Do these 4 things before you start booking!

For those of you newly engaged, the next step (after celebrating of course) is to start planning! As you do your research and begin to pick out the date and details consider doing these things first.

Create a shared email

Don’t underestimate the amount of communication and emails that will happen during this process. Having a place where all wedding communication is central and organized is SO helpful! Especially when it comes to signing up for your wedding website, wedding registry, and more. This also allows for you and your Fiancé to both access, respond, and keep updated on vendor communications. A benefit, especially if you sign up for a g-mail account, is it allows for additional drive storage to put any pictures or documents on the drive and allows you to always access it online and share with one another. Also, since it’s a new email you can sign up for an amazon account to have your registry on and get a free trial of amazon prime!

Create a Budget

This is essential. I know it can be a very difficult conversation especially if it involves more people than just you and your Fiance, but this foundation needs to be set before you move forward with booking. You need to have an idea of your overall budget, most important/ priorities out of all elements, and give a percentage of spending to each section.

Budgets and breakdowns of percentages will look different for everyone, and in the end you still may spend more or less in certain areas.

But to get a decent idea of budget breakdowns you can check out:

• this breakdown for a 15K wedding in another blog of mine
• Google slides has a wedding planner Template with a 10K wedding example,
• and the Knot offers their own Wedding Planning spreadsheet with a 18K budget example

Some great advice I heard about wedding budgets is that your guest count can control your budget or you can let your budget dictate your guest count.

If budget if flexible then let guest count be a priority. However if budget is tighter and you can only afford a certain number of people then consider creating an ideal guest list first then break it into “Priority list” and “add if room” list. More on guest list later..

Discuss expectations and involvement

Although many will tell you that the bride does 70%-90% of all the work that goes into wedding planning (without a professional planner), you still should involve your Fiancé, and others!

It takes a community, whether that’s support, lending an ear, taking on tasks, or creating decor. Allowing others to be involved in this process makes it much more joyful. Delegating will save you a lot of time and energy, giving you more time to enjoy this season without the stress!

When it comes to wedding planning, don’t assume your Fiancé has no preference or interest in helping or being a part of it.

All big decisions like budget, venue, guests, guest count, and colors were made by my husband and I together. Of course I had some preferences and stylistic choices, but my husband actually had some of his own as well, like the suit colors, the first dance song (Which he chose, and I surprised him with a private last dance song, perfect compromise), and Registry items. Overall there were many things that he helped with and had preferences on that helped made it more of our special day.

Create a planning timeline

This timeline provides you with priorities for each month and breaking down what tasks need to get done when. This will help you delegate certain tasks and focus on priorities. Now just like all timelines, it’s an ideal but it may not be exact. Certain things may take longer than you realize and that’s ok. The goal is to break it down so you don’t feel overwhelmed with everything left, but can just focus and complete a few tasks at hand.

I have a priority check list in my free Wedding Planning Starter Guide to help you focus on priorities before jumping into the nitty gritty details…as it’s very easy to do and get overwhelmed fast!

These are just some suggestions that I feel will start you off well, however do what works best for you and your Fiancé to settle in and get organized! Take and implement ideas you like and leave the rest.

In Joy,

I would love to know which ideas you try and find helpful! Brides who may be ahead of this already, if you have other timeline and budget resources, comment them below!