Wedding on a Budget

A lot of people don't know that most vendors and venue prices do go up. My fiance and I had booked our venue in 2018 for our 2020 wedding (we had to postpone until 2021) and since then prices for our venue have gone up almost $3000. So sometimes there's an advantage of booking early!

I think you are on a great start as well! I hope you enjoy your planning as much as I have during this process! It's just a waiting game for my fiance and I now. Crossing our fingers we can get married this year!

Thanks Amanda! VERY good point about booking early, I hadn't thought about prices going up!! We do have a rough guest list, a rough must-have list, and a lot of things on our "don't want to bother with" list - so I think we're off to a good start.

First off congrats on the engagement and welcome to wedding wire!

I found the most helpful place to start and the best advice I was given early on is to sit down and make a wish list and skip list with your fiance. Then how many people you want to celebrate with? This will help with venue choices. Figuring out what you don't want can be just as useful: maybe you don't want kids there, or you don't want to spring for an open bar, or you hate cake. It's also great to know what each of you wants on their must list (mine was great photos and a small guest list). Also talk about how much money you guys are comfortable spending.

I also found useful was really researching vendors such as photographer and DJ not just on wedding wire but just by googling these in your local area. These two vendors can be very pricy. Also, if you guys pick a venue, book as soon as you can because you can get a great deal (price) for say a 2022 or even a 2023 wedding in advance and you'd be locked in for that price. Usually every year vendor prices go up.