Things to Remember: If You are Newly Engaged
If you are recently engaged, I am so glad you found me! This blog is full of ideas, tips and inspiration for your future wedding, all from a professional wedding planner. This series of “Things to Remember” will cover every detail you don’t want to forget as you plan your big day. Next up? Things to Remember if you just got engaged, and are wondering what to do now.
Celebrate! Clear your calendar, pop the champagne, and take a moment to celebrate! If you are a Type A planner like myself, you’ll want to get the spreadsheets going right away, but let me tell you from experience, it’s SO important to live in the present and just soak up all the excitement you can. The planning can wait for a bit, just enjoy each other.
Decide on your guest list. I know that this is one of the least glamorous and exciting parts of wedding planning, but before you dive into your Pinterest boards, you need to know who you are inviting. Every venue has a maximum number of guests they can hold, and some require minimums with your guest count as well. It’s important to have this number solidified before you go venue hunting, and it will save you so much time if you take a peak at the min/max numbers to make sure they match up with your list first.
Decide on a budget. Now we move on to the dreaded money talk. I know this is a challenging conversation. It’s been found that 70% of couples go over the initial budget they set for their wedding. It’s also been found that 70% of couples do not hire a wedding planner. If you have room in the budget for a planner, I would highly recommend this, because they can help you set a realistic budget for your needs. The average cost of a wedding across the United State is about $35,000, of course this varies drastically depending on where you are and how many guests you are inviting, among several other factors. Most deposits for wedding venues and vendors will range from 20-50%, with the majority of the balances due much closer to your wedding date, which is important to consider when planning out finances. My advice is to consider what is MOST important to you when setting your budget so it’s as realistic as possible. If you are struggling with this one, I do offer budget consultations to chat through these details and come up with a personalized budget and plan for you, wherever you are located!
Decide on a venue style. There are countless “styles” of wedding venues, but more common ones that you can Google are ballroom, rustic, barn, garden, or mansions/estates. Go to your Pinterest or photos you’ve saved of places you love and use the photo search option on your phone to pull up that specific venue, or the keywords used to describe that photo. This will help you determine what your style is. Once you narrow down which style venues you like, the list becomes much less overwhelming.
Decide if you will hire a planner. Before you look into all of your venues, decide if you’d like to hire a wedding planner. You can hire one for the entire process including your venue search, for part of the process (such as only assisting with your vendor search), or just for the month/day of the wedding. If you’re feeling overwhelmed or know that you won’t have time to work on it, full planning is a great solution for this! If you decide you’d rather save the money in your budget, that’s okay too!
Now you have a short list of your next steps in the planning process. If you are still feeling overwhelmed, keep reading this blog, check out my IG @everlastingeventsnj for inspiration and tips, or reach out for a free consultation!
