or something in mind.?I find wedding wire really useful and easy to use.Try not to stress out to much over it. Good luck planning your special day.

Hi Chantelle,

What I did first was look for the venue in which you want to have your ceremony and reception and decide if you want to have it in the same place or in two different locations. I also refer to the "To-Do-LIst" and you can use the "Budget Tool" to keep track of everything on the Wedding Wire app which helps a lot as well. Then once I did this, I start booking the most important items, such as the DJ, Officiant/Priest, Photographer and Videographer (if you are getting both or one or the other), florist etc. Then I started to work on the smaller details.

Here is post I wrote about a book I bought which is a keepsake and a hard copy version on planning a wedding which is also invaluable tool to use:

Wedding Planning Book and Keepsake

Hope this helps and all the best in Wedding Planning!

Hey Chantelle,
This community is pretty awesome and helpful and overall I've found the app to be really great in assisting with planning.
What exactly do you need help with? Do you have a general idea of what you would.like for your big day yet? Selected a location or any vendors?
I feel ya about being overwhelmed. my wedding date is so far away and I'm stressing over minute details I have no control or clue about yet!