JANUARY: NEWLY ENGAGED | CONGRATULATIONS
It’s January 2023 and you can now update your status to newly engaged! YAY!
Little did you know that the most romantic of proposals would now lead to little butterflies in your stomach paired with feelings of pure panic but also excitement. Excitement is shortly followed by feelings of being totally overwhelmed due to a million decisions that need to be made which you feel like bringing to the forefront of your mind at 2 o’ clock in the morning when you, nor your partner can actually do anything mainly because he/she is in a comatose state.
The most important thing to start off with is to make sure that your partner is awake and then that you are sat down on a Saturday morning at your kitchen table with a notebook (definitely worth mentioning the value of a notebook as you will definitely lose post its which make their way to the bottom of any bag with the chocolate wrappers from last week), flat white and pancakes with bacon and maple syrup. Have a conversation that focuses on what is important to you as a couple and work on forming a vision that really represents you. What do you enjoy as a couple? What would you like to provide to your guests?
After you have put all your thoughts together what will then need to follow (which nobody really wants) is the budget. You will have to brush on your excel spreadsheet skills and start working on how much in total you have to spend. The budget for the wedding will then determine the date that you can host your wedding because if you would like a large budget you will more than likely require a period when you can both start saving and creating a wedding fund.
Once you have a figure that is a realistic and achievable figure which you are both comfortable with it is then then time to start seeing what you can get for your budget; all the time remembering what your vision for your day was and where your priorities lie. Be aware that it will take time to see if your vision matches your budget as you will need to start see what things actually cost.
We recommend kicking off with the venue and to find your perfect venue you can sign up to venue platforms which will help a lot more than just entering ‘wedding venues near me’. The venue platforms will allow you to use filters like location, capacity, venue hire cost, and availability. There are of course many more filters which you can use that will help reduce the number of venues to a manageable figure.
After you have contacted a handful of venues it is extremely important to visit them, as a venue may be absolutely perfect on paper but may not translate as well to you when you visit. When you enter a venue you should definitely get a feeling which may be hot, warm or tepid and after having a show round and chatting with the wedding coordinator these feelings will definitely be cemented. You can then compare and contrast them at home at that famous kitchen table with a glass or two of Champagne this time.
Once you have chosen your venue it is then time to start sending those ‘Save the Dates’; you have now deserved a week off from ‘wedding talk’. YAY!