First Things First

You’re engaged, now what?  Well, first off, congratulations!  While the initial excitement of your engagement is a blast, you’ll most likely start thinking about the many things you have to accomplish before you walk down the aisle.  Wedding planning can be overwhelming, but if you tackle it one thing at a time, you’ll be able to plan all of the details of your wedding easily.  Below you will find the first things that I think every bride (and groom) should do once they start planning their big day.

One of the most common things you’ll hear from people following your engagement is “Have you set a date?”  However, before you rush into setting a date, I would recommend that you first find a reception venue you love, along with your ceremony location.  This was something I was very cautious of when I began planning.  I didn’t want to “fall in love” with a date and then find out that the reception location wasn’t available on the day of my wedding.  Instead, I wanted to find a great reception venue and set a date based on what they had available.  This worked out great in our case, especially since our church is largely an older congregation and wasn’t booked with any weddings in the month of July, and that the reception venue had a few openings remaining in the month.  After getting all the important details worked out, we were able to easily settle on July 7, 2012 as our wedding day.

Once you have set your date and booked your ceremony and reception venues, your next step should be finding a photographer.  This is an important step as many photographers book quickly.  Most photographers work alone or with one other photographer, so they won’t be able to take pictures at more than one wedding on a given day.  My advice is to research photographers in your area thoroughly and ask family and friends for any recommendations they may have.  You could also look into having the same photographer that took your senior pictures photograph your wedding, especially if you really loved their work the first time.

Your next big item to tackle is creating a rough draft of your guest list.  By doing this, you will know roughly how many people to plan for.  This could really help when determining your ceremony or reception venue.  There would be nothing worse than to having to cut important people from your guest list because your venues don’t allow for enough room.

Fear not, this won’t be the only time I discuss these topics.  I will cover all of these topics in greater depth in the future.  I just wanted to give you an idea of where to start your planning.

 Have a wonderful weekend!