How and where to start planning a wedding?

When a wedding ring glistens on a finger, and emotions are a little behind, a question arises for the lovers: where to start planning a wedding? After all, it is so important to take into account all the nuances, and if you take on everything at once, something will definitely be missed. There is a lot of work ahead, but if you do everything gradually, then your wedding day will go exactly as you dreamed about. Therefore, we propose to include the above points in your preparations.

Before planning we set a date for the celebration 

Many brides start preparing for their wedding with the most pleasant thing – thinking over the wedding image. But don’t be in a hurry. The first thing you should do after having told your beloved the cherished “yes”, is to decide on the date of the wedding. The following key factors are important here:

• personal preferences: your associations with the seasons or a specific date that matters in your love story; or just beautiful numbers, for example, 08.08, in which many pairs put the infinity symbol;
• season: it is difficult to imagine a romantic wedding on the seashore in the winter cold, just as it is problematic to create a New Year’s fairy tale at the height of summer;
• budget: the cost of planning a wedding during the so-called “high season” from May to September, as a rule, is more expensive than in less popular months;
• day of the week: there is a difference in price, but also in convenience between the wedding on Saturday and Monday;
• location: if you want a wedding in a certain place, you may have to adjust the date for his free day;
• schedules: your work and a workload of guests play an important role in the date of your event, so before you start preparing, make sure that you and people important to you will be free on the chosen day;
• wedding infrastructure: the closer the “date X” is, the higher the risk of not finding a free good presenter will be. And if you are targeting a specific photographer, focus on his free booking days;
• holidays: if your chosen day coincides with a graduation day or a city celebration, get ready to take into account the nuances associated with this – road closures, congestion of locations for a photo shoot, etc.

You can add to this list other aspects being important for choosing the most suitable date for the celebration. Consider all of them together and make sure to leave enough time to get ready.

We recommend to start planning wedding no earlier than a year and no later than a month before the celebration. Be guided by the principle the sooner the better.

Wedding budget determination

Any wedding preparations you make should be financially driven. At the very beginning of preparation, you need to indicate the maximum amount that you are ready to pay for your wedding. You can also define boundaries by category, such as how much you will spend on wedding dress, restaurant, transportation, entertainment, and more.

Based on this amount you will write down further wedding expenses in detail. Of course, there can be unplanned expenses during planning the wedding. Then you look at what you can save on, or adjust the budget amount.

For example, you have planned to decorate a wedding location and create a photo zone. In the process, it turns out that the photo zone you like costs more. Then you make a decision: buy fewer decorative items, decorate yourself or increase the cost limit.

If you’re constantly working on a budget, the final cost of your wedding won’t come as a surprise.

Wedding day visualization 

To start planning the wedding of your dreams, you need to imagine it. Start with the guests. Who would you like to see next to you on such an exciting day? Maybe your dream is a feast for the whole world? Or a modest celebration just for your own people? Make a guest list. For a start, it can be approximate. The format of the wedding depends on the number of guests, as well as the choice of location and entertainment program. The wedding budget also depends on the number of invited guests.

Guests deserve your special attention, so you have to take care of an accommodation for those who live in another cities as well as a transfer to the wedding location. Think about how to invite them – send an official invitation or send a message in the messenger, and do not forget to do this well in advance.

By the way, when making a list of guests, you can immediately mark their features to avoid unpleasant situations. If the groom’s sister is a vegetarian, his mother is lactose intolerant, and his father is allergic to potatoes, these nuances should be taken into account when choosing a menu. And if someone from the potentially invited is in a long quarrel with each other, it is better to seat them at different ends of the table.

Decide in what style your unforgettable event will be held – restrained classics, relaxed modernity, romance or bohemia. Will your wedding have a theme? Maybe your theme is Victorian or ethnic party? Or maybe your couple has a favorite movie and you are getting ready to bring it to life at the wedding? What about Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Great Gatsby, or even Pirates of the Caribbean? Imagine, the concept of the wedding will be created from your wishes.

Decide who will take care of the preparation

So the first preparations are behind you, you know when the wedding will take place, you have determined its budget and imagined a picture. Now is the time to decide who will be in charge of planning: you or a professional planner. Assess the pros and cons of each option for your couple.

For example, by taking all planning issues on yourself, you will get rid of the costs of a wedding agency. But it is not a fact that you will save money this way because an experienced planner will tell you how to most profitably prepare the celebration and correctly distribute the budget. The advantage of a wedding planner is that it has a proven team of professionals: photographers, decorators, presenters, etc. Choosing these specialists by yourself, you run the risk of getting a low-quality service.

Keep in mind that it will take much time to plan your wedding and, most likely, you will have to get nervous when solving force majeure situations. But if you have wanted for a long time to test your planning skills and leadership talents, this is the right time.

Consider a combined option, when you take on a certain part of the preparation, and delegate the rest to a team of professionals. Or, for example, you can plan everything by yourself and book a wedding coordinator who will make sure that everything goes according to plan. And if you realize that you are not coping a couple of months before the wedding, then you can turn to an assistant who will assess what has been done and what is missing, and together with you will bring the celebration plan to the ideal.

Moving forward

How you will continue on wedding planning depends on your decision at the previous stage. If you prefer a turnkey wedding planner, you just have to choose and agree.

Your independent path of your wedding preparation should continue by choosing the format of getting married and the wedding location. Having determined the wedding location, focus on the main points:

• location and transport interchange;
• spaciousness;
• seasonality;
• appearance;
• technical equipment.

How your concept will be implemented depends on the correctly selected location. Agree, it is difficult to adhere to the style of “Moulin Rouge” in a restaurant of traditional Ukrainian cuisine with the appropriate design.

Having decided on the ideal place for your event, you can start compiling a list of those who will make this day special and unforgettable – wedding vendors.

Based on your wishes and budget, you will need: photographer, videographer, presenter, decorator, florist, pastry chef, make-up artist, hairdresser, as well as musicians, artists, animators, etc. It is important here at the start to determine your financial priorities, for example, you are ready to be without a decorator, but want an exclusive cake. Or you don’t need a video of your wedding, but the bride’s hairstyle should be delightful.

Only when the described issues are closed, the initial stage of preparation for the wedding can be considered completed. After that a detailed planning plan is started: contracts with vendors, a long-awaited choice of a wedding dress and more will follow.