So. You’ve got the ring, popped the champagne, shared the news, and you’re floating on cloud 9? Good. Make sure you take time to celebrate your new engagement properly with your fiancé (whatever that means to you), before you dive into wedding planning! But if you’re ready to start...
The first questions to address are what, how, where, when, who, and why. There is no need to have all the answers right now, but starting to get a general idea can build a baseline that you shape your vision around later.
What?
What type of wedding celebration do you want to have? Do you want a massive party with tons of family and friends in a big wedding hall? Do you want a more low-key sort of wedding? Do you want a small wedding celebration with your closest support group? What kind of vibe do you want the wedding to have (upscale, rustic, industrial, dramatic)? The WHAT definitely encompasses the most questions to ask yourself and it is perfectly okay not to know what you want but you need a little bit of a starting point.
How?
How do you want your day to go? Do you want to have a ceremony in a religious house of worship (church, synagogue, temple, etc) followed by a reception elsewhere? Do you want to do a whole weekend shebang to keep the party going for multiple days?
Where?
Location 👏 is 👏 everything 👏! Okay, not everything - but the location of your wedding can affect both the look and feel of your wedding day as well as who attends. “Where?” Is a multi-part question:
Where will your wedding be located geographically? Will it be in your hometown? Where you currently reside? Across the country or even in another country?
What type of venue do you want to get married at? Your venue can range from fancy hotels to barns to event venues to your own backyard with a wedding tent pitched. Your venue will shape the ultimate look of your wedding and it will likely affect the ease of the planning. We’ll talk about this a lot more in depth later.
When?
While some couples have a very specific date in mind for their wedding, many do not. When picking your wedding date, you have to think about what you prioritize the most. Is there a certain season or month you want to get married during? Do you care more about getting married on a Friday or Saturday night (Saturdays are most coveted meaning the most expensive day of the week to get married) — or are you okay with getting married on a weeknight? Do you care more about when you are getting married or are you okay with compromising on date if you find the perfect venue doesn’t have that time available?
Who?
This one is extremely important to think about before you really get going! Your guests are a vital part of making your day memorable, and you should create a guest list before you start budgeting or looking into venues in order to know what your guest count may look like. A general rule of thumb is that 15-25% of guests will not attend your wedding, but you should be able to afford for ALL the guests you invite to show up (both in space and budget). Take some time with your fiancé to create a list of guests and don’t rush this. Chances are, you’ll probably have forgotten a couple of people you really care about the first time around (silly wedding brain). And if you want you can go over the invite list with your family — but remember that this is a choice, not a necessity. At the end of the day, if you don’t want Aunt Sally who you met one time when you were 5 years old (how do you not remember her?!) to be there, you don’t have to invite her.
Why?
This is the only question that you should with full certainty know the answer to before doing anything else. Talk with your fiancé about your expectations for your future and your marriage. Make sure that you continue to go on fun dates, do things to make each other feels special, and never let wedding planning take over your whole relationship. The wedding is about your relationship, your relationship is not about the wedding! If you ever are feeling overwhelmed or disconnected, it’s totally okay to take a step back from planning to focus on each other!
