Newly Engaged

Congrats!
First thing I did was start a pinterest board of ideas, which happened me figure out my colour scheme and overall picture of what the wedding day would look like. Its very important to not overdo it on pinterest though, alot of the ideas on there are unrealistic and mostlikely above your budget.
I recommend going to bridal shows (virtual, or wait until 2022 if that's allowed by then), talk to some vendors and compare prices. One thing we also tried doing was find a venue central to as much family/friends as possible so that they didn't all have long commutes home... however that didn't work out well and we found a venue probably a couple of hours away from most, opps hahahAlso pick out your bridal party! They can help you with your wedding vision.

Is anyone looking for a wedding dress? Looking for a modern, classy wedding dress.

Hi!
Congrats! We got engaged at Christmas 2020 and just booked our venue for March 2022. Hoping that things are somewhat back to normal. The first thing my fiance and I did was sit down and figure out a budget, since we are paying for the wedding mostly ourselves.
The budget really helps you narrow down things. I am also a big planner, so of course is taryed making lists. But my fiance reminded me that eventually we have to pick something
In the end, the day is special because you and your fiance get married. Everything else is just-excuse the pun- icing on the cake

Congrats on your engagement!

There is the WW Checklist that is available to help with your planning steps. Some additional tips are:

Rentals: You may want to consider this option over purchase for décor, flowers and more since the price of retail doubles easily on your budget. The idea of storing at home takes up spaces unneeded for reselling. The price of centerpiece (vase + floral ball) was $11/table and money box $30 which was returned the next day after the event. The backdrop about $100 easy to put up in 5 minutes.

Vendors: The budget you have set for each vendor services may help in the package you choose and how many hours they offer with extra hours at their rate if needed. You would build your team up knowing your in good hands and getting the work done. Recommendations by family and friends is great to ask for contact information in the area.

Family and friends can help out with some of the things you may need if they have to offer for your day. Its always nice to asking the ones you know to save more money.

The one thing I did find helpful was doing shopping online for small things that would cost less than half of retail price and if you weren't satisfied or happy, you could always get your money back. I used ebay and amazon sites mostly spending less than $300. Vistaprint site was my choice for invitations and now Christmas cards and calendars every year.

Congrats! I'm planning a wedding for 2022 as well. Hoping things will be back to normal. We started with a budget and researching venues. We should have started with a guest list as well. Still working on the guest list now and realizing I should have done that as #2 after a budget!

I got engaged on Dec 21st! We are planning a 2022 wedding because there's too much uncertainty about 2021 already! Planning a wedding can already be stressful enough! My advise is to figure out what you can actually afford first! Then start booking vendors! Were getting married in May of 2022 and should be booking our venue this week! I want to get the important vendors booked before theres a chance of 2021 weddings getting postponed!

Hi Ashley,
Congratulations!
I’m in the same boat, got engaged at Christmas!
I’m from the UK but live in Canada so we have a lot of family coming from the UK so I’m trying to move quickly as it isn’t a cheap holiday for them! We set a date for august 2022 and we have worked out how much money we will have (we are paying for 75% ourselves) and what we can afford and then we have set a top budget with a 10% contingency and we worked out what we need to keep to one side for taxes and tips. We also wrote our guest list so we knew rough numbers so we could only look at venues that would fit our needs. We then started looking for venues online and asked the ones we liked for the prices/brochures. We are booking to go see the venues in our price range when the covid restrictions have died down. We are trying to stay open minded and seeing ones we aren’t 100% set on because I know they don’t always look the same in photos and it will also give us an idea of what we like and what we don’t like.It seems like we have done a lot in 9 days but the above didn’t take us too long at all and we have used all this vacation time to our advantage! I’ve heard once you have the actual venues booked and save the dates sent you can kind of relax a bit so we just want to get that done and out the way so we can tell our family to prepare to come!

Congrats on your engagement! Exciting times ahead! I would say the first step is to sit down with your fiance and see how much money you guys are comfortable spending on your wedding and how many guests you're wanting to attend. That will determine what kind of venue you guys would want to have. Then figure out what date you guys want to have for your big day. After that things will start to fall into place. Photographer, DJ, Officiant, Cake, Catering, Flowers, Wedding Planner or Day Of Coordinator (If you wish to have one), Hair and Makeup

Congratulations!


Our first step was to sit down together and make a wish list and a skip list. It helped us figure out what we were willing to splurge on (photos) and what we felt we didn't need (fancy meal and an open bar). Plus you can use that time to make a rough guest list which can help you cushion the blow if some relatives think they'll be invited ("we're hoping for a small intimate ceremony and reception" or "our venue only seats X so we're thinking about keeping it to close family"), or you can say early on "make sure you get a baby sitter, we are having a kid free event" etc.

Congratulations on your engagement!

My suggestion is to start with a budget. Don't plan your budget around what you want (it can easily balloon to something insane if you do that), plan what you want around your budget. If you can only spend $15K, stick to $15K etc.

To determine the budget, have a talk with your partner on what dollar amount you can comfortably part with and not be in any financial stress. If you don't have the money, make a plan on how you can save towards that number by your wedding date.

Once you have a budget, you can break it down line item by line item and depending on what you prioritize, set each amount accordingly.

Congratulations!

I recommend sitting down with your partner and coming up with a short list of your must haves and your wants before you do anything else. That way you can make sure you're on the same page and you can work on anything you may need to compromise on before getting too deep into planning. For example, really important things to sort out now are the size of the wedding, approximate budget and location.

Then you can start doing some research into vendors to see what things tend to cost in your area and to narrow down your budget further. You may also need to revisit your list of must haves at this point if you simply can't afford the type of wedding you originally had in mind. I originally thought it would be possible to do my wedding for $10-15K but when I started doing research I discovered that it would have been nearly impossible without making a lot of sacrifices in what we wanted. Fortunately we could afford more, but if we couldn't we would have had to take a few things off our must have list.

After you have those basics covered book your venue. This will dictate basically everything else - the date, number of guests allowed, they may have exclusive vendors you need to work with, etc. I wouldn't even look at dresses/suits until after booking your venue because your venue sort of sets the tone for everything.

Then book the rest of your vendors, start looking at outfits, send out save the dates if you choose to have them, and if you plan to DIY anything start looking into that now so you know how much time you need. There are lots of checklists online that give you an idea of when to book what/when to complete X or Y task. Don't feel pressured to follow them exactly but it's nice to have something to refer to as a rough guideline.

Good luck!

My best suggestion would be to just book for 2022. 2021 is going to be uncertain, and you might find yourself rescheduling or changing your plans a number of times. Best to just avoid that and book for further out.