How to Plan a Wedding… Choosing your Vendors!

Continuing on from our discussion in part 1, this blog focuses on your vendors and how to choose them in learning how to plan a wedding. These are the people that make your dream wedding into a reality. Starting now you should have an understanding of how you want your wedding to be, how much you want to spend on it, and about when you want it to be. If you aren’t there yet, check out my blog: How to Plan a Wedding Pt. 1.

So, now that you have your bases covered it’s now time to get into the nitty-gritty of planning your wedding. Following the analogy from our previous discussion: It’s time to bring out your smock, we’re about to get dirty.

Your Vendors are the all important ingredients in your wedding. They are what makes it happen and are the backbone of a successful event. You don’t want to skim on this part because it is the most tedious and least fun part. So let’s get started!

Step 4) The Place

The first vendor that you want to focus on is your venue. You literally can’t have a wedding without a venue. This venue can be anything you want it to be. It can be your mom’s backyard (like in my case) or a palace in Scotland (that would be cool!). It just needs to fit your vision that you made in Step 1 of Part One and needs to fit your budget from Step 2.

What I want you to do before you start looking is to imagine yourself on your wedding day and think about how you feel and what it looks like in your mind. Are you indoors or outdoors? Both? What is the style or feel of where you are? Write those down.

PROTIP: These should mirror or mimic the feelings and ideas that you had in Step 1. If they aren’t, you need to figure out your vision a bit more. Redo Step 1. Having a solid understanding of what you are wanting will help you to narrow down your options quicker and with less stress.

Once you’ve written down those options, go find a venue that fits! Keep in mind you want the overall feel, nothing super specific please. There are tons of options to finding your venue. First you could google “Wedding Venue in (insert city/state here) or there are online vendor directories like WeddingWire or The Knot that can help you figure it out. OR of course, there is EventSlayer which helps you find the venue using your vision and gives you a match score.

Need help figuring out which venue works for you? Download EventSlayer to get step by step questionnaire to help you narrow down your vision and find venues that match with your wedding vision!

Make a list of your top 5  favorite venues that you find. Be sure to list the things that you like or don’t like about each of these. Now go schedule tours with these venues. Take this list of things to ask your venue when you go.

Now it’s up to you to figure out which venue you loved the most! If none of these venues made you want to get married there. Repeat process. But try not to repeat too often because there are other steps to be done.

Once you’ve found your spot, Book it! You now should know your date. Remember it. Plan for it.

Step 5) Food

Photo by Angie and Marko Photography, Catering by Uncommon Catering

So we all know it’s not a wedding without food, right?! Thankfully, there is nothing saying what type of food you need to have. I don’t care if it’s chick-fil-a, a food truck or a gourmet caterer chef that is providing your food, if it goes with the overall feeling you want for your wedding GO FOR IT!

You can find caterers the same way that you found your venue: Google search, Online Directories or My favorite: EventSlayer.  And as always, be prepared when you go to your tasting or when you reach out to them by keeping this handy-dandy list of things to ask with you!

Way to go!

We’ve now got food and a place to have your wedding! Now it starts getting interesting. There are just so many ways to go from here. But remember your overarching idea for your wedding? Now is the time to bring that back out and check to see if there is something on there that is important to you. Is it ambiance? Is it good music? If it’s food, I hope you found someone that is amazing! Or is it your memories? If it has anything to do with a vendor like flowers, photos, drinks, music, what have you. Now is the time to go looking for that specific vendor!

Why now? Because if it’s important to you, you want to make sure that you feel comfortable spending the amount you need to find someone that can fulfill your dream. If we wait till the end, you might have already spent the money on someone that is great, but maybe not as important to you.

And while you should definitely choose the remainder of these steps in this section by order of your most important to least important, I will be finishing this list in order of ‘first to book’ to ‘last to book’, in other words the ones that book the quickest and most likely to already have a booking on the date you want to the least likely to be booked on your wedding day (because they can manage a bunch of weddings in 1 day). Although to be honest, the good ones will always book up quickly so it’s best to just get them all out of the way as soon as possible.

Step 6) Memories

If you haven’t  thought about the way your going to remember your wedding. Now is the time to! Take a moment to envision yourself 5 years in the future, maybe you have kids maybe you don’t, but your sitting there talking about your wedding to someone special to you as a couple. A friend maybe, reminiscing? Anyways, you’re talking about your wedding day and you want to show them your wedding: how are you showing them?

Is it a photo album? Maybe one of those new wood carved cover books… or are you turning on the TV to show that ridiculous speech the best man did? You know the one. The one where he bent over too much laughing that his pants ripped, that’s the one.

Maybe you are doing both? Anyways, it’s important to find someone that matches with the feel of how you want to remember it.

Step 7) Music

Ok- let’s think about the music that you want for your wedding. There are a thousand ways to do your music from just plugging in your phone to a speaker to a DJ or a live band. Sometimes you might want to mix and match based on what you want for each part of your wedding. So let’s start from the beginning.

Your guests are starting to arrive for your wedding. Some may be 30 minutes early so they’re sitting in the ceremony chairs or standing around chatting with other family members they haven’t seen in forever. There is background music. Is it a musician (or more) playing their instrument like guitar, harp, violin, clarinet, banjo, etc? Is it music from today being played quietly by a DJ? Or maybe just background music from your phone on the venue’s speakers? If you’re in a church is it a choir or organ player?

Now it’s time for your ceremony to begin and for you and your wedding party to go down the aisle. Which one is it now? If it’s different, choose your favorite or go with the one you prefer to walk into with because it will probably be difficult to coordinate a switch during that time.

After the ceremony all your guests head somewhere or maybe just stand up for cocktail hour (if you are having one). What music is playing for your cocktail hour? Does it continue with the mood from your ceremony or do you switch it up? Continue with this way of thinking for your dinner and dancing portions of your wedding and up till the end and everyone leaves. What music is playing? What is the vibe you are going for? What type or who is playing the music?

The important songs you will need to figure out are:

1. A song for your Processional (walking down the aisle)
2. A song for your recessional (walking back the aisle after “I do”)
3. The style/genre of music for your cocktail hour
4. The style/genre of music for your dinner
5. The style/genre of music for dancing
6. Your first dance song
7. Songs for your mother/son or father/daughter. Mix and match these to work for your life and style, if you even want them.
8. Song for Bouquet Toss (if your doing this)
9. Song for your Garter Removal and Toss (if you are doing this)
10. Last Song

8) Officiant

Photo by Haley Allen Photography, Officiant Scot with Wedlock Officiants

To find your perfect officiant you want to first think about the style of ceremony you want to have. Is it religious, nondenominational, same sex, civil? Do you want someone you know to marry you? A friend or your childhood pastor? Maybe you’re getting married in the church? If church is your option, the church will help you with scheduling of the father/pastor/etc.

After you figure out the style, it’s time to find someone that matches you. Do you need it bilingual for your family? Or maybe you want someone who can create custom ceremonies that talk about the love the two of you share. This section is all about meeting and talking with officiants that can do your style of ceremony and how you feel with them. You want to feel comfortable around them and you want them to understand your love story.

9) Florist

Photo by Emily Knuth Photography Florals by Flowers by Lesley

This one is a bit tough since florists cover so much and most can do everything you need. You want to first check out their portfolio and see if you fall in love with their style. Does their style fit your overall feel that you are going for?

See how much they charge for delivery and set up. Unless you have a large team dedicated to setting up your wedding day that you trust you definitely want for the florist to set up their work. It’ll make life a whole lot easier. Also check with them to see if they can stock the flowers that you want for your wedding when you are having your wedding. Tell them about your color choices, and bring any inspiration photos you have to your consultation.

The important part of finding your florist is finding someone that matches your style and feel, is within your price range and you love their previous work.

If you are having trouble creating a mood board or coming up with a style for your wedding, be sure to download EventSlayer and check out our flower level to create your own mood board!

10) Hair and Makeup

Photo by Lori Barbely Photography, Makeup and Hair by DNA Cosmetics

This is another tough one. Are you looking for both hair and makeup? Just hair? Just Makeup? Are you planning on having them provide services for your girls too? As a planner, I always suggest for my brides to get a hair and makeup artist. The reason for this is because you are highly likely to sweat on your wedding day which can totally mess up your look throughout the night. You want a professional to make sure that you look just as good at the beginning of the night as the end of the night because photos will be taken throughout.

You want someone that has water (sweat and/or tear) proof makeup and can do a style that you like. When you have your trial make sure that the makeup feels good on your face. If you have skin allergies (like I do!) You need to find one that uses hypoallergenic makeup.

You also want to make sure that you tell the hair and makeup artists that you talk to and let them know the skin tones and needs of the people in your party that will be getting their services too. This is so they can be sure to bring the materials they need for everyone and be sure that they can DO the services for everyone. When I first started out as a wedding planner I was shocked to find out that not everyone caterers to every skin type or hair texture. A lot have specialties and materials for specific types and so won’t do others.

Phew! That was a long post but hopefully it’ll help you get an idea of what to expect and what to think about when choosing your core vendors. I’ll be going over the details of what you need for your wedding on the next blog: How to Plan a Wedding Pt 3! This will go into detail about the more nit picky and timing aspects of planning a wedding.