How To Plan A Wedding in 10 Easy Steps
Congratulations! You are now engaged! It’s a super exciting step in life where you get to commit to your special someone and plan a celebration for your love. But how do you go about planning your wedding? What do you need to do and what steps do you need to take?
We’re not going to give you a month by month checklist of things that you should/could do to plan for your wedding. We’re going to get into the down and dirty steps and you can come up with your own timeline based on your availability and count down to wedding date.
No worries, we’re here to take you step by step through the process.
Step 1) Figure out your Guest List.
Why is this the first step? Because you want to narrow down how many people you want to invite, not just a guessed number based on how many friends and family you think you might have. Sit down with your fiance and come up with a basic list of your guests. Think about whether you want to allow them to invite a guest or their children. With this base number you can go ahead and estimate how many guests will come.
TIP: Around 20-30% of your guests you invite will not attend. So if your base guest count is 100, estimate for around 80-100 guests.
Step 2) Budget.
Now that you know how many people you want, figure out how much money you have and allocate your expenses. We’ve created a quick Excel Budget Sheet to help you quickly budget everything out. OR you can always use our budgeting tool on our app!
Step 3) Find your venue.
WAIT! Why isn’t your date next? Quite simply because your perfect venue might not be available for your date. Don’t limit yourself by finalizing your date before your venue, be flexible and open. Although having a general idea- like autumn, summer, spring, winter of a specific year could be beneficial.
Step 4) Book your Big 3!
Once you find your venue and pick the date through them, next you should find your “Big 3” vendors. These are your 1) Caterer. 2) Photographer. And 3) DJ/Band. Why do we consider these vendors to be the big 3? Because these are the vendors that are limited on amount of weddings that they can possibly do in a day, are your bigger expenses, and are the vendors that book up the quickest.
Step 5) Get that Dress!
We saved this one till a little later in the wedding process because by now we know you are pretty ready for your wedding and know exactly what your budget should be and where you are with it. Be sure to get your dress and get it to alterations at least 2 months prior to your wedding. If you need to order your dress, be sure to order it at least 10 months prior to wedding date as it could take up to 5 months to get to the salon.
Step 6) Design your Stationary.
You know the location and time at this point in time, it’s time to let your guests know you’re getting MARRIED! Send out Save the Dates if you want to give people a heads up. These are especially important for any guests who are out of town and will need to get plane tickets and hotel accommodations. Keep in mind, you don’t have to purchase actual stationary, you can get awesome custom email invites from sites like evite, paperless post, punchbowl, or wedivite.
Step 7) Book your Officiant.
Book your Officiant and see if you need to get premarital counseling. Premarital counseling takes about 6-10 weeks to complete, so be sure to take that into account in your timeline. .
Step 8) Finalize your other vendors.
This includes getting a cake baker (or someone to provide whatever dessert you want to have for your wedding), booking a Day-of Coordinator, Your Florist, Hair and Makeup and any rentals you want for decor or set up. This includes tables, linens, chairs, dinnerware, utensils, cups, centerpieces, etc.
Step 9) Figure out Your Logistics.
Think about where you want to be when getting ready, how early you want to get up the morning of your wedding, and where you want to be at the end of your night. Then figure out if a nearby hotel would be the best fit and how you are going to get to and from where you are staying to your wedding.
TIP: The Closer the Better. You will have a lot going on the day of your wedding, you don’t want to have traffic making you late to your wedding.
Step 10) Finalize layout and decor.
Now that you have your venue, all your vendors, your guests are getting excited for your big day and you know how your getting around, it’s time to finalize your plans. This means: 1) Create your seating chart/layout. You don’t have to figure out exactly where each person is sitting, just make sure you have enough seats for your guests. 2) Create a timeline based on your vendors timelines. Your DJ, Transportation, Hair and Makeup Artist and Photographer all make specific timelines for themselves. Be sure to ask them for it and mash them together for your Day-of Timeline. 3) Get any of the little detail decor you want to spice up your event and make it unique. Why is this last? So that you can purchase only what you need and know where it will be going on day-of.
There you have it folks! A simplified way to plan your wedding in a step-by-step process. No need for long checklists or over complicated To-Do’s. Let us know what you think in the comments below or share with your friends to help them with their wedding planning!
We hope this helped you with your wedding, if you are still having difficulties be sure to check out our app and plan your wedding in a fun and easy to process manner!
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