So You’re Engaged, Now What?

First Steps ⇩

Step 1: Figure out your budget.
Talk to who you need to talk to but make sure this is nailed down first. Average wedding costs between $20,000 - $30,000. Many, many brides do this for tons less and many, many do it for tons more. This is just a ballpark if you aren’t sure where to start.

Step 2: Work on your guest list.
Start by writing down everyone and then narrow it down. A Google Doc is the way to go. It’s easy to use and everyone can have access – your mom, your planner, and everyone in-between.

Step 3: Find a venue and book a date.
Some people have been using a three tier approach to sending out invitation. This is when you have your for sure people in the first tier. Once you get some regrets then you send out your second tier and so on to your third. This may be helpful when making your list.

Step 4: Finalize your bridal party.
Just remember it is your wedding and you get to do what you want to do. Want seven bridesmaids and six groomsmen? Do it.

Budget ⇩

It is hard to know how much to dedicate to what when planning your wedding. Wedding Wire has an amazing app on their site that allows you to input your budget and it will give you an estimate for how much to spend on each thing. This was super helpful for use to give a ballpark for everything. I took those estimates and put them into another Google Doc and built my budget from there. I then had a column next to this one with the actual amount that I spent on everything. I think it is extremely helpful to know an overall amount you are budgeting for the wedding. It can start to get confusing when you decide to budget as you go.

Questions to ask about budget:
Who is paying for what?
Is the groom's family paying for things?
Are you having a rehersal dinner?
Who is paying for this?
Do you have the money saved right now or are you saving as you go?
Are your parents helping pay for things?
How much are they contributing?

Venue ⇩

I booked my original venue as an innocent bride with no idea what she was doing. Long story short, our original venue canceled on us three months before our wedding day. I was an absolute wreck. Here’s what I wish I would have known/done. When you go to the venue you need to ask one million questions. If you are planning on getting married outside you need to think from day one that rain on your wedding day is a possibility and have a rain plan. Does this mean a tent? Does the venue have a rain plan? What will happen if you can’t be outside? You cannot let them leave anything blank on the contract. If they don’t know an exact number then have them to give you an estimate. You may want to ask if there is a sample budget that you can see from another bride and how much they spent. Things can get a lot pricer than you expect when you start to add small charges that you didn’t know about from the beginning. Make sure to ask if they are going to charge tax and gratuity and get an estimate on this as well.

Questions to ask your venue:
What do I need to rent?
What do you have that I can use?
What is your maximum seating capacity?
Are there enough bathrooms for my guests to use?
Do you have enough outlets for me to use or do I need to rent a generator (mostly outdoor weddings)?
What is your policy about catering/alcohol?
Is there a setup/tare-down charge?
Is there a cleaning charge?
Can I bring candles?
How many decorations can I hang?
Can I hang things on the wall?
When I can start setting up?
How much time do I get for the rehearsal?
Where can I get ready on the day of the wedding?

Wedding Planner ⇩

I love wedding planners. Let me say it again for the people in the back, I LOVE WEDDING PLANNERS. They just help relieve so much stress. There are many options when it comes to wedding planners. They can do coordination of your full wedding and help you choose just about everything. Or you could have someone that just helps with day of planning. Regarless of if you have a planner or not, you will need someone to be in charge your wedding day that isn’t you or your mom. This person can be a hired wedding planner or you can enlist a friend or aunt. They will be the person telling everyone where to go, helping set up, and who everyone will direct their questions to.

Questions to ask you wedding planner:
Will you be my point of contact or do you have associates that I will be communicating with?
How many meetings do I get to have with you?
Am I allowed to call / text whenever I have questions or would you rather me email you?
Will you run my rehersal?
Will you make a timeline for my family and wedding party?
Will you set up and take down on the wedding day?

Videography ⇩

I can’t tell you how many brides I have heard that they sincerly regret not hiring a videographer. Obviously I tink photography is the most imporatnt but there is something pretty amazing about seeing a video of your favorite day. I have a full documentary from my wedding day and every year we watch it on our anniversary and just sob. Your videographer will probably give you options for video. Do you want a video of the full ceremony? Do you want video of the speeches? Try and decide how much of the day you want captured.

Questions to ask your videographer:
How many hours am I booking you for?
When will I get everything delivered from you?
Will it just be you on my wedding day or do you bring a second shooter?
What is your backup system?
How long do you save the raw footage?

Ceremony / Reception music ⇩

For your ceremony you will need someone running sound for your ceremony. Some venues provide this but most will have you bring someone in to do this. Will your DJ do this or do you need someone else? Your DJ is your guests guide through the evening. They will be the one announcing when everything is happening and keeping the party going. The DJ is quite a big deal. If they are awkward on the microphone then your guests will feel that. I would suggest reaching out to people on my suggested vendors list or asking friend that you trust.

Questions to ask your DJ/Band:
Will you run the sound during the cocktail hour?
What time will you arrive to set everything up?
Are you the DJ or do you have an assoicate that will come?
Can I see reviews of that associate?
Do you need specific outlets at the venue for your equiptment?

Flowers ⇩

Flowers will make everything pop on your wedding day. The amount of flowers you use correlates to the amount of money you will spend. Make a Pinterest board and go to your local florist and talk to them about what you want. You can go all out and have all the flowers in the world, or you can just have one huge bouquet for you. It all depends on what you want and how much you want to spend. You can save money on your flowers by not doing boutonnières/corsages for the grandparents, parents, and readers. Please for the love of all good things, never use fake flowers. They just do not photograph well and you will be able to tell that they fake.

Questions to ask your florist:
Will you be doing all the set up?
Do you have a team that will come with you?
What time will you arrive?
Will my bouquets come in vases that we can use for the reception?
Will you come pick up vases and rented items from the venue or do I need to bring them to you?

Rentals ⇩

Rentals are another thing that will be a big part of your budget. I looked at many different companies but honestly they are pretty much the same. You will need to know from your venue and caterer what you need to be renting. If you’re having an outdoor wedding, plan on renting a tent. This will be quite a bit of money but worth the anxiety you will feel if it’s raining on your day with nowhere for your guests to go. You will probably have to rent twice the amount of chairs. One set is for the ceremony and one set if for the reception. You can have your guests pick up their chairs and move them to the reception as well (just keep in mind the distance between the two locations).

Extra tables you will need to rent: programs, gifts, DJ, food, alcohol, cake

Questions to ask your rental company:
When will your rentals be delivered?
When will they be picked up? How much cleaning of the plates do you need to do?
Who will be doing that cleaning?

Officiant ⇩

I highly recommend doing premarital counseling and having that person perform the ceremony. Premarital counseling was one of the best things we did for our marriage. Remember, this whole thing that you’re doing is leading to a marriage. That is the end goal and you will want to put as much into preparing for marriage as you are for a wedding. The enneagram was one of the most helpful things that we dug deep into during premartial.

Questions to ask your officiant:
Are there any books you want us to read?
How many meetings will we have with you?
Where will those meetings take place?
Will you coordinate with my planner during the rehersal?

Honeymoon ⇩

Please go on a honeymoon! It was the best thing Luke and I did after getting married. We received advice from some dear friends who said to take the longest honeymoon that we could because we will never have a vacation on like it again. They said to choose a cheaper room and stay more nights and we are so glad that we did. We were so glad we had 9 whole days to relax after the craziness of the wedding. We went to Excellence Resorts in Punta Cana. It was perfect and looked like a movie. The one thing I didn’t think about was to look at reviews on their food. All inclusive resorts don’t always have the best food. If that is important to you, I would do some research on the front end.

Honeymoon help:
Scott's Cheap Flights
Sky Scanner
Classic Travel Connection
BookItBox Travel

Questions about honeymoon:
Do we want to go somewhere warm or cold?
Do we want to do adventures or lay on the beach?
Do we want to leave the country?
Do we want to stay at an all-inclusive?
How many days do we want to be gone?
Do we want to leave the day after our wedding or wait a few days?

Food ⇩

This is going to be a big part of your budget. Remember that each person you invite is going to be a certain amount of money. You have lot of options with food. You can do a buffet, family style, or sit down dinner. You can have someone like Chipolte cater, or food trucks, or beautiful plated meal. The median amount you will spend per plate is $20-$35 person. Ask around to different people and get an estimate from different caterers. Something to remember is that tax and most likely 20% gratuity will be added to the total number given for everything. Make sure an estimate of this is given to you when you get the estimated amount up front.

Questions to ask your caterer:
Is there a food and drink minimum amount I have to spend?
How many servers will you be bringing?
How much do I need to rent and how much do you have that I can use?
What time will you arrive to set everything up?
Will you be setting all place settings?
What kind of a prep area do you need for getting the food together?
Do you have someone that can serve alcohol?
Can we get alocohol through you?
Can I see a sample invoice for a wedding of my size?
Are there any hidden fees that I don't know about?
Can you give me an estimate on what tax and gratuity will be?
Can I do a late night snack?
Will you do all clean up?

Drinks ⇩

Alcohol will depend on your caterer and your venue. Ask the venue if you are able to bring your own alcohol or if you need to have this provided by the caterer. Most venues will want you to have a liquor license to distribute the alcohol. The cheapest way to go with alcohol is to buy it yourself and have someone licensed serve it (maybe a server from the caterer). You can buy beer and wine from places like Costco or Trader Joes. Some places will allow you to return unopened alcohol. Keep in mind how much the people coming drink and plan accordingly.

Questions about alcohol:
Can I bring my own alcohol into this venue or do I need to go through my caterer?
Do I want to do just beer and wine or a full bar?
Does there need to be security on site because alcohol is being served?
Are there times of the night that I want to close the bar?

Dessert ⇩

There are a million ways to do cake these days. You can do a bunch of small cakes or donuts or pies or cupcakes or whatever your heart desires. Make sure to ask a couple different cake makers what their prices are and go in and taste the cake. I mean come on guys, free cake! A big wedding cake costs $500-$1,000. Once again, you can always spend more or less, that is just a ballpark.

Questions about dessert:
Will you drop everything off at the venue or does someone need to go pick it up?
Does it need to be put in a refrigerator?
Do you have a cake stand I can use?
Do I need to drop off the cake stand after the wedding is over?

Decorations ⇩

What’s is the direction you want to go for decorations? Know this before you go into deciding all of the things you want to make, buy and rent. I would suggest going on Pinterest and make a realistic board of what you want your wedding to look like. From here you can make a list of things you need to buy or make. You do not need to do everything. Less is more. Go through and think about every table and write down what you want on those tables. What do you want for centerpieces and what extra tables need decor? Is there something you guys always say to each other? Put it on a banner. This it YOUR wedding. Make it personal and put your personality into it. You can do whatever you want because it is your wedding. Don’t let other pressure you into doing things that don’t feel authentic to you.

Questions about decorations:
What is the feel that you are going for for the wedding?
How many things do you want to DIY?
Are there any decorations you can borrow from friends?
What are the things that you can do that are personal to you?

Dress ⇩

You can spend $200 or thousands upon thousands of dollars on a dress. You can look for a consignment store if you’re on a budget. I got my dress at LVD which is a consignment store of The Dress Theory (based in Nashville, TN). There are so many places for a dress. They will try and get you to buy a dress when you go in. There is nothing wrong with taking a few days to think about it before buying your dress.

Questions to ask your seamstress:
Do I have to buy it today or can I think about it?
How long will it take to get the dress in?
When can I start alterations?
Do you have someone that does alterations in house?
Do you have someone that you recommend?
When can I pick up the dress?
Will you steam the dress before I pick it up?
Do you recommend a place to get my dress cleaned after the wedding is over?

Suit ⇩

Both renting and buying a suit can be expensive. Renting a suit is around $180 for everyone involved. It’s super easy and convienent. Buying a suit is a bit more work but it also offers some options as far as price goes. We used H&M for Luke’s suit but just told his dudes to all wear a dark grey suit and it working perfectly. This helped because people that already had a suit didn’t have to buy one.

Questions about the suit:
Would I rather have a suit that I own and tailored to my size or rent?
Do I want my groomsmen to have to buy a suit?
How much will it cost to rent a suit?
Do my groomsmen have to come in to ordere their suit for rental?
What is included in the rental?

Seating Chart ⇩

Seating chart vs letting people sit where they want. You really can do it either way but I will tell you that it does put your guest at ease to know they have a seat to sit in. It is one huge puzzle that you will have to figure out. I took me many revisions. I put everyone’s name on a tiny sticky note and make a diagram of my reception venue and then moved everyone around from there.

Questions about seating chart:
Do I want a head table or a sweetheart table?
Do I want the wedding parties plus one to sit at the head table?
Do I want long or circle tables for guests to sit at?
Where do I want family to sit in relation to the head table?
Who is setting up the tables?
How will I explain the seating chart to whoever is setting up the tables?

RSVP ⇩

Minted and Basic Invite allow you to create a wedding website and have guests RSVP through there. We sent out RSVP cards that people could send back (if they wanted to put a stamp on it) or they could do it online through the RSVP form. I’m very glad that we had both options. It was a pretty equal split between who used what. The awkward thing with RSVP is that people will add a guest when you do not want them to. We had seen this happen to people before us. On the RSVP card we said “_ seats have been saved in your honor” so they knew how many people we were planning on them bringing.

Questions about RSVP:
How many plus ones am I inviting?
How I am deciding who gets a plus one?
Do I want a way for people to mail in an RSVP?
How much will I spend on RSVP stamps?

Thank You Notes ⇩

Order those thank you notes right when you order your wedding invites. This way you can have them on hand when people randomly send you gifts. You can send thank you notes as you go. Here is the mistake I made, I didn’t write down what people had sent when we got it all in the mail. When it starts to get closer to your wedding day, gifts will arrive at your door like it is Christmas. Don’t make the mistake I did. Have a pen and paper or a list somewhere on your phone and write down what you get. I promise it will save so much headache later.

Questions about thank you notes:
Can the designer of the invitations make the thank you notes too?
How many thank you notes should I order?
Do I have enough to write thank you notes for bridal showers?