Planning Your Wedding

The holidays are a very popular time for couples to get engaged. I thought this would be a great time to talk about the beginning stages of planning your wedding.

Step One- Talk about the vision of your wedding with your fiance.

What things about the wedding are most important to you? What kind of budget do you think is reasonable? What do your families from the wedding? How much time and effort do you want to put into the planning or do you want to hire a wedding coordinator? What kind of style do you want your wedding to be? Formal? Casual? When would you like to have the wedding?

Step Two- Reality Check

This is the part where you see if what you would like to do is really going to be feasible. Talk with your parents about what they would like to contribute to the wedding. It may or may not be a financial contribution.

Check out what you need for a marriage license and if you want a religious ceremony, talk with a minister. Some churches are booked up to 18 months ahead.

Do some preliminary shopping around. Look at the costs of venues, wedding vendors as well as their availability. A great way to do this is to attend a bridal show where many of these vendors are all in one place. You can even take advantage of prizes, and special bridal show deals.

Start collecting all your information and see if the style of the wedding you want is still the same. Don't be surprised if it changes!

Step 3- Start the Process

This is when the real process begins. You should start by booking your ceremony and reception sites together. Reserve your other vendors such as photographers, videographer, caterer, florist and music or DJ. Start shopping as early as possible and shop around until you find what you want within your budget.

You can then move on to things such as ordering your dress, choosing your attendants and planning your invitations.

Take advantage of the many lists and resources on the internet to guide your planning.

Congratulations and Happy Planning!