The First Steps of Wedding Planning

Your instruc­tion manual

Orig­i­nally posted on The Boho Blog by author Kelly Hood

So you’ve just begun to plan your wed­ding, but where to start?

Plan­ning to some peo­ple is a dream, to oth­ers it can be a night­mare, there are so many dif­fer­ent things to think about when plan­ning a wed­ding, but if you get your­self in order and take one job at a time, you will avoid the stress and may actu­ally enjoy the whole process.

Most things these days come with an instruc­tion man­ual, but not wed­dings!! Here are a few of the things you should be think­ing about to get your­self on the right road.

Do it together:

Sit down with your part­ner and talk through your ideas together. Ask each other what sort of wed­ding the other has envis­aged, you may both have com­pletely dif­fer­ent ideas, so you will need to come to some com­pro­mises first of all. Is there a par­tic­u­lar time of the year, style or theme you were think­ing about?

Get organ­ised:

Get a folder together con­tain­ing divider cards and plas­tic envelopes. Make a sec­tion for each thing you can think of; venue, pho­tog­ra­pher, cut­tings from mag­a­zines, etc this way noth­ing will get lost. Here you can keep all con­tacts, con­tracts, emails and quotes in one place. If you are more tech­ni­cally minded then pull together a spread­sheet with all the details on it; a to do list, guest list, bud­get plan­ner etc. Keep­ing every­thing in one place will help later on in the plan­ning process and make your life a lot easier.

Set a date:

Decide when you both want to get mar­ried and check with impor­tant fam­ily mem­bers before you book anything.

What sort of ceremony:

What sort of cer­e­mony do you want? Church or Civil Cer­e­mony? This again will deter­mine the deci­sion you make on your venue. If you have a Church cer­e­mony then it will prob­a­bly need to be local due to the laws of mar­ry­ing within your parish, whereas a Civil Cer­e­mony gives you more free­dom and flex­i­bil­ity, it also opens up more options for things like Human­ist ceremonies.

Bud­get:

It may sound dull but sort­ing out your bud­get now is the most impor­tant thing you will do and will save you many an argu­ment in months to come.

Talk about what you can afford, what you have saved and how much you can put away each month. Also find out if fam­ily mem­bers are going to be con­tribut­ing, and if so how much? Don’t pre­sume, it’s always good to know at the begin­ning stages.

Put together a spread­sheet and keep a track of it, this will help you man­age your spend­ing and make sure you don’t go over bud­get.
Remem­ber, be real­is­tic and don’t get car­ried away (unless you have a lim­it­less pot) you don’t want to start mar­ried life in debt because of your wed­ding, so only spend what you can afford. And make sure you have a con­tin­gency fund, nor­mally 10% of the final budget……….just in case!

Guest List:

Get­ting your guest list decided at the begin­ning stages will some­times deter­mine what sort of wed­ding you are going to have. But remem­ber don’t let num­bers get the bet­ter of you, only invite the guests you want to invite, don’t feel obliged to invite peo­ple you don’t want to share the day with you.

Pri­ori­tise the impor­tant things:

Dis­cuss with your fiancé what is impor­tant to each of you. For one a pho­tog­ra­pher may be the most impor­tant thing to get organ­ised, the other it may be the enter­tain­ment, but you may not be too both­ered about the car. This way you know where you need to spend your money and where you can save it. By doing this now you won’t make any mis­takes fur­ther down the line, by not allot­ting each sup­plier enough time, money or attention.

Keep a check list:

Once you have an idea of what needs to be done don’t over face your­self by try­ing to do every­thing at once. List each job to be done and then break down how many months you have to do it all before the wed­ding, then allot each month a list of jobs. Keep this list in your wed­ding folder and tick off each job as it is done.

Don’t let the plan­ning con­sume you:

Far too often when you plan a wed­ding it is all you can think about. Try and allot your­self chunks of time to do your plan­ning. Doing a bit here and a bit there, will end up with you doing it every day. Your time may be bet­ter spent by putting a day aside every month to get the jobs done. This way you won’t let the wed­ding run your life.

Make deci­sions together:

Try not to let just one per­son plan the wed­ding, in most cases the man doesn’t want to get involved until the bill comes and then it’s too late. Make time with each other to dis­cuss things, make sure the other per­son is involved and feels part of it as well.

Do your research:

This may be time con­sum­ing but don’t take the first option given to you, or make hasty deci­sions. Each sup­plier needs research­ing, what was good for one per­son may not be good for you! By spend­ing time look­ing at all of your options you will not only save your self money but cre­ate a more per­sonal wed­ding with your own style.

For­get the lit­tle details for now:

Don’t get tied down with the tiny details at this point. It is tempt­ing to be think­ing about shades of nap­kins or what make of roses to have, but let’s get the big bits done first. As time goes by the lit­tle bits and bobs will fall into place.

Remem­ber it’s your day:

You will spend a lot of your time try­ing to make other peo­ple happy, espe­cially your fam­ily and guests, but it’s your day, don’t for­get that. Yes you have to be sym­pa­thetic to other people’s needs and wants, but the two peo­ple that have the final say are you two.
It’s your day, have it the way you want it!

For more advice on plan­ning your wed­ding then con­tact Kelly at Boho Wed­dings and Events. Kelly is a friend of ours here at Eng­lish Wed­ding, and we love her out­look on wed­ding plan­ning! Whether you’re look­ing for a com­pre­hen­sive wed­ding plan­ning pack­age, a wed­ding co-ordinator for your big day, or some help with the tricky bits of plan­ning, Boho Wed­dings and Events can help!